Top 472 Quotes & Sayings by Epictetus - Page 8

If I was a nightingale I would sing like a nightingale; if a swan, like a swan. But since I am a rational creature my role is to praise God.

What is death? A scary mask. Take it off-see, it doesn't bite.

Avoid banquets which are given by strangers an ignorant persons. But if there is ever occasion to join them, let your attention be carefully fixed, that you slip not into the manner of the vulgar (the uninstructed).

Remember that you are in actor in a play of such a kind that the author chooses...For this is your duty, to act well the part that is given to you; but to select the part belongs to another.

You lose only the things you have

It is the act of an ill-instructed man to blame others for his own bad condition; it is the act of one who has begun to be instructed, to lay the blame on himself; and of one whose instruction is completed, neither to blame another, nor himself.

Do not give sentence in another tribunal till you have been yourself judged in the tribunal of Justice.

If you would improve, submit to be considered wihout sense and foolish with respect to externals. Wish to be considered to know nothing; and if you shall seem to someone to be a person of importance, distrust yourself.

You are a principal work, a fragment of [Goddess herself], you have in yourself a part of [her]. Why then are you ignorant of your high birth?

No living being is held by anything so strongly as its own needs.

There are some things which men confess with ease, and others with difficulty.

Bid a singer in a chorus, Know Thyself; and will he not turn for the knowledge to the others, his fellows in the chorus, and to his harmony with them?

The appearance of things to the mind is the standard of every action to man.

Do you know that disease and death must needs overtake us, no matter what we are doing?... what do you wish to be doing when it overtakes you?... If you have anything better to be doing when you are so overtaken, get to work on that.

A guide, on finding a man who has lost his way, brings him back to the right path—he does not mock and jeer at him and then take himself off. You also must show the unlearned man the truth, and you will see that he will follow. But so long as you do not show it him, you should not mock, but rather feel your own incapacity.

Concerning the Gods, there are those who deny the very existence of the Godhead; others say that it exists, but neither bestirs nor concerns itself not has forethought far anything. A third party attribute to it existence and forethought, but only for great and heavenly matters, not for anything that is on earth. A fourth party admit things on earth as well as in heaven, but only in general, and not with respect to each individual. A fifth, of whom were Ulysses and Socrates, are those that cry: -- I move not without Thy knowledge!

If a man is unhappy, remember that his unhappiness is his own fault, for God made all men to be happy.

What disturbs people, these are not things, but the judgments relating to things

O slavish man! will you not bear with your own brother, who has God for his Father, as being a son from the same stock, and of the same high descent? But if you chance to be placed in some superior station, will you presently set yourself up for a tyrant?

It is not events that disturb the minds of men, but the view they take of them.

It is not things in themselves which trouble us, but our opinions of things.

Does a man reproach thee for being proud or ill-natured, envious or conceited, ignorant or detracting? Consider with thyself whether his reproaches are true. If they are not, consider that thou art not the person whom he reproaches, but that he reviles an imaginary being, and perhaps loves what thou really art, though he hates what thou appearest to be.

It is not so much what happens to you as how you think about what happens." Epictetus

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

The Beginning of Philosophy is a Consciousness of your own Weakness and inability in necessary things.

The beginning of philosophy is the recognition of the conflict between opinions.

What is a child? Ignorance. What is a child? Want of instruction.

Since it is Reason which shapes and regulates all other things, it ought not itself to be left in disorder.

To a reasonable creature, that alone is insupportable which is unreasonable; but everything reasonable may be supported.

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

Every art and every faculty contemplates certain things as its principal objects.

In theory it is easy to convince an ignorant person; in actual life, men not only object to offer themselves to be convinced, but hate the man who has convinced them.

Nothing is in reality either pleasant or unpleasant by nature but all things become so through habit

Shall I show you the sinews of a philosopher? What sinews are those? - A will undisappointed; evils avoided; powers daily exercised; careful resolutions; unerring decisions.

Reason is not measured by size or height, but by principle.

Nothing outside the will can hinder or harm the will; it can only harm itself. If then we accept this, and, when things go amiss, are inclined to blame ourselves, remembering that judgment alone can disturb our peace and constancy, I swear to you by all the gods that we have made progress.

Remember that you are an actor in a play, and that the Playwright chooses the manner of it: If he wants you to act a poor man you must act the part with all your powers; and so if your part be a cripple or a magistrate or a plain man. For your business is to act the character that is given you and act it well. The choice of the cast is Another's.

As a man, casting off worn out garments taketh new ones, so the dweller in the body, entereth into ones that are new.

If you wish to write, write.

No man is disturbed by things, but by his opinion about things.

What disturbs people's minds are not events but their judgments on events.

It is your own convictions which compels you; that is, choice compels choice.

The essence of good and evil is a certain disposition of the will.

Things true and evident must of necessity be recognized by those who would contradict them.

To adorn our characters by the charm of an amiable nature shows at once a lover of beauty and a lover of man.

If you wish to be good, first believe that you are bad.

Nothing great comes into being all at once.

We are not to lead events, but to follow them.

If you would cure anger, do not feed it. Say to yourself: 'I used to be angry every day; then every other day; now only every third or fourth day.' When you reach thirty days offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving to the gods.

Every place is safe to him who lives with justice.

In theory there is nothing to hinder our following what we are taught;but in life there are many things to draw us aside.

A soul which is conversant with virtue is like an ever flowing source, for it is pure and tranquil and potable and sweet and communicative (social) and rich and harmless and free from mischief.