Epictetus Quotes That Will Inspire You to Live Your Best Life

1. Don't just say you have read books. Show that through them you have learned to think better, to be a more discriminating and reflective person. Books are the training weights of the mind. They are very helpful, but it would be a bad mistake to suppose that one has made progress simply by having internalized their contents. The Art of Living: The Classical Manual on Virtue, Happiness and Effectiveness

2. For making a good voyage a pilot and wind are necessary: and for happiness, reason and art. Fragments

3. For sheep don't throw up the grass to show shepherds how much they have eaten; but, inwardly digest their food, they outwardly produce wool and milk. THE ART OF LIVING

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

5. 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?

6. It is much better to die of hunger unhindered by grief and fear than to live affluently beset with worry, dread, suspicion and unchecked desire.

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

8. Now is the time to get serious about living your ideals. How long can you afford to put off who you really want to be? Your nobler self cannot wait any longer.Put your principles into practice – now. Stop the excuses and the procrastination. This is your life! You aren’t a child anymore. The sooner you set yourself to your spiritual program, the happier you will be. The longer you wait, the more you’ll be vulnerable to mediocrity and feel filled with shame and regret, because you know you are capable of better.From this instant on, vow to stop disappointing yourself. Separate yourself from the mob. Decide to be extraordinary and do what you need to do – now. The Art of Living: The Classical Manual on Virtue, Happiness and Effectiveness

9. Show me one who is sick and yet happy, in peril and yet happy, dying and yet happy, in exile and happy, in disgrace and happy. Show him me. By the gods I would fain see a Stoic. Nay you cannot show me a finished Stoic; then show me one in the moulding, one who has set his feet on the path The Discourses of Epictetus : Classic Edition

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

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

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

13. When a youth was giving himself airs in the Theatre and saying, 'I am wise, for I have conversed with many wise men,' replied, 'I too have conversed with many rich men, yet I am not rich!’.

14. You only have to doze a moment, and all is lost. For ruin and salvation both have their source inside you.

15. 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. The Art of Living: The Classical Manual on Virtue, Happiness and Effectiveness

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

17. Don't explain your philosophy. Embody it.

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

19. For in this Case, we are not to give Credit to the Many, who say, that none ought to be educated but the Free; but rather to the Philosophers, who say, that the Well-educated alone are free. All the Works of Epictetus

20. God save me from fools with a little philosophy—no one is more difficult to reach. The Discourses

21. 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.

22. If you want to make progress, put up with being perceived as ignorant or naive in worldly matters, don't aspire to a reputation for sagacity. If you do impress others as somebody, don't altogether believe it. You have to realize, it isn't easy to keep your will in agreement with nature, as well as externals. Caring about the one inevitably means you are going to shortchange the other. The Art of Living: The Classical Manual on Virtue, Happiness and Effectiveness

23. 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.

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

25. Most of what passes for legitimate entertainment is inferior or foolish and only caters to or exploits people's weaknesses. Avoid being one of the mob who indulges in such pastimes. Your life is too short and you have important things to do. Be discriminating about what images and ideas you permit into your mind. If you yourself don't choose what thoughts and images you expose yourself to, someone else will, and their motives may not be the highest. It is the easiest thing in the world to slide imperceptibly into vulgarity. But there's no need for that to happen if you determine not to waste your time and attention on mindless pap. The Art of Living: The Classical Manual on Virtue, Happiness and Effectiveness

26. Now is the time to get serious about living your ideals. How long can you afford to put off who you really want to be? Your nobler self cannot wait any longer. Put your principles into practice – now. Stop the excuses and the procrastination. This is your life! You aren’t a child anymore. The sooner you set yourself to your spiritual program, the happier you will be. The longer you wait, the more you’ll be vulnerable to mediocrity and feel filled with shame and regret, because you know you are capable of better. From this instant on, vow to stop disappointing yourself. Separate yourself from the mob. Decide to be extraordinary and do what you need to do – now. The Art of Living: The Classical Manual on Virtue, Happiness and Effectiveness

27. Now is the time to get serious about living your ideals. How long can you afford to put off who you really want to be? Your nobler self cannot wait any longer.Put your principles into practice – now. Stop the excuses and the procrastination. This is your life! You aren’t a child anymore. The sooner you set yourself to your spiritual program, the happier you will be. The longer you wait, the more you’ll be vulnerable to mediocrity and feel filled with shame and regret, because you know you are capable of better.From this instant on, vow to stop disappointing yourself. Separate yourself from the mob. Decide to be extraordinary and do what you need to do – now. The Art of Living: The Classical Manual on Virtue, Happiness and Effectiveness

28. Philosophy does not claim to secure for us anything outside our control. Otherwise it would be taking on matters that do not concern it. For as wood is the material of the carpenter, and marble that of the sculptor, so the subject matter of the art of life is the life of the self. Discourses and Selected Writings

29. Philosophy does not promise to secure anything external for man, otherwise it would be admitting something that lies beyond its proper subject-matter. For as the material of the carpenter is wood, and that of statuary bronze, so the subject-matter of the art of living is each person's own life.

30. Remember to act always as if you were at a symposium. When the food or drink comes around, reach out and take some politely; if it passes you by don't try pulling it back. And if it has not reached you yet, don't let your desire run ahead of you, be patient until your turn comes. Adopt a similar attitude with regard to children, wife, wealth and status, and in time, you will be entitled to dine with the gods. Go further and decline these goods even when they are on offer and you will have a share in the gods' power as well as their company. That is how Diogenes, Heraclitus and philosophers like them came to be called, and considered, divine. The Art of Living: The Classical Manual on Virtue, Happiness and Effectiveness