"Do you then ponder how the supreme of human evils, the surest mark of the base and cowardly, is not death, but the fear of death? I urge you to discipline yourself against such fear, direct all your thinking, exercises, and reading this way - and you will know the only path to human freedom."
~ Epictetus, Discourses, 3.26.38-39
"I tell you, you only have to learn to live like the healthy person does . . . living with complete confidence. What confidence? The only one worth holding, in what is trustworthy, unhindered, and can't be taken away - your own reasoned choice."
~ Epictetus, Discourses, 3.26.23b-24
"Keep death and exile before your eyes each day, along with everything that seems terrible - by doing so, you'll never have a base thought nor will you have excessive desire."
~ Epictetus, Enchiridion, 21
"Anything that can be prevented, taken away, or coerced is not a person's own - but those things that can't be blocked are their own."
~ Epictetus, Discourses, 3.24.3
"Philosophy doe not claim to get a person any external possession. To do so would be beyond its proper field. As wood is to the carpenter, bronze is to the sculptor, so our own lives are the proper material in the art of living."
~ Epictetus, Discourses, 1.15.2
"Whenever you experience the pangs of losing something, don't treat it like part of yourself but as a breakable glass, so when it falls you will remember that and won't be troubled. So too, whenever you kiss your child, sibling, or friend, don't layer on top of the experience all the things you might wish, but hold them back and stop them, just as those who ride behind triumphant generals remind them they are mortal. In the same way, remind yourself that your precious one isn't one of your possessions, but something given for now, not forever . . ."
~ Epictetus, Discourses, 3.24.84-86a
"In short, you must remember this - that if you hold anything dear outside of your own reasoned choice, you will have destroyed your capacity for choice."
~ Epictetus, Discourses, 4.4.23
"For any challenge we should hold three thoughts at our command:
'Lead on God and Destiny,
To that Goal fixed for me long ago,
I will follow and not stumble; even if my will
is weak I will soldier on.'"
~ Cleanthes
"Whoever embraces necessity count as wise, skilled in divine matters."
~ Euripides
"If it pleases the gods, so be it. They may well kill me, but they can't hurt me."
~ Plato's Crito and Apology
Cited by Epictetus, Enchiridion, 53
"He was sent to prison. But the observation, 'he has suffered evil,' is an addition coming from you."
~ Epictetus, Discourses, 3.8.5b-6a
"Remember that you are just an actor in a play, playing a character according to the will of the playwright - if a short play, then it's short; if long, long. If he wishes you to play a beggar, play even that role well, just as you would if it were a cripple, a honcho, or an everyday person. For this is your duty, to perform well the character assigned to you. That selection belongs to another,"
~ Epictetus, Enchiridion, 17
"Don't trust in your reputation, money, or position, but in the strength that is yours - namely, your judgments about the things that you control and don't control. For this alone is what makes you free and unfettered, that picks us up by the neck from the depths and lifts us eye to eye with the rich and powerful."
~ Epictetus, Discourses, 3.26.34-35
"But I haven't at any time been hindered in my will, nor forced against it. And how is this possible? I have bound up my choice to act with the will of God. God wills that I be sick, such is my will. He wills that I should choose something, so I do. He wills that I reach for something, or something be given to me - I wish for the same. What God doesn't will, I do not wish for."
~ Epictetus, Discourses, 4.1.89
"Don't seek for everything to happen as you wish it would, but rather wish that everything happens as it actually will - then your life will flow well."
~ Epictetus, Enchiridion, 8
"It is easy to praise providence for anything that may happen if you have two qualities: a complete view of what has actually happened in each instance and a sense of gratitude. Without gratitude what is the point of seeing, and without seeing what is the object of gratitude?"
~ Epictetus, Discourses, 1.6.1-2
"What, then, makes a person free from hindrance and self-determining? For wealth doesn't. neither does high-office, state or kingdom - rather, something else must be found . . . in the case of living, it is the knowledge of how to live."
~ Epictetus, Discourses, 4.1.62-64
"Since habit is such a powerful influence, and we're used to pursuing our impulses to gain and avoid outside of our own choice, we should set a contrary habit against that, and where appearances are really slippery, use the counterforce of our training."
~ Epictetus, Discourses, 3.12.6
"When the standards have been set, things are tested and weighed. And the work of philosophy is just this, to determine and uphold the standards, but the work of a truly good person is in using those standards when they know them."
~ Epictetus, Discourses, 2.11.23-25
"How appropriate that the gods put under our control only the most powerful ability that governs all the rest - the ability to make the right use of external appearances - and that they didn't put anything else under our control. Was this simply because they weren't willing to give us more? I think if it had been possible they would have given us more, but it was impossible."
~ Epictetus, Discourses, 1.1.7-8
"Difficulties show a person's character. So when a challenge confronts you, remember that God is matching you with a younger sparring partner, as would a physical trainer. Why? Becoming an Olympian takes sweat! I think no one has a better challenge than yours, if only you would use it like an athlete would that younger sparring partner."
~ Epictetus, Meditations, 1.24.1-2
"No, it is events that give rise to fear - when another has power over them or can prevent them, that person becomes able to inspire fear. How is the fortress destroyed? Not by iron or fire, but by judgments . . . here is where we must begin, and it is from this front that we must seize the fortress and throw out the tyrants."
~ Epictetus, Discourses, 4.1.85-86; 87a
"Consider who you are. Above all, a human being, carrying no greater power than your own reasoned choice, which oversees all other things, and is free from any other master."
~ Epictetus, Discourses, 2.10.1
