"The flourishing life cannot be achieved until we moderate our desires and see how superficial and fleeting they are."
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Quote collection
Epictetus quotes (page 17 of 24)
467 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"We should not have either a blunt knife or a freedom of speech which is ill-managed."
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"What else can I do, a lame old man, but sing hymns to God? If I were a nightingale, I would do the nightingale's part; if I were a swan, I would do as a swan. But now I am a rational creature, and I ought to praise God. This is my work. I do it, nor will I desert my post, so long as I am allowed to keep it. And I ask you to join me in this same song."
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"If you do not wish to be prone to anger, do not feed the habit; give it nothing which may tend to its increase. At first, keep quiet and count the days when you were not angry: "I used to be angry every day, then every other day: next, every two, then every three days!" and if you succeed in passing thirty days, sacrifice to the gods in thanksgiving."
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"Never look for your work in one place and your progress in another."
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"To the rational being only the irrational is unendurable, but the rational is endurable."
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"It is not the events but our viewpoint toward events that is the determining factor. We ought to be more concerned about removing wrong thoughts from the mind than removing tumors and abscesses from the body."
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"If we are not stupid or insincere when we say that the good or ill of man lies within his own will, and that all beside is nothing to us, why are we still troubled?"
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"If you have assumed a character above your strength, you have both acted in this matter in an unbecoming way, and you have neglected that which you might have fulfilled."
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"A man that seeks truth and loves it must be reckoned precious to any human society."
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"Every habit and faculty is preserved and increased by correspondent actions, as the habit of walking, by walking; of running, by running."
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"If your heart is quite set upon a crown, make and put on one of roses, for it will make the prettier appearance."
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""But to be hanged - is that not unendurable?" Even so, when a man feels that it is reasonable, he goes off and hangs himself."
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"If you have anything better to be doing when death overtakes you, get to work on that."
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"God has entrusted me with myself. No man is free who is not master of himself. A man should so live that his happiness shall depend as little as possible on external things. The world turns aside to let any man pass who knows where he is going."
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"Man is not fully free unless he is master of himself."
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"Asked, Who is the rich man? Epictetus replied, �He who is content."
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"Wherever I go it will be well with me, for it was well with me here, not on account of the place, but of my judgments which I shall carry away with me, for no one can deprive me of these; on the contrary, they alone are my property, and cannot be taken away, and to possess them suffices me wherever I am or whatever I do."
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"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."
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"There is nothing good or evil save in the will."
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