1
Do not admire your clothes, and then you will not be angry with the thief.
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25 quotes by Epictetus · clear filters
2
If I have set my admiration on the poor body, I have given myself up to be a slave; if on my poor possessions, I also make myself a slave.
3
Have you anything better or greater to see than the sun, the moon, the stars, the whole earth, the sea?
4
Always remember what is your own, and what belongs to another; and you will not be disturbed.
5
If he did not want something which is not in his power, how could he be anxious?
6
It is circumstances (difficulties) which show what men are.
7
Why then are you anxious about that which belongs to others?
8
Does it seem to you so small and worthless a thing to be good and happy?
9
Therefore when a difficulty falls upon you, remember that God, like a trainer of wrestlers, has matched you with a rough young man.
10
It is the act of an ill-instructed man to blame others for his own bad condition; it is the act of one who has begun to be instructed, to lay the blame on himself; and of one whose instruction is completed, neither to blame another, nor himself.
Epictetusdisputed·The Encheiridion, in A Selection from the Discourses of Epictetus (trans. George Long)·1888
Attribution contested
The fifth maxim is the source of the modern slogan it is not what happens to you but how you react to it, which translates nothing Epictetus wrote and has no attested author. The paraphrase stops halfway. Epictetus opens by saying men are disturbed by their opinions about things rather than by the things, but he ends here -- taking the blame yourself is only the middle stage, and the finished man blames nobody at all.
11
Seek not that the things which happen should happen as you wish; but wish the things which happen to be as they are, and you will have a tranquil flow of life
12
Men are disturbed not by the things which happen, but by the opinions about the things
13
Will you not go back, and you will see clearer when you have laid aside fear?
14
In my opinion no man has had a more profitable difficulty than you have had, if you choose to make use of it as an athlete would deal with a young antagonist.
15
It is not possible that what is by nature free can be disturbed by anything else, or hindered by any other thing than by itself.
16
Therefore we ought to exercise ourselves in small things, and beginning with them to proceed to the greater.
17
Wretch, you are carrying about a god with you, and you know it not.
18
If a man is unhappy, remember that his unhappiness is his own fault; for God has made all men to be happy, to be free from perturbations.
19
See that you do nothing like a sheep; but if you do, in this case also the man is lost.
20
Keep by every means what is your own; do not desire what belongs to others.
21
Bring now, O Zeus, any difficulty that thou pleasest, for I have means given to me by thee and powers for honoring myself through the things which happen.
22
Most of us are afraid of mortification of the body, and would contrive all means to avoid such a thing, but we care not about the soul’s mortification.
23
I am by Nature made for my own good; not for my own evil.
24
No man can rob us of our Will--no man can lord it over that!
25
If you have assumed a character beyond your strength, you have both played a poor figure in that, and neglected one that is within your powers.