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Epictetus Quotes - Page 5

All Quotes Achievement Adversity Anger Anxiety Appearance Art Attitude Blame Business Challenges Character Children Choices Communication Confidence Contentment Cooking Death Desire Determination Difficulty Discipline Duty Dying Eating Education Effort Evil Exercise Failure Feelings Fighting Focus Food Freedom Giving God Gratitude Greatness Happiness Happy Harmony Heart Heaven Honor Hurt Inspiration Inspirational Judgement Judgment Justice Kindness Knowledge Learning Life Love Lying Money Motivational Pain Patience Philosophy Pleasure Positive Positive Thinking Power Praise Progress Purpose Reality Religion Responsibility Running Silence Sorrow Soul Suffering Time Training Tranquility Truth Understanding Victory Virtue Waiting Wife Wisdom Worry Writing

The world turns aside to let any man pass who knows where he is going.

The world turns aside to let any man pass who knows where he is going.

Wisdom, Philosophical, Men

All human beings seek the happy life, but many confuse the means - for example, wealth and status - with that life itself. This misguided focus on the means to a good life makes people get further from the happy life. The really worthwhile things are the virtuous activities that make up the happy life, not the external means that may seem to produce it.

Life, Motivational, Happiness

The essence of philosophy is that a man should so live that his happiness shall depend as little as possible on external things.

Inspirational, Happiness, Happy

The people have a right to the truth as they have a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Happiness, Truth, Honesty

Don't regard what anyone says of you, for this, after all, is no concern of yours.

Self Esteem, Attachment, Detachment

Epictetus (2013). “The Enchiridion of Epictetus”, p.19, Simon and Schuster

If you set your heart upon philosophy, you must straightway prepare yourself to be laughed at and mocked by many who will say Behold a philosopher arisen among us! or How came you by that brow of scorn? But do you cherish no scorn, but hold to those things which seem to you the best, as one set by God in that place. Remember too, that if you abide in those ways, those who first mocked you, the same shall afterwards reverence you; but if you yield to them, you will be laughed at twice as much as before.

Philosophy, Heart, Yield

It is not he who reviles or strikes you who insults you, but your opinion that these things are insulting.

Life, Philosophical, Insults You

Difficulties are things that show a person what they are.

Philosophical, Difficulty, Shows

To know that you do not know and to be willing to admit that you do not know without sheepishly apologizing is real strength and sets the stage for learning and progress in any endeavor.

Motivational, Real, Progress

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

Men, Opposites, Progress

Epictetus (1895*). “Discourses: With the Encheiridion and Fragments”

It’s time to stop being vague. If you wish to be an extraordinary person, if you wish to be wise, then you should explicitly identify the kind of person you aspire to become.

Motivational, Wise, Extraordinary Person

Unremarkable lives are marked by the fear of not looking capable when trying something new.

Inspirational, Motivational, Trying Something New

When you actively engage in gradually refining yourself, you retreat from your lazy ways of covering yourself or making excuses. Instead of feeling a persistent current of low-level shame, you move forward by using the creative possibilities of this moment, your current situation.

Moving Forward, Creative, Feelings

Events do not just happen, but arrive by appointment.

Inspirational, Events, Appointments

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

Men, Giving, Events

Never look for your work in one place and your progress in another.

Work, Progress, Looks

Epictetus (2014). “Discourses, Fragments, Handbook”, p.43, OUP Oxford

If you wish to live a life free from sorrow, think of what is going to happen as if it had already happened.

Thinking, Sorrow, Wish

Epictetus, George Long (2004). “Enchiridion”, p.53, Courier Corporation

In life our first job is this, to divide and distinguish things into two categories: externals I cannot control, but the choices I make with regard to them I do control. Where will I find good and bad? In me, in my choices.

Jobs, Two, Choices

The wise realize that some things are within their control, and most things are not. They learn early on to distinguish between what they can and can't regulate.

Wise, Realizing

It doesn't take much to lose everything, just a little departure from reason

Departure, Littles, Reason

Whoever wants to be free, therefore, let him not want or avoid anything that is up to others. Otherwise he will necessarily be a slave.

Want, Slave, Be A Slave

Fortify yourself with contentment, for this is an impregnable fortress.

Inspirational, Meditation, Contentment

Epictetus (1807). “The Works of Epictetus: Consisting of His Discourses in Four Books Preserved by Arrian, the Enchiridion, and Fragments”, p.377

You are but an appearance, and not absolutely the thing you appear to be.

Appearance

Epictetus (2012). “The Handbook of Epictetus”, p.3, Simon and Schuster

Some things are in our control and others not. Things in our control are opinion, pursuit, desire, aversion, and, in a word, whatever are our own actions. Things not in our control are body, property, reputation, command, and, in one word, whatever are not our own actions.

Desire, Body, Aversion

Epictetus (2012). “The Handbook of Epictetus”, p.3, Simon and Schuster

If anyone is unhappy, remember that his unhappiness is his own fault... Nothing else is the cause of anxiety or loss of tranquility except our own opinion.

Happy Birthday, Loss, Anxiety

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