Quotes from Epictetus

It is better by assenting to truth to conquer opinion, than by assenting to opinion to be conquered by truth.

Never in any case say I have lost such a thing, but I have returned it. Is your child dead? It is a return. Is your wife dead? It is a return. Are you deprived of your estate? Is not this also a return?

Imagine for yourself a character, a model personality, whose example you determine to follow, in private as well as in public.

Practice yourself, for heaven's sake in little things, and then proceed to greater.

You may be always victorious if you will never enter into any contest where the issue does not wholly depend upon yourself.

Either God wants to abolish evil, and cannot; or he can, but does not want to.

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.

Contentment comes not so much from great wealth as from few wants.

What is a child? Ignorance. What is a child? Want of instruction.

Nothing great is created suddenly, any more than a bunch of grapes or a fig. If you tell me that you desire a fig, I answer you that there must be time. Let it first blossom, then bear fruit, then ripen.

Practice yourself, for heaven's sake, in little things; and thence proceed to greater.

Ask not that events should happen as you will, but let your will be that events should happen as they do, and you shall have peace.

Difficulties are things that show what men are.

All philosophy in two words, - sustain and abstain.

No great thing is created suddenly, any more than a bunch of grapes or a fig. If you tell me that you desire a fig, I answer you that there must be time. Let it first blossom, then bear fruit, then ripen.

He is a drunkard who takes more than three glasses, though he be not drunk.

We are not troubled by things, but by the opinion which we have of things.

Men are not influenced by things, but by their thoughts about things.

On the occasion of every accident that befalls you ... inquire what power you have for turning it to use.

He is a man of sense who does not grieve for what he has not, but rejoices in what he has.

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

Progress is not achieved by luck or accident, but by working on yourself daily.

No great thing is created suddenly.

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.