45 Quotes By Epictetus


It takes more than just a good looking body. You've got to have the heart and soul to go with it.
Epictetus on health

Be careful to leave your sons well instructed rather than rich, for the hopes of the instructed are better than the wealth of the ignorant.
Epictetus on hope

Neither should a ship rely on one small anchor, nor should life rest on a single hope.
Epictetus on hope

We should not moor a ship with one anchor, or our life with one hope.
Epictetus on hope

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

Men are disturbed not by things, but by the view which they take of them.
Epictetus on men

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

Only the educated are free.
Epictetus on motivational

It is the nature of the wise to resist pleasures, but the foolish to be a slave to them.
Epictetus on nature

If virtue promises happiness, prosperity and peace, then progress in virtue is progress in each of these for to whatever point the perfection of anything brings us, progress is always an approach toward it.
Epictetus on peace

Make the best use of what is in your power, and take the rest as it happens.
Epictetus on power

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

Unless we place our religion and our treasure in the same thing, religion will always be sacrificed.
Epictetus on religion

Not every difficult and dangerous thing is suitable for training, but only that which is conducive to success in achieving the object of our effort.
Epictetus on success

No greater thing is created suddenly, any more than a bunch of grapes or a fig. If you tell me that you desire a fig, I answer you that there must be time. Let it first blossom, then bear fruit, then ripen.
Epictetus on time

Nothing great is created suddenly, any more than a bunch of grapes or a fig. If you tell me that you desire a fig. I answer you that there must be time. Let it first blossom, then bear fruit, then ripen.
Epictetus on time

If you seek truth you will not seek victory by dishonorable means, and if you find truth you will become invincible.
Epictetus on truth

It is the nature of the wise to resist pleasures, but the foolish to be a slave to them.
Epictetus on wisdom

To accuse others for one's own misfortunes 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.
Epictetus on adversity

Common and vulgar people ascribe all ills that they feel to others; people of little wisdom ascribe to themselves; people of much wisdom, to no one.
Epictetus on adversity