These reasonings are unconnected: “I am richer than you, therefore I am better”; “I am more eloquent than you, therefore I am better.” The connection is rather this: “I am richer than you, therefore my property is greater than yours;” “I am more eloquent than you, therefore my style is better than yours.” But you, after all, are neither property nor style.

People are not disturbed by things, but by the view they take of them.

A thing either is what it appears to be; or it is not, but yet appears to be; or it is, but does not appear to be; or it is not, and does not appear to be.

Is freedom anything else than the power of living as we choose? Nothing else. Tell me then, you men, do you wish to live in error? We do not. No one who lives in error is free. Do you wish to live in fear? Do you wish to live in sorrow? Do you wish to live in tension? By no means. No one who is in a state of fear or sorrow or tension is free, but whoever is delivered from sorrows or fears or anxieties, he is at the same time also delivered from servitude.

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.

We need to regularly stop and take stock; to sit down and determine within ourselves which things are worth valuing and which things are not; which risks are worth the cost and which are not. Even the most confusing or hurtful aspects of life can be made more tolerable by clear seeing and by choice.

Men, believing in myths, will always fear something terrible, everlasting punishment as certain or probable . . . Men base all these fears not on mature opinions, but on irrational fancies, that they are more disturbed by fear of the unknown than by facing facts. Peace of mind lies in being delivered from all these fears.

The noble soul occupies itself with wisdom and friendship.

I have never wished to cater to the crowd; for what I know they do not approve, and what they approve I do not know.

It is better for you to be free of fear lying upon a pallet, than to have a golden couch and a rich table and be full of trouble.

Only the just man enjoys peace of mind.

A strict belief in fate is the worst of slavery, imposing upon our necks an everlasting lord and tyrant, whom we are to stand in awe of night and day.

The time when most of you should withdraw into yourself is when you are forced to be in a crowd.

Be moderate in order to taste the joys of life in abundance.

Man was not intended by nature to live in communities and be civilized.

Pleasure is the first good. It is the beginning of every choice and every aversion. It is the absence of pain in the body and of troubles in the soul.

Vain is the word of a philosopher which does not heal any suffering of man. For just as there is no profit in medicine if it does not expel the diseases of the body, so there is no profit in philosophy either, if it does not expel the suffering of the mind.

Death does not concern us, because as long as we exist, death is not here. And when it does come, we no longer exist.

I never desired to please the rabble. What pleased them, I did not learn; and what I knew was far removed from their understanding.

It is folly for a man to pray to the gods for that which he has the power to obtain by himself.

If thou wilt make a man happy, add not unto his riches but take away from his desires.

He who is not satisfied with a little, is satisfied with nothing.

Let no one be slow to seek wisdom when he is young nor weary in the search of it when he has grown old. For no age is too early or too late for the health of the soul.

He who needs riches least, enjoys riches most.

A man who causes fear cannot be free from fear.

If God listened to the prayers of men, all men would quickly have perished: for they are forever praying for evil against one another.

There is nothing terrible in life for the man who realizes there is nothing terrible in death.

Do everything like someone is gazing at you.

The misfortune of the wise is better than the prosperity of the fool

What saith Antisthenes? Hast thou never heard?— It is a kingly thing, O Cyrus, to do well and to be evil spoken of.

A city is not adorned by external things, but by the virtue of those who dwell in it

As a man, casting off worn out garments taketh new ones, so the dweller in the body, entereth into ones that are new.

Be free from grief not through insensibility like the irrational animals, nor through want of thought like the foolish, but like a man of virtue by having reason as the consolation of grief.

For sheep don’t throw up the grass to show the shepherds how much they have eaten; but, inwardly digesting their food, they outwardly produce wool and milk.

For it is not death or pain that is to be feared, but the fear of pain or death.

Do not get too attached to life] for it is like a sailor’s leave on the shore and at any time, the captain may sound the horn, calling you back to eternal darkness.

Everyone’s life is a warfare, and that long and various.

Never say that I have taken it, only that I have given it back.

Crows pick out the eyes of the dead, when the dead have no longer need of them; but flatterers mar the soul of the living, and her eyes they blind.

Those who are well constituted in the body endure both heat and cold: and so those who are well constituted in the soul endure both anger and grief and excessive joy and the other affects.

Keep the prospect of death, exile and all such apparent tragedies before you every day – especially death – and you will never have an abject thought, or desire anything to excess.

No person is free who is not master of himself.

Whoever then would be free, let him wish for nothing, let him decline nothing, which depends on others; else he must necessarily be a slave.

The philosopher’s school, ye men, is a surgery: you ought not to go out of it with pleasure, but with pain. For you are not in sound health when you enter.

An ignorant person is inclined to blame others for his own misfortune. To blame oneself is proof of progress. But the wise man never has to blame another or himself.

Freedom is not procured by a full enjoyment of what is desired, but by controlling the desire.

Men are disturbed not by the things which happen, but by the opinions about the things:

Nothing great comes into being all at once, for that is not the case even with a bunch of grapes or a fig. If you tell me now, ‘I want a fig,’ I’ll reply, ‘That takes time.

Take care not to hurt the ruling faculty of your mind. If you were to guard against this in every action, you should enter upon those actions more safely.

If thy brother wrongs thee, remember not so much his wrong-doing, but more than ever that he is thy brother.

What concerns me is not the way things are, but the way people think things are.

Men are disturbed not by the things that happen, but by their opinion of the things that happen.

No one is ever unhappy because of someone else.

What really frightens and dismays us is not external events themselves, but the way in which we think about them. It is not things that disturb us, but our interpretation of their significance.

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

In banquets remember that you entertain two guests, body and soul: and whatever you shall have given to the body you soon eject: but what you shall have given to the soul, you keep always.

Don’t live by your own rules, but in harmony with nature

Is freedom anything else than the right to live as we wish? Nothing else.

It is better to do wrong seldom and to own it, and to act right for the most part, than seldom to admit that you have done wrong and to do wrong often.

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.

We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak.

If you seek Truth, you will not seek to gain a victory by every possible means; and when you have found Truth, you need not fear being defeated.

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.

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

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

No man is free until he s a 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?

It is our attitude toward events, not events themselves, which we can control. Nothing is by its own nature calamitous — even death is terrible only if we fear it.

Difficulty shows what men are.

There is but one way to tranquility of mind and happiness, and that is to account no external things thine own, but to commit all to God.

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.

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

On the occasion of every accident that befalls you, remember to turn to yourself and inquire what power you have for turning it to use.

If you want to improve, you must be content to be thought foolish and stupid.

We must not believe the many, who say that only free people ought to be educated, but we should rather believe the philosophers who say that only the educated are free.

Men are not afraid of things, but of how they view them.

Control thy passions lest they take vengence on thee.

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

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.

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

Know you not that a good man does nothing for appearance sake, but for the sake of having done right?

It is better to die of hunger having lived without grief and fear, than to live with a troubled spirit, amid abundance

Demand not that things happen as you wish, but wish them to happen as they do, and you will go on well.

Small-minded people blame others. Average people blame themselves. The wise see all blame as foolishness

I must die. Must I then die lamenting? I must be put in chains. Must I then also lament? I must go into exile. Does any man then hinder me from going with smiles and cheerfulness and contentment?

Either God wants to abolish evil, and cannot; or he can, but does not want to.

Asked, Who is the rich man? Epictetus replied, “He who is content.

If you wish to be a writer, write.

It is not so much what happens to you as how you think about what happens.

Events do not just happen, but arrive by appointment.

We are not disturbed by what happens to us, but by our thoughts about what happens to us.

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

Preach not to others what they should eat, but eat as becomes you and be silent.

Know, first, who you are, and then adorn yourself accordingly.

A ship should not ride on a single anchor, nor life on a single hope

If evil be said of thee, and if it be true, correct thyself; if it be a lie, laugh at it.

Don’t seek to have events happen as you wish, but wish them to happen as they do happen, and all will be well with you.

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

Do not try to seem wise to others.

No man is free who is not master of himself.

He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has.

First learn the meaning of what you say, and then speak.

The greater the difficulty, the more glory in surmounting it. Skillful pilots gain their reputation from storms and tempests.

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.

You are a little soul carrying around a corpse

I laugh at those who think they can damage me. They do not know who I am, they do not know what I think, they cannot even touch the things which are really mine and with which I live.

Nature hath given men one tongue but two ears, that we may hear from others twice as much as we speak.

Circumstances don’t make the man, they only reveal him to himself.

To accuse others for one’s own misfortune is a sign of want of education. To accuse oneself shows that one’s education has begun. To accuse neither oneself nor others shows that one’s education is complete.

Only the educated are free.

It is impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows.

Freedom is the only worthy goal in life. It is won by disregarding things that lie beyond our control.

He who laughs at himself never runs out of things to laugh at.He who laughs at himself never runs out of things to laugh at.

Other people’s views and troubles can be contagious. Don’t sabotage yourself by unwittingly adopting negative, unproductive attitudes through your associations with others.

Any person capable of angering you becomes your master; he can anger you only when you permit yourself to be disturbed by him.

It’s not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters.

The key is to keep company only with people who uplift you, whose presence calls forth your best.

First say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to do.

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

There is only one way to happiness and that is to cease worrying about things which are beyond the power or our will.

Don’t explain your philosophy. Embody it.

Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants.

If anyone tells you that a certain person speaks ill of you, do not make excuses about what is said of you but answer, “He was ignorant of my other faults, else he would not have mentioned these alone.