Top 500 Epictetus Quotes (2025 Update)
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351. “So what oppresses and scares us? It is our own thoughts, obviously.”

— Epictetus

352. “If I can acquire money and also keep myself modest and faithful and magnanimous, point out the way, and I will acquire it.”

— Epictetus

353. “The knowledge of what is mine and what is not mine, what I can and cannot do. I must die. But must I die bawling? I must be exiled; but is there anything to keep me from going with a smile, calm and self-composed?”

— Epictetus

354. “Bid a singer in a chorus, Know Thyself; and will he not turn for the knowledge to the others, his fellows in the chorus, and to his harmony with them?”

— Epictetus

355. “I have learned to see that whatever comes about is nothing to me if it lies beyond the sphere of choice.”

— Epictetus

356. “What is it that every man seeks? To be secure, to be happy, to do what he pleases without restraint and without compulsion.”

— Epictetus

357. “Try to enjoy the great festival of life with other men!”

— Epictetus

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

— Epictetus

359. “In banquets remember that you entertain two guests, body and soul: and whatever you shall have given to the body you soon eject: but what you shall have given to the soul, you keep always.”

— Epictetus

360. “The good or ill of a man lies within his own will.”

— Epictetus

361. “Never in any case say I have lost such a thing, but I have returned it. Is your child dead? It is a return. Is your wife dead? It is a return. Are you deprived of your estate? Is not this also a return?”

— Epictetus

362. “If I was a nightingale I would sing like a nightingale; if a swan, like a swan. But since I am a rational creature my role is to praise God.”

— Epictetus

363. “These are the signs of a wise man: to reprove nobody, to praise nobody, to blame nobody, nor even to speak of himself or his own merits.”

— Epictetus

364. “Sick and yet happy, in peril and yet happy, dying and yet happy, in exile and happy, in disgrace and happy.”

— Epictetus

365. “Don’t be prideful with any excellence that is not your own.”

— Epictetus

366. “Whenever externals are more important to you than your own integrity, then be prepared to serve them the remainder of your life.”

— Epictetus

367. “Who are those people by whom you wish to be admired? Are they not these whom you are in the habit of saying that they are mad? What then? Do you wish to be admired by the mad?”

— Epictetus

368. “Liars are the cause of all the sins and crimes in the world.”

— Epictetus

369. “Those who are well constituted in the body endure both heat and cold: and so those who are well constituted in the soul endure both anger and grief and excessive joy and the other affects.”

— Epictetus

370. “It is the act of an ill-instructed man to blame others for his own bad condition; it is the act of one who has begun to be instructed, to lay the blame on himself; and of one whose instruction is completed, neither to blame another, nor himself.”

— Epictetus

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

— Epictetus

372. “Whoever then would be free, let him wish for nothing, let him decline nothing, which depends on others; else he must necessarily be a slave.”

— Epictetus

373. “Don’t concern yourself with other people’s business. It’s his problem if he receives you badly. And you cannot suffer for another person’s fault. So don’t worry about the behavior of other.”

— Epictetus

374. “Seek not for events to happen as you wish but rather wish for events to happen as they do and your life will go smoothly.”

— Epictetus

375. “Those proficient praise no one, blame no one, and accuse no one. They say nothing concerning their self as being anybody or knowing anything.”

— Epictetus

376. “What is death? A scary mask. Take it off-see, it doesn’t bite.”

— Epictetus

377. “Don’t put your purpose in one place and expect to see progress made somewhere else.”

— Epictetus

378. “Nothing important comes into being overnight; even grapes and figs need time to ripen. If you say that you want a fig now, I will tell you to be patient. First, you must allow the tree to flower, then put forth fruit; then you have to wait until the fruit is ripe. So if the fruit of a fig tree is not brought to maturity instantly or in an hour, how do you expect the human mind to come to fruition, so quickly and easily?”

— Epictetus

379. “Never praise or blame people on common grounds; look to their judgements exclusively. Because that is the determining factor, which makes everyone’s actions either good or bad.”

— Epictetus

380. “If you wish it, you are free; if you wish it, you’ll find fault with no one, you’ll cast blame on no one, and everything that comes about will do so in accordance with your own will and that of God.”

— Epictetus

381. “A vulgar man, in any ill that happens to him, blames others; a novice in philosophy blames himself; and a philosopher blames neither, the one nor the other.”

— Epictetus

382. “When a man is proud because he can understand and explain the writings of Chrysippus, say to yourself, ‘if Chrysippus had not written obscurely, this man would have had nothing to be proud of.’”

— Epictetus

383. “Not things, but opinions about things, trouble men.”

— Epictetus

384. “Crows pick out the eyes of the dead, when the dead have no longer need of them; but flatterers mar the soul of the living, and her eyes they blind.”

— Epictetus

385. “For you will learn by experience that it’s true: the things that men admire and work so hard to get prove useless to them once they’re theirs.”

— Epictetus

386. “Sickness is a problem for the body, not the mind – unless the mind decides that it is a problem. Lameness, too, is the body’s problem, not the mind’s. Say this to yourself whatever the circumstance and you will find without fail that the problem pertains to something else, not to you.”

— Epictetus

387. “You will never have to experience defeat if you avoid contests whose outcome is outside your control.”

— Epictetus

388. “What is a child? Ignorance. What is a child? Want of instruction.”

— Epictetus

389. “There is only one thing for which God has sent me into the world, and that is to develop every kind of virtue or strength, and there is nothing in all the world that I cannot use for this purpose.”

— Epictetus

390. “Behold the birth of tragedy: when idiots come face to face with the vicissitudes of life.”

— Epictetus

391. “In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace.”

— Epictetus

392. “It is more necessary for the soul to be cured than the body; for it is better to die than to live badly.”

— Epictetus

393. “No one is ever unhappy because of someone else.”

— Epictetus

394. “If we are not stupid or insincere when we say that the good or ill of man lies within his own will, and that all beside is nothing to us, why are we still troubled?”

— Epictetus

395. “There are two things that must be rooted out in human beings – arrogant opinion and mistrust. Arrogant opinion expects that there is nothing further needed, and mistrust assumes that under the torrent of circumstance there can be no happiness.”

— Epictetus

396. “They may kill me, but they cannot hurt me. – Socrates.”

— Epictetus

397. “As you travel the path of philosophy, be content to be considered plain or even foolish. Do not strive to be celebrated for anything. If you are praised by others, be skeptical of yourself. For it it is no easy feat to hold onto your inner harmony while collecting accolades. When grasping for one, you are likely to drop the other.”

— Epictetus

398. “In short, we do not abandon any discipline for despair of ever being the best in it.”

— Epictetus

399. “When the idea of any pleasure strikes your imagination, make a just computation between the duration of the pleasure and that of the repentance that is likely to follow it.”

— Epictetus

400. “I have a bad neighbour – bad, that is, for himself. For me, though, he is good: he exercises my powers of fairness and sociability.”

— Epictetus