Top 500 Epictetus Quotes (2025 Update)
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451. “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.”

— Epictetus

452. “For where you find unrest, grief, fear, frustrated desire, failed aversion, jealousy and envy, happiness has no room for admittance. And where values are false, these passions inevitably follow.”

— Epictetus

453. “So if you like doing something, do it regularly; if you don’t like doing something, make a habit of doing something different.”

— Epictetus

454. “In the long run, every man will pay the penalty for this own misdeeds.”

— Epictetus

455. “For I am not Eternity, but a human being – a part of the whole, as an hour is part of the day. I must come like the hour, and like the hour must pass!”

— Epictetus

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

— Epictetus

457. “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 to 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.”

— Epictetus

458. “Above all, remember that the door stands open. Be not more fearful than children; but as they, when they weary of the game, cry, “I will play no more,” even so, when thou art in the like case, cry, “I will play no more” and depart. But if thou stayest, make no lamentation.”

— Epictetus

459. “You ought to realize, you take up very little space in the world as a whole – your body, that is; in reason, however, you yield to no one, not even to the gods, because reason is not measured in size but sense. So why not care for that side of you, where you and the gods are equals?”

— Epictetus

460. “There is nothing good or evil save in the will.”

— Epictetus

461. “So what oppresses and scares us? It is our own thoughts, obviously, What overwhelms people when they are about to leaves friends, family, old haunts and their accustomed way of life? Thoughts.”

— Epictetus

462. “When you do anything from a clear judgment that it ought to be done, never shun the being seen to do it, even though the world should make a wrong supposition about it; for, if you don’t act right, shun the action itself; but, if you do, why are you afraid of those who censure you wrongly?”

— Epictetus

463. “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.”

— Epictetus

464. “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. Thus, therefore, do you likewise not show theorems to the unlearned, but the actions produced by them after they have been digested. 47.”

— Epictetus

465. “Do not laugh much or often or unrestrainedly.”

— Epictetus

466. “Here are thieves and robbers and tribunals: and they that are called tyrants, who deem that they have after a fashion power over us, because of the miserable body and what appertains to it. Let us show them that they have power over none.”

— Epictetus

467. “There are some faults which men readily admit, but others not so readily.”

— Epictetus

468. “Any one thing in the creation is sufficient to demonstrate a Providence to a humble and grateful mind.”

— Epictetus

469. “An uninstructed person will lay the fault of his own bad condition upon others. Someone just starting instruction will lay the fault on himself. Some who is perfectly instructed will place blame neither on others nor on himself.”

— Epictetus

470. “The soul is like the bowl of water, with the soul’s impressions like the rays of light that strike the water. Now, if the water is disturbed, the light appears to be disturbed together with it – though of course it is not. So when someone loses consciousness, it is not the person’s knowledge and virtues that are impaired, it is the breath that contains them. Once the breath returns to normal, knowledge and the virtues are restored to normal also.”

— Epictetus

471. “In literature, too, it is not great achievement to memorize what you have read while not formulating an opinion of your own.”

— Epictetus

472. “For if we had any sense, what else should we do, both in public and in private, than sing hymns and praise the deity, and recount all the favours that he has conferred!”

— Epictetus

473. “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.”

— Epictetus

474. “I cannot call somebody ‘hard-working’ knowing only that they read and write. Even if ‘all night long’ is added, I cannot say it – not until I know the focus of all this energy.”

— Epictetus

475. “Who is not attracted by bright and pleasant children, to prattle, to creep, and to play with them?”

— Epictetus

476. “Ask yourself, “How are my thoughts, words and deeds affecting my friends, my spouse, my neighbour, my child, my employer, my subordinates, my fellow citizens?””

— Epictetus

477. “Whenever anyone criticizes or wrongs you, remember that they are only doing or saying what they think is right. They cannot be guided by your views, only their own; so if their views are wrong, they are the ones who suffer insofar as they are misguided.”

— Epictetus

478. “We should realize that an opinion is not easily formed unless a person says and hears the same things every day and practises them in real life.”

— Epictetus

479. “None of these things are foretold to me; but either to my paltry body, or property, or reputation, or children, or wife. But to me all omens are lucky, if I will. For whichever of these things happens, it is in my control to derive advantage from it.”

— Epictetus

480. “With ills unending strives the putter off.”

— Epictetus

481. “We tell lies, yet it is easy to show that lying is immoral.”

— Epictetus

482. “We must consider what is the time for singing, what the time for play, and in whose presence: what will be unsuited to the occasion; whether our companions are to despise us, or we to despise ourselves: when to jest, and whom to mock at: and on what occasion to be conciliatory and to whom: in a word, how one ought to maintain one’s character in society. Wherever you swerve from any of these principles, you suffer loss at once; not loss from without, but issuing from the very act itself.”

— Epictetus

483. “We ought to flee the friendship of the wicked, and the enmity of the good.”

— Epictetus

484. “People with a strong physical constitution can tolerate extremes of hot and cold; people of strong mental health can handle anger, grief, joy and the other emotions.”

— Epictetus

485. “At feasts, remember that you are entertaining two guests, body and soul. What you give to the body, you presently lose; what you give to the soul, you keep for ever.”

— Epictetus

486. “The soul’s impurity consists in bad judgments, and purification consists in producing in it right judgments, and the pure soul is one which has right judgments.”

— Epictetus

487. “Things and people are not what we wish them to be nor what they seem to be. They are what they are.”

— Epictetus

488. “To the rational being only the irrational is unendurable, but the rational is endurable.”

— Epictetus

489. “Every circumstance comes with two handles, which one of which you can hold it, while with the other conditions are insupportable.”

— Epictetus

490. “Exceed due measure, and the most delightful things become the least delightful.”

— Epictetus

491. “It is better to advise than upbraid, for the one corrects the erring; the other only convicts them.”

— Epictetus

492. “It doesn’t take much to lose everything, just a little departure from reason.”

— Epictetus

493. “Lucky is the man who dies at work.”

— Epictetus

494. “Unless we place our religion and our treasure in the same thing, religion will always be sacrificed.”

— Epictetus

495. “Maak er van meet af aan een goede gewoonte van tegen elke pijnlijke indruk van buitenaf te zeggen: ‘Jij bent niet meer dan een indruk! Jij bent heel anders dan je je voordoet!”

— Epictetus

496. “That is the way things are weighed and disagreements settled – when standards are established. Philosophy aims to test and set such standards. And the wise man is advised to make use of their findings right way.”

— Epictetus

497. “Were I a nightingale, I would act the part of a nightingale; were I a swan, the part of a swan.”

— Epictetus

498. “A soul that makes virtue its companion is like an over-flowing well, for it is clean and pellucid, sweet and wholesome, open to all, rich, blameless and indestructible.”

— Epictetus

499. “People are ready to acknowledge some of their faults, but will admit to others only with reluctance.”

— Epictetus

500. “If then all things that grow, nay, our own bodies, are thus bound up with the whole, is not this still truer of our souls? And if our souls are bound up and in contact with God, as being very parts and fragments plucked from Himself, shall He not feel every movement of theirs as though it were His own, and belonging to His own nature?”

— Epictetus