Epictetus - Man Quotes

41 Sourced Quotes

View all Epictetus Quotes
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.

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

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

Epictetus
Seemeth it nothing to you, never to accuse, never to blame either God or Man? to wear ever the same countenance in going forth as in coming in? This was the secret of Socrates: yet he never said that he knew or taught anything... Who amongst you makes this his aim? Were it indeed so, you would gladly endure sickness, hunger, aye, death itself.

Epictetus
But God hath introduced Man to be a spectator of Himself and of His works; and not a spectator only, but also an interpreter of them. Wherefore it is a shame for man to begin and to leave off where the brutes do. Rather he should begin there, and leave off where Nature leaves off in us: and that is at contemplation, and understanding, and a manner of life that is in harmony with herself. See then that ye die not without being spectators of these things.

Epictetus
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.

Epictetus
Not even on finding himself in a well-ordered house does a man step forward and say to himself, I must be master here! Else the lord of that house takes notice of it, and, seeing him insolently giving orders, drags him forth and chastises him. So it is also in the great City, the World. Here also is there a Lord of the House, who orders all things...

Epictetus
Each man's life is a kind of campaign, and a long and complicated one at that. You have to maintain the character of a soldier, and do each separate act at the bidding of the General.

Epictetus
What else can I do, a lame old man, but sing hymns to God? If I were a nightingale, I would do the nightingale's part; if I were a swan, I would do as a swan. But now I am a rational creature, and I ought to praise God. This is my work. I do it, nor will I desert my post, so long as I am allowed to keep it. And I ask you to join me in this same song.

Epictetus
Question:Who is the rich man?
Epictetus:He who is content.

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
No man is free who is not master of himself... Is freedom anything else than the power of living as we choose?

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

Epictetus
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.

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

Epictetus
Let no man think that he is loved by any who loveth none.

Epictetus
But in the present condition of things, which resembles an Army in battle array, ought not the Cynic to be free from all distraction and given wholly to the service of God, so that he can go in and out among men, neither fettered by the duties nor entangled by the relations of common life? For if he transgresses them, he will forfeit the character of a good man and true; whereas if he observe them, there is an end of him as the Messenger, the Spy, the Herald of the Gods!

Epictetus
No man is able to make progress when he is wavering between opposite things.

Epictetus
I am not eternity, but a man; a part of the whole, as an hour is of the day.

Epictetus
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.

Epictetus
When a man is proud because he can understand and explain the writings of Chrysippus, say to yourself, 'if Chrysippus had not written obscurely, this man would have had nothing to be proud of.'

Epictetus
It is the critical moment that shows the man. So when the crisis is upon you, remember that God, like a trainer of wrestlers, has matched you with a tough and stalwart antagonist. 'To what end?' you ask. That you may prove a victor at the Great Games. Yet without toil and sweat this may not be!

Epictetus
It is unlikely that the good of a snail should reside in its shell: so is it likely that the good of a man should?

Epictetus
If a man would pursue Philosophy, his first task is to throw away conceit. For it is impossible for a man to begin to learn what he has a conceit that he already knows.

Epictetus
Even as bad actors cannot sing alone, but only in chorus: so some cannot walk alone. Man, if thou art aught, strive to walk alone and hold converse with yourself, instead of skulking in the chorus! at length think; look around thee; bestir thyself, that thou mayest know who thou art!

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
Ask me, if you choose, if a Cynic shall engage in the administration of a state.... Ask you if a man shall come forward in the Athenian assembly and talk about revenues and supplies, when his business is to converse with all men, Athenians, Corinthians, and Romans alike, not about supplies, not about revenue, not yet peace and war, but about Happiness and Misery, Prosperity and Adversity, Slavery and Freedom?... what greater government shall he hold than he holds already?

Epictetus
If any be unhappy, let him remember that he is unhappy by reason of himself alone. For God hath made man to enjoy felicity and constancy of good.

Epictetus
"But to be hanged—is that not unendurable?" Even so, when a man feels that it is reasonable, he goes off and hangs himself.

Epictetus