Over 200 Epictetus quotes, all of which are used in the texts in our blog, are listed here. These quotes have their full reference and are ready for you to use.
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Born a slave, he became a great source of inspiration for one of the most well-known and best Roman Emperors. Although he never wrote anything himself, one of his students, Arrian, made sure to take extensive notes. He created the Discourses and the Handbook from which most of these quotes come. Through these works, they continue to inspire and teach us even now, 2000 years later.
When reading quotes online, make sure that they are real. There are many false quotes roaming the different platforms. Gregory Sadler started a YouTube series where he looks into them. Check his video on Aristotle here.
We see more quotes by Marcus Aurelius or Seneca pass our screen, but Epictetus deserves more attention. This list of over 200 Epictetus quotes hopes to bring his wisdom to the general public, feel free to use it. A link as a reference to this page would be greatly appreciated. These are all taken from The Discourses and the Handbook, the Everyman version. But the references should still work for many other versions. Enjoy the list and I hope you’ll get something out of it.
The list of over 200 Epictetus quotes starts below and new ones will be added as I add more writing. Check out the reflections on the Discourses here.
Epictetus Quotes
“Some things are in our control and others not. Things in our control are opinion, pursuit, desire, aversion, and, in a word, whatever is our own action. Things not in our control are body, property, reputation, command, and, in one word, whatever is not our action.”
Epictetus, The handbook of Epictetus, 1
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“Some things are in our control and others not. Things in our control are opinion, pursuit, desire, aversion, and, in a word, whatever is our own action. Things not in our control are body, property, reputation, command, and, in one word, whatever is not our action. The things that are up to us are by nature free, unhindered and unimpeded; but those that are not up to us are weak, servile, subject to hindrance, and not our own.”
Epictetus, The handbook of Epictetus, 1
Post: What is Stoicism, What is Adiaphora?
“If you intend to engage in any activity, remind yourself what the nature of the activity is. If you are going to bathe, imagine yourself what happens in baths: the splashing of water, the crowding, the scolding, the stealing. And like that, you will more steadily engage in the activity if you frankly say ‘I want the bathe and want to hold my will in accordance with nature.”
Epictetus, The Handbook of Epictetus, 4
Post: On Dealing with the General Public
“What harm is there while you are kissing your child to say softly, ‘Tomorrow you will die’.”
Epictetus, the Discourses, Book 3, Chapter 24.87
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“Enable my mind to adapt itself to whatever comes to pass.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 2, Chapter 2.21
Post: What is Stoicism, A Stoic Mindset for Unexpected Events
“Above all, keep a close watch on this – that you are never so tied to your former acquainances and friends that you are pulled down to their level. If you don’t, you’ll be ruined. You must choose whether to be loved by these friends and remain the same person, or to become a better person at the cost of those friends… if you try to have it both ways you will neither make progress nor keep what you once had.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Chapter 2
Post: Friendship and Growth Through a Stoic Lens
Epictetus on what person you want to be
“First say to yourself, what manner of man you want to be; when you have settled this, act upon it in all you do.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 3, Chapter 23.1
Post: How to Know Yourself, Stoic Self-Discipline Guide, How to Live with Purpose
“Difficulties are the things that show what men are.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 24.1
Post: How Our Mirror Fails to Reflect, The Stoic View on Overcoming Difficulties
“For it is you who know yourself, and what value you set upon yourself, and at what rate you sell yourself.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 2.11
Post: How Our Mirror Fails to Reflect, Epictetus Quote on Self-Worth
“You should drop your desire; do not covet many things, and you will get what you want.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 3, Chapter 9.22
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“If it ever happens that you turn to external things in the desire to please some other person, realize that you have ruined your scheme of life. Be content, then, with being a philosopher in everything; and if you wish also to be seen as one, show yourself that you are one, and you will be able to achieve it.”
Epictetus, The Handbook, 23
Post: The Collective Existential Crisis, How to Live as a Stoic Philosopher, 10 Epictetus Quotes on Stoic Masculinity
On Purpose
“If you take on a role that is beyond your powers, you not only disgrace yourself in that role, but you neglect the role that you were capable of fulfilling.”
Epictetus, The Handbook, 37
Post: How to Find Your Purpose Through Stoicism, How to Deal With the Imposter Syndrome Through Stoicism, How to Increase Your Self-Awareness, The Importance of Finding Your Role in Life
“Examine who you are… For you are capable of understanding the divine governance of the universe, and of reasoning on what follows from that.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 2, Chapter 10
Post: How to Find Your Purpose Through Stoicism, What do I Belong To?
“When you are about to undertake some action, remind yourself what sort of action it is.”
Epictetus, The Handbook, 4
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“Practice, then, from the start to say to every harsh impression, ‘You are an impression, and not at all the thing you appear to be.’ Then examine it and test it by these rules which you have, and firstly, and chiefly, by this: Whether the impression has to do with things which are up to us, or those which are not, and, if it has to do with things that are not up to us, be ready to reply. ‘It is nothing to me’.”
Epictetus, The Handbook, 1
Post: How to deal with your emotions, What is Phantasia?, How Do Stoics Deal With Impressions?
“But it is a much finer thing to be happy, to have a peaceful and undisturbed mind, to have what concerns you dependent on nobody but yourself.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 4, Chapter 4.36
Post: How to Be Alone, How to Find Stoic Inner Peace
Quotes on How to Love
“In a similar way, you too should remind yourself that what you love is mortal, that what you love is not your own. It is granted to you for the present while, and not irrevocably, nor for ever, but like a fig or a bunch of grapes in the appointed season; and if you long for it in the winter, you are a fool.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 3, Chapter 24.86
Post: How to Love, The Stoic View on Impermanence
“In the case of everything that delights the mind, or is useful, or is loved with fond affection, remember to tell yourself what sort of things it is, beginning with the least of things. If you are fond of a jug, say, ‘It is a jug that I am fond of’; then, if it is broken, you will not be disturbed. If you kiss your child, or your wife, say to yourself that it is a human being that you are kissing; and then you will not be disturbed if either of them dies.”
Epictetus, The Handbook, 3
Post: How to Love, Stoic Detachment from Loved Ones
“What a man sets his heart on, that he naturally loves. Do men set their heart on evils? – By no means. Or on what does not concern them? – No again. It remains for us to conclude, then, that good things alone are what they set their heart on: and if they set their heart on those, they love them too. Whoever, therefore, has knowledge of good things would also know how to love them; and he who cannot distinguish good things from evil, and things that are neither good nor evil from both of these, how could he still have power to love? It follows that the wise man alone has the power to love.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 2, Chapter 22.1
Post: How to Love, What is Virtuous Love?
“For universally (and you should not be deceived on this) every living creature is attached to nothing so strongly as it is to its own interest.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book Two, Chapter 22.12
Post: What is True Friendship, The Stoic View on Self-Interest
“Eteocles: ‘Where will you stand before the walls?’
Polyneices: ‘For what reason do you ask me?’
Eteocles: ‘I mean to face you and slay you.’
Polyneices: ‘And so is my desire too.’”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book Two, Chapter 22.12
Post: What is True Friendship, Stoic View on Destructive Desires
“…you have not been invited to such a person’s banquet, because you have not paid him the price for which a meal is sold. It is sold for praise; it is sold for attention. Make up the price, then, if that is to your advantage. But if you would at the same time not pay the one and yet receive the other, you are greedy and stupid. Have you nothing, then, in place of the meal? Yes, indeed, you have: that of not praising someone you did not want to praise, and of not putting up with the people around his door.”
Epictetus, The Handbook, 25
Post: What is True Friendship, Stoic View on Praise
“Philosophers exhort us not to be contented with mere learning, but to add practice also, and then training.”
Epictetus, the Discourses, book two, chapter 9.13
Post: The Stoic Reading List for Beginners, Stoic Practice and Training
“Besides: do you think that I fall into evil voluntarily, and miss the good? Heaven forbid. What, then, is the cause of my going wrong? Ignorance.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1.26
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“For you will find that it is in reality true, that these things which are eagerly pursued and admired are of no use to those who have gained them; while those who have not yet gained them imagine that, once these things are theirs, they will possess all that is good, and then, when they are theirs, there is the same scorching heat, the same agitation, the same nausea and the same desire of what they do not have. For freedom is not secured by the fulfilment of people’s desires, but by the suppression of desire.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 4.1, 174, 175
Post: What is Success: A Stoic View
The Discourses of Epictetus, Book 1, Chapter 2
“Only consider at what price you sell your own will and choice, man: if for nothing else, that you may not sell it cheap.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 2.33
Post: How to Respect Your Character, Epictetus on Knowing Your Limits, Epictetus on Protecting Your Will
“It starts with knowing yourself, and what value you set upon yourself.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 2.11
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“For as soon as a person even considers such questions, comparing and calculating the values of external things, he draws close to those who have lost all sense of their proper character.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 2.12
Post: How to Respect Your Character
“You will do your part, and I mine: It is yours to kill, and mine to die without trembling.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 2.19
Post: How to Respect Your Character
“To a rational creature, only what is contrary to reason is unendurable: but everything rational he can endure.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 2.1
Post: How to Respect Your Character, What is Logos
The Discourses of Epictetus, Book 1, Chapter 1
“The Reasoning Faculty; for that alone of the faculties that we have received comprehends both itself – what it is, what it is capable of, and with what valuable powers it has come to us- and all the other faculties likewise.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1 Chapter 1.4
Post: What is Our Reasoning Faculty
“To make the best of what is in our power, and take the rest as it naturally happens.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1 Chapter 1.17
Post: What is Our Reasoning Faculty, 10 Epictetus Quotes on Control
“We choose instead to take care of many, and to encumber ourselves with many; body, property, brother, friend, child, and slave.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 1.14
Post: What is Our Reasoning Faculty
“What, then, should we have at hand upon such occasions? Why, what else than to know what is mine, and what is not mine, what is within my power, and what is not.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 1.21
Post: What is Our Reasoning Faculty
“Why do you not study to be contented with what is alloted to you?”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 1.27
Post: What is Our Reasoning Faculty
“I must die. If instantly, I will die instantly; if in a short time, I will dine first, since the hour for dining is here, and when the time comes, then I will die. How? As becomes a person who is giving back what is not his to own.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 1.32
Post: What is Our Reasoning Faculty
The Discourses of Epictetus, Book 1, Chapter 3
“but since in our birth we have these two elements mingled within us, a body in common with the animals, and reason and intelligence with the gods, many of us incline towards the former kinship, miserable as it is and wholly mortal, and only some few to the divine and blessed one.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 3.3
Post: What is the Stoic God
“Those few who think they are born to fidelity, and honour, and a securely grounded use of their impressions, will harbour no abject or ignoble thought about themselves, whilst the multitude will think the opposite.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 3.4
Post: What is the Stoic God
“Look, then, and take care that you do not become one of these roguish creatures.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 3.8
Post: What is the Stoic God
The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 4
“What does virtue achieve? Peace of Mind.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 4.5
Post: How to Make Progress Like a Stoic
“Now if virtue promises happiness, an untroubled mind and serenity, then progress towards virtue is certainly progress towards each of these.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 4.3
Post: How to Make Progress Like a Stoic
“Seek it in that place, wretch, where your task lies. And where does it lie?”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 4.11
Post: How to Make Progress Like a Stoic
“Do not ask things to happen as you wish, but wish them to happen as they do happen, and your life will go smoothly.”
Epictetus, The Handbook, 8
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Watch our video on the Via Stoica Podcast about this quote here.
“If any of you, withdrawing himself from externals, turns to his own faculty of choice, working at it and perfecting it, so as to bring it fully into harmony with nature, elevated, free, unrestrained, unhindered, faithful, self-respecting.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 4.18
Post: How to Make Progress Like a Stoic
“When he rises in the morning, he observes and keeps to these rules; bathes and eats as a man of fidelity and honour; and thus, in every matter that befalls, puts his guiding principles to work.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 4.20
Post: How to Make Progress Like a Stoic
“It is the action of an uneducated person to lay the blame for his own bad condition upon others; of one who has made a start on his education to lay the blame on himself; and of one who is fully educated, to blame neither others nor himself.”
Epictetus, The Handbook, 5
Post: How to Make Progress Like a Stoic, How to Deal with Rejection, 10 Epictetus Quotes on Self-Mastery
“‘Take the treatise On Impulse, and see how thoroughly I have read it.’ That’s not what I am looking for, slave, but how you exercise your impulse to act and not to act, how you manage your desires and aversions, how you approach things, how you apply yourself to them, and prepare for the, and whether in harmony with nature or out of harmony. For if you are acting in harmony with nature, give me evidence of that, and I will say that you are making progress; but if you are acting out of harmony, go your way, and do not merely comment on these treatises, but even write such works yourself.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 4.14
Post: How to Make Progress Like a Stoic
The Discourses of Epictetus, Book 1, Chapter 5
“Most of us fear the deadening of the body… but the deadening of the soul concerns us not a bit.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 5.4
Post: How to Save the Soul
“Is there no difference, then, between that impression and the other? – ‘None.’ – Can I argue with this man any longer?”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 5.6-7
Post: How to Save the Soul
“Such petrification takes two forms: the one, a petrification of the understanding, and the other of the sense of shame when a person has obstinately set himself neither to assent to evident truths nor to abandon the defence of contradiction.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 5.3
Post: How to Save the Soul
“One man does not see the contradiction; he is in a bad state. Another does see it, but he is not moved, nor does he improve; he is in an even worse state.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 5.8
Post: How to Save the Soul
“He is aware of it, but pretends that he is not; he is even worse than a corpse.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 5.7
Post: How to Save the Soul
“We might be fluent in the classroom but drag us out into practice and we’re miserably shipwrecked.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 2, Chapter 16.20 (Paraphrased)
Page: The Discourses of Epictetus
The Discourses of Epictetus, Book 1, Chapter 6
“For everything that happens in the universe one can readily find reason to praise providence, if one has within oneself these two qualities, the ability to see each particular event in the context of the whole, and a sense of gratitude.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, On Providence, Book 1, Chapter 6.1
Post: How to View the World
“For if we do not act in a proper and orderly manner, and each of us in accordance with his nature and constitution, we shall no longer attain our end.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 6.15
Post: How to View the World
“It is therefore shameful that man should begin and end where irrational creatures do. He ought rather to begin there, but to end where nature itself has fixed our end: and that is in the contemplation and understanding and a way of life in harmony with nature.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 6.20
Post: How to View the World
“Have you not received faculties which give you the power to endure everything that happens?”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 6.28
Post: How to View the World
“Bring on me now, O Zeus, whatever difficulty you will, for I have the means and the resources granted to me by yourself to bring honour to myself through whatever may come to pass.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 6.37
Post: How to View the World
“But God has introduced man into the world as a spectator of himself and of his works; and not only as a spectator, but an interpreter of them.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 6.19
Post: How to View the World, The Stoic Logos
“Yet I undertake to show you that you have the equipment and resources for greatness of soul and a courageous spirit: you show me what occasion you have for complaint and reproach!”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 6.43
Post: How to View the World
The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 7
“For what we seek in every matter is how the virtuous man may find the path he should follow and the way he should behave with regard to it.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 7.2
Post: How to Find the Truth
“For what is required in reasoning? To establish what is true, to reject what is false, and to suspend judgement in doubtful cases.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 7.5
Post: How to Find the Truth
“Therefore, in reasoning too, mere speech is not enough, but it is necessary that we should become able to test and distinguish between the true and the false and the doubtful? It is necessary.
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 7.8
Post: How to Find the Truth
“This is the very thing that I myself said to Rufus, when he reproved me for not finding the single missing step in some syllogism. Why, said I, have I burned down the Capitol then? Slave, answered he, what was missed out here is the Capitol!”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 7.32
Post: How to Find the Truth
“And is it no fault to treat the impressions presented to our minds in a random, senseless and haphazard manner, and to be unable to follow an argument, a demonstration or a sophism, in short, to be unable to see in question and answer what is in accordance with one’s own position and what is not – is there no fault in any of these?”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 7.33
Post: How to Find the Truth
The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 8
“For in general every faculty is dangerous to weak and uninstructed persons, as being apt to render them presumptuous and vain.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 8.8
Post: Why We Need Virtue to Make Progress
“For by what method can one persuade a young man who excels in these kinds of study that he ought not to be an appendage to them, but they to him.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 8.9
Post: Why We Need Virtue to Make Progress
“Will you not perceive and distinguish what are the things that make men philosophers, and what belong to them on other accounts?”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 8.14
Post: Why We Need Virtue to Make Progress
“What then? Do I reject these faculties? By no means. For neither do I reject the faculty of seeing. Nevertheless if you ask me what is the good man, I can only reply to you that it consists in a certain disposition of our choice.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 8.14-16
Post: Why We Need Virtue to Make Progress
The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 9
“When one is asked where one is from, never to say ‘I am an Athenian’, or ‘I am a Corinthian’, but rather ‘I am a citizen of the universe’?
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 9.1
Post: What we belong to
“For why do you say that you are an Athenian, and not a native of that corner on which your paltry body was thrown down at birth?”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 9.2
Post: What we belong to
“Why should not a man who understands this call himself a citizen of the universe?”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 9.6
Post: What we belong to
“Must he (the philosopher) be baser and more cowardly than the irrational beasts, each of which is self-sufficient, and lack neither its proper food nor the way of life appropriate to itself and its nature?”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 9.9
Post: What we belong to
“Here thieves and robbers, and courts of law, and those who are called tyrants, are thought to have some power over us, because of our poor body and its possessions. Suffer us to show them, that they have power over nobody.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 9.15
Post: What we belong to
“My friends, wait for god, till he shall give the signal, and release you from his service; then depart to him. For the present, be content to remain in this place where he has stationed you.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 9.16
Post: What we belong to
“Stay. Do not depart without reason.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 9.17
Post: What we belong to
“Why should any one envy another?”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 9.20
Post: What we belong to
“It is absurd for you to think that if your general had stationed me in any post, I ought to maintain and defend it, and choose to die a thousand times rather than desert it, but if god has assigned us to a certain place and way of life, we ought to desert that.” Socrates, by
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 9.24
Post: What we belong to
The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 10
“If we had applied ourselves as heartily to our own work as the old men at Rome do to their schemes, perhaps we too might have achieved something.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 10.1
Post: What We Should Devote Our Time To
“Is there any similarity, then, between receiving and reading a little petition from somebody such as this: ‘I beg you to allow me to export a little corn’; and this, ‘I beg you to learn from Chrysippus what the administration of the universe is, and what place a rational creature holds in it; and learn, too, who you are, and where your good and evil lies.’”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 10.10
Post: What We Should Devote Our Time To
“Are these things alike? Do they require an equal degree of application? And is it shameful to neglect the one as the other?”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 10.11-12
Post: What We Should Devote Our Time To
“For, indeed, we old men, when we see young ones at play, are keen to join in that play ourselves. Far more so, then, if I saw them wide awake and keen to join us in our studies, should I be eager myself to join with them in serious work.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 10.13
Post: What We Should Devote Our Time To
The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 11
“Do but convince me that you were acting naturally, and I will convince you that everything natural is right.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 11.5
Post: On Our Judgment
“And where there is ignorance, there is likewise want of knowledge and instruction in essential matters.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 11.14
Post: On Our Judgment
“So you, then, now that you are aware of this, will in future apply yourself to nothing other, and think of nothing other than how to discover the criterion of what is in accordance with nature, and to apply that in judging each particular case.”
Epictetus, Book 1, Chapter 11.15
Post: On Our Judgment
“Pray, if you were sick yourself, should you be willing to have your relatives, and children themselves and your wife, so very affectionate as to leave you alone and desolate?”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 11.25
Post: On Our Judgment
“From this day forward, then, whenever we do anything wrong we will ascribe the blame only to the judgment from which we act; and we will endeavor to remove and extirpate that, with greater care than we would abscesses and tumors from our body.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 11.35
Post: On Our Judgment
“It is necessary for you to become a student, that creature which every one laughs at, if you really desire to make an examination of your judgments.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 11.39
Post: On Our Judgment
“But this, as you are quite aware, is not the work of a single hour or day.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 11.40
Post: On Our Judgment
The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 12
“Concerning gods.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 12.1
Post: How to Be Content
“And there is a fifth group, to which both Socrates and Odysseus belonged, who say, ‘Not a move do I make unseen to thee.’”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 12.3
Post: How to Be Content
“For he is free for whom all things happen in accordance with his choice, and whom no one can restrain.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 12.9
Post: How to Be Content
“But I would have whatever appears to me to be right happen, however it comes to appear so.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 12.11
Post: How to Be Content
“But for me to desire at random, and for things to happen in accordance with such a desire, may be so far from a noble thing as to be, of all others, the most shameful.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 12.12
Post: How to Be Content
“Or otherwise there would be no purpose in knowing anything, if it were to be adapted to each person’s personal wishes.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 12.14
Post: How to Be Content
“By no means, but true instruction is this: learning to will that things happen as they do. And how do they happen? As the appointer of them has appointed.”
Epictetus, Book 1, Chapter 12.15
Post: How to Be Content
“Where he already is; for he is there against his will, and wherever any one is against his will, that is to him a prison.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 12.23
Post: How to Be Content, 10 Epictetus Quotes on Stoic Courage
“Socrates was not in prison, for he was willingly there.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 12.23
Post: How to Be Content
“Do you not know how very small a part you are compared to the whole? That is, as to the body, for as to reason you are neither worse nor less, than the gods.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 12.26
Post: How to Be Content
“For greatness of reason is not measured by length or height, but by its judgment.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 12.26
Post: How to Be Content
“For what, then, have you been made accountable? For that which alone is in your power, the proper use of your impressions.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 12.34
Post: How to Be Content
The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 13
“If he eats as he ought and sensibly, and, one might say, with restraint and self-control, will he not also be eating in a manner acceptable to the gods?”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 13.1
Post: How to Treat Others
“Then not to be angry, or lose your temper, is that not acceptable to the gods?”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 13.2
Post: How to Treat Others
“Will you not bear with your own brother, who has Zeus as his forebear and is born as a son of the same seed as you, and is of the same high descent?”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 13.3
Post: How to Treat Others
“That it is to the earth, that it is to the pit, that it is to these wretched laws, the laws of the dead, and not to the laws of the gods that you are looking?”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 13.5
Post: How to Treat Others
The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 14
“Do you not think that all things are bound together in a unity?”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 14.1
Post: How It Is All Connected
“Do you not think that things on earth feel the influence of what is in the heavens?”
Epictetus, The Discourse, Book 1, Chapter 14.2
Post: How It Is All Connected
“But if the plants and our bodies are so intimately bound to the universe and affected by its influences, must our souls not be much more so?
Epictetus, The Discourse, Book 1, Chapter 14.2
Post: How It Is All Connected
“Why, does any one tell you that you possess a power equal to Zeus?”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 14.11
Post: How It Is All Connected
“He (Zeus) has assigned to each man a director, his own personal daemon.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 14.12
Post: How It Is All Connected
“Will you not swear your oath to god, who have received so many and such great favours, or if you have sworn, will you not abide by your oath?”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 14.15
Post: How It Is All Connected
“Never to disobey, never to accuse, never to find fault with anything that god has bestowed, never to do or suffer unwillingly and with a bad grace that is inevitable.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 14.16
The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 15
“In every circumstance I will preserve the governing part in accord with nature.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 15.4
Post: What Does Philosophy Promise?
“Bring him to me, and I will tell him; but to you I have nothing to say about his anger.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 15.5
Post: What Does Philosophy Promise?
“No great thing comes into being all of a sudden.”
Epictetus. The Discourses. Book 1, Chapter 15.7
Post: What Does Philosophy Promise?
The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 16
“Since they were not born for themselves, but for service, it would not have been beneficial to create them with these additional needs.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 16.2
Post: What We Are Born for
“Thus one little boy, with only a rod, can drive a flock.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 16.5
Post: What We Are Born for
“I am not thinking of great things for the moment, but the simple fact that milk is produced from grass, cheese from milk, and wool from skins.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 16.8
Post: What We Are Born for
“But come, let us leave aside the central works of nature. Let us contemplate what she does, as it were, by the way.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 16.9
Post: What We Are Born for
“But how noble this sign is, how becoming and dignified. How much finer than a cock’s comb, and more majestic than a lion’s mane!”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 16.13
Post: What We Are Born for
“Ought we not, as we are digging, or ploughing, or eating, to sing the hymn of praise to god?
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 16.16
Post: What We Are Born for
“Remember that it is not only a desire for riches and power that makes you abject and subservient to others, but also a desire for quiet and leisure, and travel and learning. For the value you place on an external object, whatever it may be, makes you subservient to another.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 4, Chapter 4.1
Post: Attachments: How to Find the Right Balance
“In short, then, remember this, that if you attach value to anything outside the sphere of choice, you destroy that choice.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 4, Chapter 4.23
Post: Attachments: How to Find the Right Balance
The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 17
“Since it is reason that analyses and brings to completion all other things, reason itself should not be left unanalyzed.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 17.1
Post: How to Follow Reason
“Plainly, either by itself, or by something else.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 17.2
Post: How to Follow Reason
“The philosopher puts logic first, just as, when it comes to measuring grain, we begin by examining the measure.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 17.6
Post: How to Follow Reason
“It is enough that logic has the power to distinguish and examine all other things, and as one may say, measure and weigh them.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 17.10
Post: How to Follow Reason
“But what, then, is the admirable thing? To understand the will of nature.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 17.13
Post: How to Follow Reason
¨If he (Chrysippus) only interprets the will of nature, but does not follow it himself; how much less his interpreter.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 17.17
Post: How to Follow Reason
“‘But if a person inflicts the fear of death upon me’, someone says, ‘he compels me.’ No, it is not what is inflicted upon you that compels you, but your own judgment that it is better to do such and such a thing than to die. Here, again, you see it is your own judgment that compelled you – that is, choice compelled choice.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 17.25-26
Post: How to Follow Reason
“Some things are up to us, and others are not.”
Epictetus, Enchiridion 1
Post: Well-being and Stoicism, How to Become More Stoic, Stoic Habits for Modern Life, 10 Epictetus Quotes on Self-Mastery, What is Prohairesis?, 10 Epictetus Quotes on Control
“This is a point you must attend to before all others: not to be so attached to any one of your former acquaintances or friends as to descend to the same ways as his, otherwise you will destroy yourself.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 4, Chapter 2.1
Post: Who to Associate With
“Choose, then, whether you want to be a drunkard and pleasing to those people, or sober and unpleasing to them.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 4, Chapter 2.7
Post: Who to Associate With
“Remembering that it is impossible to rub up against a person who is covered in soot without getting some of the soot on oneself.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 3, chapter 16.3
Post: Who to Associate With
“It is not the things themselves that disturb people but their judgements about those things.”
Epictetus, The Handbook, 5
Post: How to Be a Stoic Minimalist, 10 Epictetus Quotes on Temperance, 10 Epictetus Quotes on Self-Mastery, 10 Epictetus Quotes on Stoic Courage, What is Pathos?, 10 Epictetus Quotes on Stoic Masculinity, How to Practice Stoicism, How to Practice the Stoic Discipline of Action, 10 Epictetus Quotes on Control
The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 18
“If what the philosophers say be true, that all men’s actions proceed from one source, namely feeling, such that in the case of assent, it is the feeling that something is so, and of dissent, the feeling that it is not so, and, by Zeus, in the case of suspended judgment, the feeling that it is uncertain… if all this is in fact true, why should we still be angry at the multitude?”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 18.1,2
Post: How to Be Invincible
“Show them their error.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 18.4
Post: How to Be Invincible
“If the greatest harm a man can suffer is to be deprived of the most valuable things, and the most valuable thing in each man is a right moral choice, when any one is deprived just this thing, how can one still be angry with him?”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 18.8
Post: How to Be Invincible
“How have you suddenly become so wise that you are angry at others as though they were mere fools?”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 18.11
Post: How to Be Invincible
“Because we admire those things which such people take from us.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 18.11
Post: How to Be Invincible
“If you give up on these things, and look upon them as nothing, with whom will you still be angry? But as long as you admire them, be angry with yourself rather than with others.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 18.12
Post: How to Be Invincible, 10 Epictetus Quotes on Stoic Masculinity
“For a man can only lose what he has.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 18.16
Post: How to Be Invincible
“I do not say you may not groan, but do not groan within yourself.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 18.19
Post: How to Be Invincible
“Who then is the invincible man? He whom nothing outside of the sphere of choice can disconcert.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 18.21
Post: How to Be Invincible, 10 Epictetus Quotes on Stoic Courage
“He is able to overcome all these things.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 18.22
Post: How to Be Invincible
“He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has.”
Epictetus, Fragments, CXXIX
Post: Embracing Gratitude
The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 19
“When a person possesses some superiority, or at least thinks he does when in fact he does not, if he be uneducated, he will necessarily be puffed up because of it.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 19.1
Post: How to Achieve Stoic Freedom
¨Why do I not attend to my ass? Do I not wash his feet? Do I not clean him? Do you not know that everyone pays attends to himself, and to you, just as he does to an ass?”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 19.4-5
Post: How to Achieve Stoic Freedom
“What is by nature free, cannot be disturbed or hindered by anything but himself.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 19.7
Post: How to Achieve Stoic Freedom
“It is a man’s own judgments that disturb him.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 19.8
Post: How to Achieve Stoic Freedom
“You are master of my carcase. Take it.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 19.10
Post: How to Achieve Stoic Freedom
“This isn’t mere self-love; for every animal is so constituted as to do everything for its own sake.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 19.11
Post: How to Achieve Stoic Freedom
“Even the sun does everything for its own sake and, for that matter, so does Zeus himself.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 19.11
Post: How to Achieve Stoic Freedom
“When people hold absurd opinions about things that lie outside the sphere of choice, regarding them as good and evil, it is quite inevitable that they will pay court to tyrants.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 19.16
Post: How to Achieve Stoic Freedom
“Epaphroditus owned a slave, who was a shoemaker, and sold him because he was useless. Then, as chance would have it, this same man was bought by a member of Ceasar’s household and became shoemaker to Caesar. If only you could have seen how Epaphroditus honoured him.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 19.19
Post: How to Achieve Stoic Freedom
“Who, then, has made a wise man of him all of a sudden? This is what it means to honour something other than what lies within the sphere of our choice.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 19.23
Post: How to Achieve Stoic Freedom
“Write it upon a stone and it will remain just as well.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 19.28
Post: How to Achieve Stoic Freedom
The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 20
“Whenever, therefore, it is of like kind with the objects of its contemplation, it necessarily contemplates itself too.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 20.2
Post: How Can Reason Contemplate Itself
“But where it is of unlike kind, it cannot contemplate itself.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 20.2
Post: How Can Reason Contemplate Itself
“For what purpose, then, have we received reason from nature? To make proper use of impressions.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 20.5
Post: How Can Reason Contemplate Itself
“And what is reason itself? Something compounded from impressions of a certain kind: and thus, by its nature, it becomes contemplative of itself too.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 20.5
Post: How Can Reason Contemplate Itself
“We have been given wisdom to contemplate what exactly? Things good, and bad, and indifferent.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 20.6
Post: How Can Reason Contemplate Itself
“What, then, is wisdom itself? Good. And what is folly? Evil. You see, then, that it necessarily contemplates both itself and its contrary.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 20.6
Post: How Can Reason Contemplate Itself
“Therefore the first and greatest task of a philosopher is to put impressions to the test and distinguish between them, and not admit any that has not been tested.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 20.7
Post; How Can Reason Contemplate Itself
“Our end is to follow the gods and the essence of good consists in the proper use of impressions.”
Zeno, according to Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 20.15
Post: How Can Reason Contemplate Itself
“And so if Epicurus should come and say that the good must reside in the flesh, here too it becomes lengthy.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 20.17
Post: How Can Reason Contemplate Itself
The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 21
“Who are these people, by whom you wish to be admired? Are they not the very people whom you have been in the habit of describing as mad? What, then, do you want to be admired by madmen?”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, chapter 21.4
Post: What is Admiration
“When a person has his proper station in life, he does not gape after things beyond it.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 21.1
Post: What is Admiration
“I for my part am content if my desires and aversions are in accordance with nature, and if I exercise my impulse to act and not to act as I was born to do, and likewise my purpose, design, and assent.”
Epictetus, Book 1, Chapter 21.2
Post: What is Admiration
The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 22
“Preconceptions are common to all men; and one preconception does not contradict another.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 22.1
Post: How to Align Preconceptions With Nature
“For, who of us does not assume, that the good is advantageous and what we should choose, and, in all circumstances, seek and pursue?”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 22.1
Post: How to Align Preconceptions With Nature
“This is the conflict between Jews and Syrians and Egyptians and Romans, not whether holiness should be honoured above all else and pursued in all circumstances, but whether eating swine’s flesh be consistent with holiness or not.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 22.4
Post: How to Align Preconceptions With Nature
“One or the other of them certainly makes a wrong application of the preconception of rightness.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 22.7
Post: How to Align Preconceptions With Nature
“What, then, is it to be properly educated? To learn how to apply natural preconceptions to particular cases, in accordance with nature; to distinguish that some things are in our power, and others not.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 22.9
Post: How to Align Preconceptions With Nature
“Where, then, shall we place the good? To what class of things shall we apply it? To that of things that are in our power.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 22.11
Post: How to Align Preconceptions With Nature
The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 23
“Even Epicurus is aware that we are by nature social beings, but once he has placed our good in what is merely our shell, he cannot afterwards say anything other than that.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 23.1
Post: Is the Wise Person a Social Being or Not
“For, again, he (Epicurus) strenuously maintains, that we ought not to admire or accept anything that is cut off from the nature of the good.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 23.2
Post: Is the Wise Person a Social Being or Not
“But how, then, can we still be social beings if we have no natural affection towards our offspring?”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 23.3
Post: Is the Wise Person a Social Being or Not
“Why do you, Epicurus, dissuade a wise man from bringing up children? Why are you afraid that upon their account he will be caused distress?”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 23.3
Post: Is the Wise Person a Social Being or Not
“But Epicurus knew that, if once a child is born, it is no longer in our power not to love and care for it.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 23.5
Post: Is the Wise Person a Social Being or Not
“Not even a sheep or wolf deserts its offspring, so shall a human being?”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 23.7
Post: Is the Wise Person a Social Being or Not
The Discourses of Epictetus, Book 1, Chapter 24
“Difficulties are the things that show what men are.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 24.1
Post: How to Deal With Difficulties, 10 Epictetus Quotes on Stoic Courage
“Henceforth, when some difficulty befalls you, remember that god, like a wrestling master, has matched you with a rough young man.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 24.1
Post: How to Deal With Difficulties
“For what end? That you may become an Olympic victor, and that cannot be done without sweat.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 24.2
Post: How to Deal With Difficulties
“No man, in my opinion, has a more advantageous difficulty on his hands than you have, if only you will but use it as an athlete uses the young man he is wrestling against.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 24.2
Post: How to Deal With Difficulties
“We are sending you to Rome as a spy; but no one ever sends a coward as a spy.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 24.3
Post: How to Deal With Difficulties
“He [Diogenes] says that death is no evil, for it is not dishonourable; that defamation is an empty noise made by madmen.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 24.6
Post: How to Deal With Difficulties
“He [Diogenes] says that to be naked is better than any purple-bordered robe, and that to sleep upon the bare ground is the softest bed.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 24.7
Post: How to Deal With Difficulties
“Go back again and examine things more accurately, putting aside your cowardice.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 24.10
Post: How to Deal With Difficulties
“If you will but remember what is your own, you will not claim what belongs to others.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1. Chapter 24.11
Post: How to Deal With Difficulties
“Take this poor body of mine, take it all. If I can throw my body to this man, can I still be afraid of him?”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 24.13
Post: How to Deal With Difficulties
“Remember that the door is open.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 24.20
Post: How to Deal With Difficulties
“Do not be more cowardly than children, but just as they say, when the game no longer pleases them, ‘I will play no more.’”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 24.20
Post: How to Deal With Difficulties
“But if you stay, stop moaning.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 24.20
Post: How to Deal With Difficulties
The Discourses of Epictetus, Book 1, Chapter 25
“If these things are true, and we are not stupid or acting a part when we say that good or ill for man lies in choice, and that all else is nothing to us, why are we still troubled?”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 25.1
Post: What to Worry About
“No one else has authority over the things that seriously concern us; and the things over which others have authority are of no concern to us. What is left for us to worry about?”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 25.2
Post: What to Worry About
“Has he [Zeus] not given you what is your own, free from restraint or hindrance; and what is not your own, liable to both?”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 25.3
Post: What to Worry About
“Guard by every means what is your own: what belongs to others do not covet. Your good faith is your own; your sense of shame is your own.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 25.4
Post: What to Worry About
“When you concern yourself with what is not your own, you lose what is your own.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 25.4
Post: What to Worry About, 10 Epictetus Quotes on Self-Mastery
“And it is for you to compare the value of these things, and judge for yourself; but do not do anything as one who is burdened and afflicted and supposes himself to be in a bad way, for no one compels you to do that.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 25.17
Post: What to Worry About
“For you must always remember and hold fast to this, that the door is open.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 25.18
Post: What to Worry About
“Thus Demetrius said to Nero: You threaten me with death, but nature threatens you with it!”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 25.22
Post: What to Worry About
“If I place value on my body, I have given myself up for a slave; if on my miserable property, I am a slave likewise; for I immediately show to my own detriment how I may be taken.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 25.23-24
Post: What to Worry About
“But for our part had rather study and practice anything than how to become unrestrained and free.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 25.31
Post: What to Worry About
The Discourses of Epictetus, Book 1, Chapter 26
“Far more important is the law of life, that we must do what follows from nature.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 26.1
Post: What is the Law of Life
“The philosophers, therefore, first exercise us in theory, which is the easier task, and then lead us to the more difficult: For in theory there is nothing to oppose our following what we are taught; but in life there are many things to distract us.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 26.3
Post: What is the Law of Life
“That is why it is difficult for a man to be a master of his own impressions there, where the disturbing forces are so great.” –
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 26.10
Post: What is the Law of Life
“But as for a man who studies these things, and goes to the philosophers, merely for the sake of showing off at an entertainment how he understands hypothetical arguments, what other reason is he doing that for than to seek the approval of some senator who happens to be sitting beside him?”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 26.9
Post: What is the Law of Life
“The first step, therefore, towards becoming a philosopher is to become aware of the true state of one’s ruling faculty; for, when a person knows it to be in a weak state, he will not immediately employ it in great matters.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 26.15
Post: What is the Law of Life
“In matters relating to life no one offers himself to be examined.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 26.17
Post: What is the Law of Life
“Socrates used to say that an unexamined life is not worth living.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 26.18
Post: What is the Law of Life
The Discourses of Epictetus, Book 1, Chapter 27
“Impressions come in four ways. Things are, and appear so to us; or they are not, and do not appear to be: or they are, and do not appear to be: or they are not, and yet appear to be.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 27.1
Post: Understanding Stoic Impressions
“Thus it is the task of the educated man to form the right judgment in all these cases.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 27.2
Post: Understanding Stoic Impressions
“Whatever the difficulty that afflicts us, we must bring forward, the appropriate aid against it.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 27.2
Post: Understanding Stoic Impressions
“What aid, then, is it possible to discover against habit? The contrary habit.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 27.4
Post: Understanding Stoic Impressions
“When death appears an evil, we ought immediately to remember that evils may be avoided, but death is a necessity.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 27.7
Post: Understanding Stoic Impressions
“I cannot escape death; but I can I not escape the dread of it? Must I die trembling and lamenting? For the origin of the distress is wishing for something that does not come about.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 27.9-10
Post: Understanding Stoic Impressions
The Discourses of Epictetus, Book 1, Chapter 28
“It is the very nature of the understanding to agree to things that are true, to be dissatisfied with things that are false, and to suspend its belief in doubtful cases.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 28.2
Post: Why Not Be Angry With Others
“When any one, then, assents to what is false, be assured that he does not wilfully assent to it as false, but what is false appears to him to be true.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 28.4
Post: Why Not Be Angry With Others
“For, as Plato affirms, the soul is never voluntarily deprived of truth.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 28.4
Post: Why Not Be Angry With Others
“A person, then, cannot think a thing advantageous to him, and not choose it.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 28.6
Post: Why Not Be Angry With Others
“Show to her [Medea] clearly that she is deceived, and she will not do it; but as long as you have not shown it, what else has she to follow but what seems true to her.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 28.8
Post: Why Not Be Angry With Others
“Whoever, therefore, duly remembers that a person’s impressions are the standard for his every action – these impressions may moreover be either right or wrong; and, if right, he is without fault, if wrong, he himself pays the penalty, for it cannot be that one person should be the one who has gone astray, and another person the one who suffers – whoever, then remembers this, will never be angry with anyone, never be harsh towards anyone, will never revile, or reproach, or hate, or be offended by any one.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1. Chapter 28.10
Post: Why Not Be Angry With Others
“Does a man differ in no way, then from a Stork? Yes, surely; but not in these things.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 28.19
Post: Why Not Be Angry With Others
“Where, then, is the great good or evil of man? Where his difference lies; if that is preserved and remains well fortified, and neither his honour, nor his fidelity, nor his intelligence is destroyed, then he himself is preserved likewise; but when any of these is lost and taken by storm, he himself is lost also.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 28.21
Post: Why Not Be Angry With Others
“These are the ways in which human beings are undone; this is the siege, this the razing of a man’s city, when his right judgements are demolished, when they are destroyed.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 28.25
Post: Why Not Be Angry With Others
“We ought, nevertheless, to prepare ourselves for this also, to be capable of being self-sufficient and bearing our own company.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 3, Chapter 13.6
Post: How to Be Confident Like a Stoic
“First tell yourself what sort of man you want to be; then act accordingly in all you do.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 3, Chapter 23.1
Post: How to Be Confident Like a Stoic
The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 29
“The essence of the good is a certain disposition of our choice, and the essence of evil likewise.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 29.1
Post: Where is the Good Life Found, How to Practice the Stoic Discipline of Action
“What are externals, then? Materials for the faculty of choice, in the management of which it will attain its own good or evil. How, then, will it attain the good? If it does not admire the materials themselves: for its judgments about the materials, if they are correct, make our choice good, and if they are distorted and perverse, make it bad.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 29.2-3
Post: Where is the Good Life Found
“Then it is not really you that he is threatening? If I am persuaded that these things are nothing to me, not at all; but, if I am afraid about any of these things, it is me that he threatens.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 29.7
Post: Where is the Good Life Found
“Who is there left for me to fear? The man with power over what? Of things in my own power? Of these, no one is the master. Of things not in my power? And what are those to me?”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 29.8
Post: Where is the Good Life Found
“If you want anything good, get it from yourself.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 29.4
Post: Where is the Good Life Found
“Nothing else can overcome the power of choice but that itself.”
Post: Where is the Good Life Found
“But prove to me that one who holds inferior judgments can prevail over a man who is superior in his judgments. You never will prove it, nor anything like it: for the law of nature and of god is this: Let the better always be superior to the worse. In what? In that in which it is better.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 29.19
Post: Where is the Good Life Found
“But he bought a lamp at the price of being a thief, a rogue, and a brute. That seemed to him a good bargain.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 29.21
Post: Where is the Good Life Found
“I have learned to see that whatever happens, if it be outside the sphere of choice, is nothing to me.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 29.24
Post: Where is the Good Life Found
“Just as long as reason requires I should continue in this paltry body: when reason does so no longer, take it and good health to you. Only, let me not abandon it without due reason, or from mere feebleness, or on some casual pretext.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 29.28-29
Post: Where is the Good Life Found
“When you are unable to change a person’s view, recognize that he is a child, and clap your hands with him; or if you do not wish to do that, merely keep your silence.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 29.32
Post: Where is the Good Life Found
“These things we ought to remember, and when we are called to meet such difficulty, we should know that the time has come to show whether we have been well educated.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 29.3
Post: Where is the Good Life Found
The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 30
“When you appear before some man of authority, remember that there is another who looks down from above on what passes here, and that it is him whom you must please rather than this man.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 30.1
Post: How to Prepare for Life’s Difficulties
“In your school, what did you call exile, and prison, and chains, and death, and dishonour?
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 30.2-4
I called them indifferent things.
What, then, do you call them now? Have they changed in any way?
No.
Have you changed, then?
No.
Tell me, then what things are indifferent?
Things outside the sphere of choice.
Tell me also what follows.
Things outside the sphere of choice are nothing to me.
A right choice and a right use of impressions.
What was the end?
To Follow you.”
Post: How to Prepare for Life’s Difficulties
“Well, go in confidently, remembering all this: and you will see how it is for a young man who has studied what he ought to appear amongst men who have not.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 30.5
Post: How to Prepare for Life’s Difficulties
“I for my part, by the god, imagine you will have some such thoughts as there: ‘So many, such great preparations, why do we make them for nothing? Was this what power amounted to?”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 30.6
Post: How to Prepare for Life’s Difficulties
“Freedom is not secured by the fulfilment of people’s desires, but by the suppression of desire.”
Epictetus, Discourses, Book 4, Chapter 1.75
Post: 10 Epictetus Quotes on Temperance
“Is it possible for the man who desires any of those things that are in the power of others to be free from hindrance?”
Epictetus, Discourses, Book 4, Chapter 1.63
Post: 10 Epictetus Quotes on Temperance
“What is the first business of one who pursues philosophy? To cast away self-conceit. For it is impossible for any one to begin to learn what he thinks he knows.”
Epictetus, Discourses, Book 2, Chapter 17.1
Post: 10 Epictetus Quotes on Temperance
“You must be one man, either good or bad. You must cultivate either your own ruling faculty or externals, and apply yourself either to things within or those outside of you; that is, you must assume either the attitude of a philosopher or that of a layman.”
Epictetus, Discourses, Book 3, Chapter 15.13
Post: 10 Epictetus Quotes on Temperance
“Practice, for heaven’s sake, in little things; and thence proceed to greater.”
Epictetus, Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 18.18
Post: 10 Epictetus Quotes on Temperance
“If you want to make progress, put up with being thought foolish and stupid with regards to externals.”
Epictetus, Handbook, 13
Post: 10 Epictetus Quotes on Temperance, 10 Epictetus Quotes on Stoic Courage, 10 Epictetus Quotes on Stoic Masculinity, 10 Epictetus Quotes on Control
“Something is being passed around and comes to you: Put out your hand and take your share politely. It goes by: do not detain it. It has not yet come: Do not stretch your desire out towards it, but wait till it comes to you.”
Epictetus, Handbook, 15
Post: 10 Epictetus Quotes on Temperance
“The cause of fear in men is things; and whenever any person can either confer or take away these from another, then he becomes a cause of fear too.”
Epictetus, Discourses, Book 4, Chapter 1.85
Post: 10 Epictetus Quotes on Temperance
“In our power are choice, and all actions dependent on choice; not in our power, the body, the parts of the body, property, parents, brothers, children, country, and in short, all with whom we associate.”
Epictetus, Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 22.10
Post: 10 Epictetus Quotes on Self-Mastery
“If someone handed over your body to any one he met along he way, you would be angry. But are you not ashamed that you hand over your judgment to anyone who happens to come along, so that, if he abuses you, it is disturbed and confused?”
Epictetus, Handbook, 28
Post: 10 Epictetus Quotes on Self-Mastery
“No man is free who is not master of himself.”
Epictetus, Fragments, 35
Post: 10 Epictetus Quotes on Self-Mastery
“You can be invincible if you enter into no contest in which it is not in your power to conquer.”
Epictetus, Handbook, 19
Post: 10 Epictetus Quotes on Self-Mastery
“I [Zeus] have given you a certain portion of myself, this faculty of exerting the impulse to act and not to act, and desire and aversion, and, in a word, making proper use of impressions.”
Epictetus, Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 1.12
Post: What is Hegemonikon?
“You should, then, accept the material you are given and set to work on it.”
Epictetus, Discourses, Book 2, Chapter 5.22
Post: 10 Epictetus Quotes on Stoic Courage
“I must die: and must I die groaning too? Be fettered. Must it be lamenting too? – Exiled. Can anyone prevent me, then, from going with a smile and good cheer and serenity?”
Epictetus, Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 1.28
Post: 10 Epictetus Quotes on Stoic Courage
“First tell yourself what sort of man you want to be; then act accordingly in all you do.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 3, Chapter 23.1
Post: 10 Epictetus Quotes on Stoic Courage
“How much longer will you wait before you think yourself worthy of the best things and transgress in nothing the distinctions laid down by reason?”
Epictetus, Handbook, 51
Post: 10 Epictetus Quotes on Stoic Courage
“He [Zeus] has assigned to each man a director, his own personal daemon, and committed him to his guardianship; a director whose vigilance no slumbers interrupt, and whom no false reasoning can deceive.”
Epictetus Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 14.12
Post: What is Daimon?
“That man is free who lives as he wishes; who can be neither compelled, nor hindered, nor constrained; whose impulses are unimpeded, who attains his desires and does not fall into what he wants to avoid.”
Epictetus, Discourses, Book 4, Chapter 1.1
Post: 10 Epictetus Quotes on Stoic Masculinity
“If someone tells you that So-and-so is speaking ill of you, do not defend yourself against what has been said, but answer: ‘He did not know my other faults, for otherwise he would not have mentioned only these.’”
Epictetus, Handbook, 33
Post: 10 Epictetus Quotes on Stoic Masculinity
“If, instead of a man, a gentle and social creature, you have become a wild beast, dangerous, treacherous and liable to bite, have you lost nothing?”
Epictetus, Discourses, Book 2, Chapter 10.14
Post: 10 Epictetus Quotes on Stoic Masculinity
“Since he has harmed himself by wronging me, shall not I harm myself by wronging him?”
Epictetus, Discourses, Book 2, Chapter 10.26
Post: 10 Epictetus Quotes on Stoic Masculinity
“Remember that you are an actor in a play, which is as the author wants it to be: short, if he wants it to be short; long, if he wants it to be long. If he wants you to act a poor man, a cripple, a public official, or a private person, see that you act it with skill.”
Epictetus, Handbook, 17
Post: 10 Epictetus Quotes on Stoic Masculinity
“No great thing comes into being all of a sudden; not even a bunch of grapes or a fig does. If you tell me at this minute, ‘I want a fig’, I will answer you, ‘That requires time.’ Let the tree first blossom, then bear fruit, then let the fruit ripen.”
Epictetus, Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 15.7
Post: 10 Epictetus Quotes on Stoic Masculinity
“For freedom is not secured by the fulfilment of people’s desires, but by the suppression of desire.”
Epictetus, Discourses, Book 4, Chapter 1.175
Post: How to Practice the Stoic Discipline of Desire, 10 Epictetus Quotes on Control
“For the present, totally suppress desire: for, if you desire any of the things that are not up to us, you must necessarily be unfortunate; and none of the things which are up to us, and which it would be right to desire, is yet within your reach.”
Epictetus, Handbook, 2
Post: How to Practice the Stoic Discipline of Desire
“When you are struck by the impression of some pleasure, guard yourself, as with impressions generally, against being carried away by it; rather, let the matter await your leisure, and allow yourself a measure of delay.”
Epictetus, Handbook, 34
Post: How to Practice the Stoic Discipline of Desire
“Impression, wait for me a little. Let me see what you are and what you represent.”
Epictetus, Discourses, Book 2, Chapter 18.24
Post: What is Synkatathesis?
“But, in the first place, do not allow yourself to be carried away by its intensity: but say, ‘impression, wait for me a little. Let me see what you are, and what you represent. Let me test you.”
Epictetus, Discourses, Book 2, Chapter 18.24
Post: How to Practice the Stoic Discipline of Assent, What is Epoche?
“He was carried off to prison. The remark ‘He has fared ill’, is an addition that each man must make for himself.”
Epictetus, Discourses, Book 3, Chapter 8.5
Post: How to Practice the Stoic Discipline of Assent
“If you are on the council of any city, you should remember that you are a councillor; if a youth, a youth; if an old man, an old man. For each of these names, if rightly considered, always points to the acts appropriate to it.”
Epictetus, Discourses, Book 2, Chapter 10.10–11
Post: How to Practice the Stoic Discipline of Action
“What is a man? A part of a city, first, of that made up by gods which is a miniature of the universal city.”
Epictetus, Discourses, Book 2, Chapter 5.26
Post: How to Practice the Stoic Discipline of Action
“Since we cannot know beforehand what will happen, it is our duty to hold fast to things that are naturally more suited to be chosen, because that is what we are born to.”
Epictetus, Discourses, Book 2, Chapter 10.6
Post: How to Practice the Stoic Discipline of Action
“Remember that what is insulting is not the person who abuses or hits you, but the judgment that these things are insulting. So when someone irritates you, realize that it is your own opinion that has irritated you.”
Epictetus, Handbook, 20
Post: What is Ataraxia?
“We should have remembered how we react when we hear of this happening to others.”
Epictetus, Handbook, 26
Post: How to Practice Premeditatio Malorum?
“Death, for instance, is nothing terrible, or else it would have appeared so to Socrates too. But the terror lies in our own judgment about death, that death is terrible.”
Epictetus, Discourses, Book 2, Chapter 1.23
Post: How to Practice Memento Mori
“If you kiss your child, or your wife, say to yourself that it is a human being that you are kissing; and then you will not be disturbed if either of them dies.”
Epictetus, Handbook, 3
Post: How to Practice Memento Mori
“Day by day you must keep before your eyes death and exile.”
Epictetus, Handbook, 19
Post: How to Practice Memento Mori
“‘Are these your best possessions [body, gold, silver, clothes] or do you possess something else that is better than all of them?’ – ‘What do you mean?’ – ‘Something which makes use of these, and tests them and deliberates about each of them?’ – ‘What, do you mean the soul?’ – ‘You suppose right; for indeed I do mean that.’”
Epictetus, Discourses, Book 2, Chapter 12.20–22
Post: How to Practice the Dichotomy of Control
“For I am not eternal, but a man; a part of the whole, as an hour is of the day. Like an hour, I must come and, like an hour, must pass away.”
Epictetus, Discourses, Book 2, Chapter 5.13
Post: How to Practice the Stoic View From Above
“Remember that you must behave as at a banquet. Is something brought round to you? Put out your hand, and take a moderate share. Does it pass by you? Do not stop it. Is it not yet come? Do not yearn in desire towards it, but wait until it reaches you.”
Epictetus, The Handbook, 15
Post: 10 Epictetus Quotes on Control
“If it ever happens that you turn to external things in the desire to please some other person, realize that you have ruined your scheme of life.”
Epictetus, The Handbook, 23
Post: 10 Epictetus Quotes on Control
“You will fetter my leg; but not even Zeus himself can get the better of my choice.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 1.23
Post: 10 Epictetus Quotes on Control
“If you attach value to anything outside the sphere of choice, you destroy that choice.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 4, Chapter 4.23
Post: 10 Epictetus Quotes on Control
“I have submitted my impulses to god. Is it his will that I should have a fever? It is my will too. Is it his will that I should set out to get something? It is my will too. Is it his will that I should desire something? It is my will too. Is it his will that I should get something? It is mine too. That is not his will. It is not mine.”
Epictetus, Discourses, Book 4, Chapter 1.90
Post: How to Practice the Stoic Reserve Clause
“For not everything difficult or dangerous is suitable for training, but only that which is conducive to our achieving the task we set for ourselves. And what have we set ourselves to achieve? To have our desires and aversions free from hindrance. And what does that mean? Neither to fail to get what we aim at, nor to fall into what we would avoid.”
Epictetus, Discourses, Book 3, Chapter 12.3–4
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