Quotes from Epictetus

If someone tried to take control of your body and make you a slave, you would fight for freedom. Yet how easily you hand over your mind to anyone who insults you. When you dwell on their words and let them dominate your thoughts, you make them your master.

The more we value things outside our control, the less control we have.

Your happiness depends on three things, all of which are within your power: your will, your ideas concerning the events in which you are involved, and the use you make of your ideas.

Freedom is secured not by the fulfilling of men's desires, but by the removal of desire.

Give me by all means the shorter and nobler life, instead of one that is longer but of less account!

when things seem to have reached that stage, merely say "I won't play any longer", and take your departure; but if you stay, stop lamenting.

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 that there must be time. Let it first blossom, then bear fruit, then ripen.

No person is free who is not master of himself.

Who are those people by whom you wish to be admired? Are they not these whom you are in the habit of saying that they are mad? What then? Do you wish to be admired by the mad?

You may fetter my leg, but Zeus himself cannot get the better of my free will.

Don't hope that events will turn out the way you want, welcome events in whichever way they happen: this is the path to peace.

If someone speaks badly of you, do not defend yourself against the accusations, but reply; you obviously don't know about my other vices, otherwise you would have mentioned these as well

Control thy passions lest they take vengence on thee. ~ Epictetus

Difficulty shows what men are.

It is more necessary for the soul to be cured than the body; for it is better to die than to live badly.

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

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.

When a youth was giving himself airs in the Theatre and saying, 'I am wise, for I have conversed with many wise men,' Epictetus replied, 'I too have conversed with many rich men, yet I am not rich!'.

Whoever is going to listen to the philosophers needs a considerable practice in listening.

If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid with regard to external things. Don't wish to be thought to know anything; and even if you appear to be somebody important to others, distrust yourself.

Do not try to seem wise to others. If you want to live a wise life, live it on your own terms and in your own eyes.

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

Epictetus being asked how a man should give pain to his enemy answered, By preparing himself to live the best life that he can.

We suffer not from the events in our lives but from our judgement about them.