Epictetus - Nature Quotes

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Let not another's disobedience to Nature become an ill to you; for you were not born to be depressed and unhappy with others, but to be happy with them. And if any is unhappy, remember that he is so for himself; for God made all men to enjoy felicity and peace.

Epictetus
If then all things that grow, nay, our own bodies, are thus bound up with the whole, is not this still truer of our souls? And if our souls are bound up and in contact with God, as being very parts and fragments plucked from Himself, shall He not feel every movement of theirs as though it were His own, and belonging to His own nature?

Epictetus
Does a Philosopher apply to people to come and hear him? does he not rather, of his own nature, attract those that will be benefited by him—like the sun that warms, and the food that sustains them?

Epictetus
Forgiveness is better than revenge, for forgiveness is the sign of a gentle nature, but revenge is the sign of a savage nature. the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace.

Epictetus
This whole world is one great City, and one is the substance whereof it is fashioned: a certain period indeed there needs must be, while these give place to those; some must perish for others to succeed; some move and some abide: yet all is full of friends—first God, then Men, whom Nature hath bound by ties of kindred each to each.

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

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

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

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

Epictetus