Top 500 Epictetus Quotes (2025 Update)
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151. “Let death be daily before your eyes, and you will never entertain any abject thought, nor too eagerly covet anything.”

— Epictetus

152. “Forgiveness is better than revenge, for forgiveness is the sign of a gentle nature, but revenge is the sign of a savage nature. the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace.”

— Epictetus

153. “All religions must be tolerated for every man must get to heaven in his own way.”

— Epictetus

154. “Circumstances do not rise to meet our expectations. Events happen as they do. People behave as they are. Embrace what you actually get.”

— Epictetus

155. “No matter where you find yourself, comport yourself as if you were a distinguished person.”

— Epictetus

156. “Authentic happiness is always independent of external conditions.”

— Epictetus

157. “Have the wisdom to know what cannot be changed, and the strength to change what can.”

— Epictetus

158. “We should do everything both cautiously and confidently at the same time.”

— Epictetus

159. “If you have anything better to be doing when death overtakes you, get to work on that.”

— Epictetus

160. “To a longer and worse life, a shorter and better is by all means to be preferred.”

— Epictetus

161. “A half-hearted spirit has no power. Tentative efforts lead to tentative outcomes. Average people enter into their endeavors headlong and without care.”

— Epictetus

162. “Do not seek for things to happen the way you want them to; rather, wish that what happens happen the way it happens: then you will be happy.”

— Epictetus

163. “Is freedom anything else than the right to live as we wish? Nothing else.”

— Epictetus

164. “Remember, it is not enough to be hit or insulted to be harmed, you must believe that you are being harmed. If someone succeeds in provoking you, realize that your mind is complicit in the provocation. Which is why it is essential that we not respond impulsively to impressions; take a moment before reacting, and you will find it easier to maintain control.”

— Epictetus

165. “I am always content with what happens; for I know that what God chooses is better than what I choose.”

— Epictetus

166. “Your master is he who controls that on which you have set your heart or wish to avoid.”

— Epictetus

167. “A ship should not be held by a single anchor; neither should life depend upon a single hope.”

— Epictetus

168. “Restrict yourself to choice and refusal; and exercise them carefully, with discipline and detachment.”

— Epictetus

169. “Your happiness depends on three things, all of which are within your power: your will, your ideas concerning the events in which you are involved, and the use you make of your ideas.”

— Epictetus

170. “Don’t consent to be hurt and you won’t be hurt – this is a choice over which you have control.”

— Epictetus

171. “Nature hath given men one tongue but two ears, that we may hear from others twice as much as we speak.”

— Epictetus

172. “Act well your given part; the choice rests not with you.”

— Epictetus

173. “One of the best ways to elevate your character is to emulate worthy role models.”

— Epictetus

174. “When you close your doors, and make darkness within, remember never to say that you are alone, for you are not alone; nay, God is within, and your genius is within. And what need have they of light to see what you are doing?”

— Epictetus

175. “Unremarkable lives are marked by the fear of not looking capable when trying something new.”

— Epictetus

176. “It is no easy thing for a principle to become a man’s own unless each day he maintains it and works it out in his life.”

— Epictetus

177. “Make it your business to draw out the best in others by being an exemplar yourself.”

— Epictetus

178. “When someone is properly grounded in life, they shouldn’t have to look outside themselves for approval.”

— Epictetus

179. “It takes more than just a good looking body. You’ve got to have the heart and soul to go with it.”

— Epictetus

180. “It is not death or pain that is to be dreaded, but the fear of pain or death.”

— Epictetus

181. “Silence is safer than speech.”

— Epictetus

182. “Nothing is in reality either pleasant or unpleasant by nature but all things become so through habit.”

— Epictetus

183. “If a person had delivered up your body to some passer-by, you would certainly be angry. And do you feel no shame in delivering up your own mind to any reviler, to be disconcerted and confounded?”

— Epictetus

184. “Men are not worried by things, but by their ideas about things. When we meet with difficulties, become anxious or troubled, let us not blame others, but rather ourselves. That is: our ideas about things.”

— Epictetus

185. “The people have a right to the truth as they have a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

— Epictetus

186. “Everything has two handles,-one by which it may be borne; another by which it cannot.”

— Epictetus

187. “It is impossible that happiness, and yearning for what is not present, should ever be united.”

— Epictetus

188. “Whoever then wishes to be free, let him neither wish for anything nor avoid anything which depends on others: if he does not observe this rule, he must be a slave.”

— Epictetus

189. “There is but one way to tranquility of mind and happiness, and that is to account no external things thine own, but to commit all to God.”

— Epictetus

190. “Whenever you are angry, be assured that it is not only a present evil, but that you have increased a habit.”

— Epictetus

191. “Man is disturbed not by things, but by the views he takes of them.”

— Epictetus

192. “It is not he who reviles or strikes you who insults you, but your opinion that these things are insulting.”

— Epictetus

193. “If you see anybody wail and complain, call him a slave, though he be clad in purple.”

— Epictetus

194. “By accepting life’s limits and inevitabilities and working with them rather than fighting them, we become free.”

— Epictetus

195. “From now on practice saying to everything that appears unpleasant: You are merely an appearance and NOT what you appear to be.”

— Epictetus

196. “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.”

— Epictetus

197. “Why, do you not know, then, that the origin of all human evils, and of baseness, and cowardice, is not death, but rather the fear of death?”

— Epictetus

198. “You may be always victorious if you will never enter into any contest where the issue does not wholly depend upon yourself.”

— Epictetus

199. “Ruin and recovering are both from within.”

— Epictetus

200. “No man is able to make progress when he is wavering between opposite things.”

— Epictetus