Epictetus quotes

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

Be careful to leave your sons well instructed rather than rich, for the hopes of the instructed are better than the wealth of the ignorant.

Not every difficult and dangerous thing is suitable for training, but only that which is conducive to success in achieving the object of our effort.

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

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

No great thing is created suddenly.

Imagine for yourself a character, a model personality, whose example you determine to follow, in private as well as in public.

When you are offended at any man's fault, turn to yourself and study your own failings. Then you will forget your anger.

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

Neither should a ship rely on one small anchor, nor should life rest on a single hope.

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

Nothing great is created suddenly, any more than a bunch of grapes or a fig. If you tell me that you desire a fig. I answer you that there must be time. Let it first blossom, then bear fruit, then ripen.

Unless we place our religion and our treasure in the same thing, religion will always be sacrificed.

To accuse others for one's own misfortunes 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.

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

Men are disturbed not by things, but by the view which they take of them.

No greater 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 you that there must be time. Let it first blossom, then bear fruit, then ripen.

Nothing great is created suddenly, any more than a bunch of grapes or a fig. If you tell me that you desire a fig. I answer you that there must be time. Let it first blossom, then bear fruit, then ripen.

God has entrusted me with myself.

It is the nature of the wise to resist pleasures, but the foolish to be a slave to them.

Make the best use of what is in your power, and take the rest as it happens.

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

It is not death or pain that is to be dreaded, but the fear of pain or death.

It is not death or pain that is to be dreaded, but the fear of pain or death.

If you seek truth you will not seek victory by dishonorable means, and if you find truth you will become invincible.

Only the educated are free.

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

We should not moor a ship with one anchor, or our life with one hope.

Make the best use of what is in your power, and take the rest as it happens.

Freedom is the right to live as we wish.

Is freedom anything else than the right to live as we wish? Nothing else.

It is the nature of the wise to resist pleasures, but the foolish to be a slave to them.

If you wish to be a writer, write.

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

We are not to give credit to the many, who say that none ought to be educated but the free; but rather to the philosophers, who say that the well-educated alone are free.

Freedom is not procured by a full enjoyment of what is desired, but by controlling the desire.

The essence of philosophy is that a man should so live that his happiness shall depend as little as possible on external things.