Epictetus Quotes

237 Sourced Quotes

To a longer and worse life, a shorter and better is by all means to be preferred.

Epictetus
You are but an appearance, and not absolutely the thing you appear to be.

Epictetus
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.

Epictetus
When you do anything from a clear judgment that it ought to be done, never shun the being seen to do it, even though the world should make a wrong supposition about it; for, if you don't act right, shun the action itself; but, if you do, why are you afraid of those who censure you wrongly?

Epictetus
What you shun enduring yourself, attempt not to impose on others. You shun slavery—beware of enslaving others! If you can endure to do that, one would think you had been once upon a time a slave yourself. For Vice has nothing in common with virtue, nor Freedom with slavery.

Epictetus
He who exercises wisdom exercises the knowledge which is about God.

Epictetus
If you seek Truth, you will not seek to gain a victory by every possible means; and when you have found Truth, you need not fear being defeated.

Epictetus
When a youth was giving himself airs in the Theatre and saying, 'I am wise, for I have conversed with many wise men,' Epictetus replied, 'I too have conversed with many rich men, yet I am not rich!'.

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

Epictetus
If thou rememberest that God standeth by to behold and visit all that thou doest; whether in the body or in the soul, thou surely wilt not err in any prayer or deed; and thou shalt have God to dwell with thee.

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

Epictetus
Remember that it is not he who gives abuse or blows who affronts, but the view we take of these things as insulting. When, therefore, any one provokes you, be assured that it is your own opinion which provokes you.

Epictetus
If a person gave your body to any stranger he met on his way, you would certainly be angry. And do you feel no shame in handing over your own mind to be confused and mystified by anyone who happens to verbally attack you?

Epictetus
You have not stirred my spirit. For what can I see in you to stir me, as a spirited horse will stir a judge of horses? Your body? That you maltreat. Your dress? That is luxurious. Your behavior, your look?—Nothing whatsoever.

Epictetus
If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid.

Epictetus
It is a mark of a mean capacity to spend much time on the things which concern the body, such as much exercise, much eating, much drinking, much easing of the body, much copulation. But these things should be done as subordinate things: and let all your care be directed to the mind.

Epictetus
Choose the life that is noblest, for custom can make it sweet to thee.

Epictetus
And are all profited by what they hear, or only some among them? So that it seems that there is an art of hearing as well as one of speaking.

Epictetus
Study how to give as one that is sick: that thou mayest hereafter give as one that is whole. Fast; drink water only; abstain altogether from desire, that thou mayest hereafter confirm thy desire to Reason.

Epictetus
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.

Epictetus
A Philosopher's school is a Surgery: pain, not pleasure, you should have felt therein. For on entering none of you is whole. One has a shoulder out of joint, another an abscess: a third suffers from an issue, a forth pains in the head. And am I then to sit dwon and treat you to pretty sentiments and empty fluourishes, so that you may applaud me and depart, with neither shoulder, nor head, nor issue, nor abscess a whit the better for your visit? Is it then for this that young men are to quit their homes, and leave parents, friends, kinsmen and substance to mouth out Bravo to your empty phrases!

Epictetus
Friend, bethink you first what it is that you would do, and then what your own nature is able to bear.

Epictetus
Have this thought ever present with thee, when thou losest any outward thing, what thou gainest in its stead; and if this be the more precious, say not, I have suffered loss.

Epictetus
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?

Epictetus
Whoever does not regard what he has as most ample wealth, is unhappy, though he be master of the world.

Epictetus
Till then these sound opinions have taken firm root in you, and you have gained a measure of strength for your security, I counsel you to be cautious in associating with the uninstructed. Else whatever impressions you receive upon the tablets of your mind in the School will day by day melt and disappear, like wax in the sun. Withdraw then somewhere far from the sun, while you have these waxen sentiments.

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

Epictetus
To you, all you have seems small: to me, all I have seems great. Your desire is insatiable, mine is satisfied. See children thrusting their hands into a narrow-necked jar, and striving to pull out the nuts and figs it contains: if they fill the hand, they cannot pull it out again, and then they fall to tears.—'Let go a few of them, and then you can draw out the rest!'—You, too, let your desire go! covet not many things, and you will obtain.

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

Epictetus
Seek not good from without; seek it within yourselves, or you will never find it.

Epictetus