Quotes from Epictetus

Gustavo Solivellas dice: Make the best use of what's in your power and take the rest as it happens (Epictetus)

It's only my leg you will chain, not even God can conquer my will.' 'I will throw you into prison.' 'Correction – it is my body you will throw there.

Life is a piece of music, and you're supposed to be dancing.

He didn't care; it was not his skin he wanted to save, but the man of honour and integrity. These things are not open to compromise or negotiation.

Then I'll have you chained up.' What are you saying, man, chain me up? You can chain my leg, but not even Zeus can overcome my power of choice. [24] 'I'll throw you into prison.' You mean my poor body. 'I'll have you beheaded.' Why, did I ever tell you that I'm the only man to have a neck that can't be severed? [

If you learn that someone is speaking ill of you, don't try to defend yourself against the rumours; respond instead with, 'Yes, and he doesn't know the half of it, because he could have said more

Show me a man who though sick is happy, who though in danger is happy, who though in prison is happy, and I'll show you a Stoic.

If you wish to have peace and contentment, release your attachment to all things outside your control. This is the path of freedom and happiness. If you want not just peace and contentment, but power and wealth too, you may forfeit the former in seeking the latter, and will lose your freedom and happiness along the way.

Freedom is not achieved by satisfying desire, but by eliminating it.

Two elements are combined in our creation, the body, which we have in common with the beasts; and reason and good judgement, which we share with the gods.

but we should rather believe the philosophers who say that the educated only are free. How is this? In this manner: Is freedom anything else than the power of living as we choose? Nothing else.

Don't give in to second thoughts, because no one who wavers will make progress

We must endure, and toil without complaining.

For what else are tragedies but the ordeals of people who have come to value externals, tricked out in tragic verse?

Most of what passes for legitimate entertainment is inferior or foolish and only caters to or exploits people's weakness.

Look at the matter in this way. Since we can see that a dog is fitted by nature to do one thing, and a horse to do another, and a nightingale, if you like, to do yet another, it wouldn't be absurd for one to declare overall that each of them is beautiful precisely in so far as it best fulfils its own nature; and since each is different in nature, it would seem to me that each of them is beautiful in a different way. Isn't that so? The student agreed.

But they have produced such wonderful fruit in a human mind, as part of their plan to bestow on humanity the true secret of happiness.

What are you going to get when you trade your freedom away? Check to see what your proud new possessions will be worth.

If you do not wish to be prone to anger, do not feed the habit; give it nothin which may tend to its increase. At first, keep quiet and count the days when you were not angry: I used to be angry every day, then every other day: next, every two, then every three days! and if you succeed in passing thirty days, sacrifice to the gods in thanksgiving.

Do you realize that you are awake?' 'No, any more than when I dream and have the impression that I am awake.' 'And is the one impression in no way different from the other?' 'No.

You see, then, that it is necessary for you to become a student, that creature which every one laughs at, if you really desire to make an examination of your judgements. But this, as you are quite aware, is not the work of a single hour or day

well as the others, namely, the faculty of reason. Reason is unique among the faculties assigned

There are things that are within our power, and things that fall outside our power. Within our power are our own opinions, aims, desires, dislikes—in sum, our own thoughts and actions.

True peace is characterized by nothing so much as steadiness and imperturbability.