Epicteto

If you would be a reader, read; if a writer, write.

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The soul is unwillingly deprived of truth.

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In theory, there is nothing to hinder our following what we are taught, but in life there are many things to draw us aside.

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When you have shut your doors and darkened your room, remember, never to say that you are alone; for you are not alone, but God is within, and your genius is within.

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What, will the world be quite overturned when you die?

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You will fetter my leg, but not Zeus himself can get the better of my free will.

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Wherever any one is against his will, that is to him a prison.

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What is it to be a philosopher? Is it not to be prepared against events?

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Remember that you ought to behave in life as you would at a banquet. As something is being passed around, it comes to you; stretch out your hand, take a portion of it politely. It passes on; do not detain it. Or it has not come to you yet; do not project your desire to meet it, but wait until it comes in front of you.

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No living being is held by anything so strongly as by its own needs. Whatever therefore appears a hindrance to these, be it brother, or father, or child, or mistress, or friend, is hated, abhorred, execrated.

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

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

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No great thing is created suddenly.

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Seek not good from without: seek it within yourselves, or you will never find it.

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The cause of all human evils is the not being able to apply general principles to special cases.

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What is it that every man seeks? To be secure, to be happy, to do what he pleases without restraint and without compulsion.

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Why, do you not know, then, that the origin of all human evils, and of baseness, and cowardice, is not death, but rather the fear of death?

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It is your own conviction which compels you; that is, choice compels choice.

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If your heart is quite set upon a crown, make and put on one of roses, for it will make the prettier appearance.

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The materials of action are variable, but the use we make of them should be constant.

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

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Not things, but opinions about things, trouble men.

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“From this instant on, vow to stop disappointing yourself, separate yourself from the mob. Decide to be extraordinary and do what you need to do—now.”

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“Attach yourself to what is spiritually superior, regardless of what other people think or do. Hold to your true aspirations no matter what is going on around you.”

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“Anyone who can make you angry becomes your master.”

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“You become what you give your attention to.”

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“Devote the rest of your life to making progress.”

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“Seek not the good in external things; seek it in yourselves.”

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“Nothing truly stops you. Nothing truly holds you back. For your own will is always within your control.”

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“It is essential that we not respond impulsively… take a moment before reacting, and you will find it easier to maintain control.”

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“Don’t explain your philosophy. Embody it.”

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“Man is not worried by real problems so much as by his imagined anxieties about real problems.”

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“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.”

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“If someone succeeds in provoking you, realize that your mind is complicit in the provocation.”

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

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If you would cure anger, do not feed it.

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Where I am nightingale, I would act the part of a nightingale were I a swan, the part of a swan.

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Appear to know only this,--never to fail nor fall.

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Man is troubled not by events, but by the meaning he gives them.

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Everything has two handles,--one by which it may be borne another by which it cannot.

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