Quotes

We cannot control the external events around us; we can control ourselves. It is not things that trouble us, but our judgments about things.

- Epictetus , Unknown

Circumstances do not make the man; they merely reveal him to himself

- Epictetus , Unknown

Freedom is the right to live as we wish.

- Epictetus , Unknown

It is not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters.

- Epictetus , Unknown

We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak.

- Epictetus , Unknown

We cannot choose our external circumstances, but we can always choose how we respond to them.

- Epictetus , Unknown

It takes more than just a good-looking body, You've got to have the heart and soul to go with it.

- Epictetus , Unknown

Man is not worried by real problems so much as by his imagined anxieties about real problems.

- Epictetus , Unknown

If anyone tells you that a certain person speaks ill of you do not makes excuses about what is said of you but answer, "He was ignorant of my other faults, else he would not have mentioned these alone."

- Epictetus , Unknown

Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants.

- Epictetus , Unknown

Don't just say you have read books. Show that through them you have learned to think better, to be a more discriminating and reflective person. Books are the training weights of the mind. They are very helpful. but it would be a bad mistake to suppose that one has made progress simply by having internalized their contents.

- Epictetus , Unknown

First say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to do.

- Epictetus , Unknown

How long are you going to wait before you demand the best for yourself and in no instance bypass the discriminations of reason? You have been given the principles that you ought to endorse, and you have endorsed them. What kind of teacher, then, are you still waiting for in order to refer your self-improvement to him? You are no longer a boy, but a full-grown man. If you are careless and lazy now and keep putting things off and always deferring the day after which you will attend to yourself, you will not notice that you are making no progress, but you will live and die as someone quite ordinary. From now on, then, resolve to live as a grown-up who is making progress, and make whatever you think best a law that you never set aside. And whenever you encounter anything that is difficult or pleasurable, or highly or lowly regarded, remember that the contest is now: you are at the Olympic Games, you cannot wait any longer, and that your progress is wrecked or preserved by a single day and a single event. That is how Socrates fulfilled himself by attending to nothing except reason in everything he encountered. And you, although you are not yet a Socrates, should live as someone who at least wants to be a Socrates.

- Epictetus , Unknown

The key is to keep company only with people who uplift you, whose presence calls forth your best.

- Epictetus , Unknown

He who laughs at himself never runs out of things to laugh at.

- Epictetus , Unknown

It is impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows.

- Epictetus , Unknown

Freedom is the only worth goal in life. It is won by disregarding things that lie beyond our control.

- Epictetus , Unknown

Only the educated are free.

- Epictetus , Unknown

Other people's views and troubles can be contaigous. Don't sabotage yourself by unwittingly adopting negative, unproductive attitudes through your associations with others.

- Epictetus , Unknown

No man is free who is not the master of himself.

- Epictetus , Unknown

First learn the meaning of what you say, and then speak.

- Epictetus , Unknown

I laugh at those who think they can damage me. They do not know who I am, they do not know what I think, they cannot even touch the things which are really mine and with which I live.

- Epictetus , Unknown

To accuse others for one's own misfortune is a sign of want of education. To accuse oneself shows that one's education has begun. To accuse neither oneself nor others shows that one's education is complete.

- Epictetus , Unknown

Nature hath given men one tongue but two ears, that we may hear from others twice as much as we speak.

- Epictetus , Unknown

The greater the difficulty the more glory in surmounting it. Skillful pilots gain their reputation from storms and tempests.

- Epictetus , Unknown

Do not try to seem wise to others.

- Epictetus , Unknown

The world turns aside to let any man pass who knows where he is going.

- Epictetus , Unknown

Know, first, who you are, and then adorn yourself accordingly.

- Epictetus , Unknown

If evil be said of thee, and if it be true, correct thyself; if it be a lie, laugh at it.

- Epictetus , Unknown

If you would be a reader, read; if you wish to be a writer, write.

- Epictetus , Unknown

Know you not that a good man does nothing for appearance sake, but for the sake of having done right?

- Epictetus , Unknown

Tentative efforts lead to tentative outcomes. Therefore, give yourself fully to your endeavors. Decide to construct your character through excellent actions and determine to pay the price of a worthy goal. The trials you encounter will introduce you to your strenghts. Remain steadfast, and one day you will build something that endures: something worthy of your potential.

- Epictetus , Unknown

Even as the sun doth not wait for prayers and incantations to rise, but shines forth and is welcomed by all: so thou also wait not for clapping of hands and shouts and praise to do thy duty; nay, do good of thine own accord, and thou wilt be loved like the sun.

- Epictetus , Unknown

No great thing is created suddenly, any more than a bunch of grapes or a fig. If you tell me that you desire a fig, I answer that there must be time. Let it first blossom, then bear fruit, then ripen.

- Epictetus , Unknown

You may fetter my leg, but Zeus himself cannot get the better of my free will.

- Epictetus , Unknown

The first and most important field of philosophy is the application of principles such as "Do not lie." Next come the proofs, such as why we should not lie. The third field supports and articulates the proofs, by asking for example, "How does this prove it? What exactly is a proof, what is logical inference, what is contradiction, what is truth, what is falsehood?" Thus, the third field is necessary because of the second, and the second because of the first. The most important, though, the one that should occupy most of our time, is the first. But we do just the opposite. We are preoccupied with the third, field and give that all our attention, passing the first by altogether. The result is that we lie - but have no difficulty proving why we shouldn't

- Epictetus , Unknown

There is only one way to happiness and that is to cease worrying about things which are beyond the power or our will.

- Epictetus , Unknown

If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid with regard to external things. Don't wish to be thought to know anything; and even if you appear to be somebody important to others, distrust yourself. For, it is difficult to both keep your faculty of choice in a state conformable to nature, and at the same time acquire external things. But while you are careful about the one, you must of necessity neglect the other.

- Epictetus , The Enchiridion

As a mark is not set up for the sake of missing the aim, so neither does the nature of evil exist in the world.

- Epictetus , The Enchiridion

Never call yourself a philosopher, nor talk a great deal among the unlearned about theorems, but act conformably to them. Thus, at an entertainment, don't talk how persons ought to eat, but eat as you ought. For remember that in this manner Socrates also universally avoided all ostentation. And when persons came to him and desired to be recommended by him to philosophers, he took and- recommended them, so well did he bear being overlooked. So that if ever any talk should happen among the unlearned concerning philosophic theorems, be you, for the most part, silent. For there is great danger in immediately throwing out what you have not digested. And, if anyone tells you that you know nothing, and you are not nettled at it, then you may be sure that you have begun your business. For sheep don't throw up the grass to show the shepherds how much they have eaten; but, inwardly digesting their food, they outwardly produce wool and milk. Thus, therefore, do you likewise not show theorems to the unlearned, but the actions produced by them after they have been digested.

- Epictetus , The Enchiridion

Don't demand that things happen as you wish, but wish that they happen as they do happen, and you will go on well.

- Epictetus , The Enchiridion

Remember to act always as if you were at a symposium. When the food or drink comes around, reach out and take some politely; If it passes you don't try pulling it back. And if it has not reached you yes, dont let your desire run ahead of you, be patient until your turn comes. Adopt a similar attitude with regard to children, wife, wealth and status, and in time, you will be entitled to dine with the gods. Go further and decline these goods even when they are on offer and you will have a share in the gods' power as well as their company. That is how diogenes, Heralitus and philosophers like them came to be called, and considered, divine.

- Epictetus , The Enchiridion

Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one

- Marcus Aurelius , Unknown

The soul becomes dyed with the colour of its thoughts.

- Marcus Aurelius , Unknown

It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live.

- Marcus Aurelius , Unknown

Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present.

- Marcus Aurelius , Unknown

Whenever you are about to find fault with someone, ask yourself the following question: What faul of mine most nearly resembles the one I am about to criticize?

- Marcus Aurelius , Unknown

If someone is able to show me that what I think or do is not right, I will happpily change, for I seek the truth, by which no one was ever truly harmed. It is the person who continues in his self-deception and ignorance who is harmed.

- Marcus Aurelius , Unknown

The best revenge is not to be like your enemy.

- Marcus Aurelius , Unknown

Regect your sense of injury and the injury itself disappears

- Marcus Aurelius , Unknown

Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones.

- Marcus Aurelius , Unknown

Do not act as if you were going to live ten thousand years. Death hangs over you. While you live, while it is in your power, be good.

- Marcus Aurelius , Unknown

Think of yourself as dead. You have lived your life. Now, take whats left and live it properly. What doesn't transmit light creates its own darkness.

- Marcus Aurelius , Unknown

I have wondered how it is that every man loves himself more than the rest of men, but yet also sets less value on his own opinion of himself than on the opinion of others

- Marcus Aurelius , Unknown

If you want to go fast go alone, if you wanna go far go together.

- Proverb , Unknown

Scientists study the world as it is; engineers create the world that has never been.
- Theodore von Karman

There is nothing permanent except change.
- Heraclitus

Judge the moth by the beauty of its candle.
-Rumi