Epictetus Quotes

237 Sourced Quotes

If virtue promises happiness, prosperity and peace, then progress in virtue is progress in each of these for to whatever point the perfection of anything brings us, progress is always an approach toward it.

Epictetus
It was the first and most striking characteristic of Socrates never to become heated in discourse, never to utter an injurious or insulting word—on the contrary, he persistently bore insult from others and thus put an end to the fray.

Epictetus
If you do not wish to be prone to anger, do not feed the habit; give it nothing which may tend to its increase.

Epictetus
Against specious appearances we must set clear convictions, bright and ready for use. When death appears as an evil, we ought immediately to remember that evils are things to be avoided, but death is inevitable.

Epictetus
To be getting an education means this: to be learning what is your own, and what is not your own.

Epictetus
What really frightens and dismays us is not external events themselves, but the way in which we think about them. It is not things that disturb us, but our interpretation of their significance.

Epictetus
Do nothing in a depressed mood, nor as one afflicted, nor as thinking that you are in misery, for no one compels you to that.

Epictetus
What is it that every man seeks? To be secure, to be happy, to do what he pleases without restraint and without compulsion.

Epictetus
It is impossible that happiness, and yearning for what is not present, should ever be united.

Epictetus
Law intends indeed to do service to human life, but it is not able when men do not choose to accept her services; for it is only in those who are obedient to her that she displays her special virtue.

Epictetus
Do not so much be ashamed of that disgrace which proceeds from men's opinion as fly from that which comes from the truth.

Epictetus
If your heart is quite set upon a crown, make and put on one of roses, for it will make the prettier appearance.

Epictetus
In prosperity it is very easy to find a friend; but in adversity it is the most difficult of all things.

Epictetus
No living being is held by anything so strongly as by its own needs. Whatever therefore appears a hindrance to these, be it brother, or father, or child, or mistress, or friend, is hated, abhorred, execrated.

Epictetus
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.

Epictetus
We ought to flee the friendship of the wicked, and the enmity of the good.

Epictetus
Be free from grief not through insensibility like the irrational animals, nor through want of thought like the foolish, but like a man of virtue by having reason as the consolation of grief.

Epictetus
When something happens, the only thing in your power is your attitude toward it; you can either accept it or resent it.

Epictetus
You will do the greatest service to the state if you shall raise, not the roofs of the houses, but the souls of the citizens: for it is better that great souls should dwell in small houses rather than for mean slaves to lurk in great houses.

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

Epictetus
If you wish to live a life free from sorrow, think of what is going to happen as if it had already happened.

Epictetus
Freedom and slavery, the one is the name of virtue, and the other of vice, and both are acts of the will.

Epictetus
It were no slight attainment could we merely fulfil what the nature of man implies.

Epictetus
The origin of sorrow is this: to wish for something that does not come to pass.

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

Epictetus
Don't demand or expect that events happen as you would wish them do. Accept events as they actually happen. That way, peace is possible.

Epictetus
We all dread a bodily paralysis, and would make use of every contrivance to avoid it; but none of us is troubled about a paralysis of the soul.

Epictetus
You can be invincible, if you enter into no contest in which it is not in your power to conquer.

Epictetus
You ought to choose both physician and friend, not the most agreeable, but the most useful.

Epictetus
It is no easy thing for a principle to become a man's own unless each day he maintains it and works it out in his life.

Epictetus