Top 500 Epictetus Quotes (2026 Update)
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351. “To adorn our characters by the charm of an amiable nature shows at once a lover of beauty and a lover of man.”

— Epictetus

352. “Do nothing in a depressed mood, nor as one afflicted, nor as thinking that you are in misery, for no one compels you to that.”

— Epictetus

353. “When one maintains his proper attitude in life, he does not long after externals.”

— Epictetus

354. “No, I cannot escape death, but at least I can escape the fear of it – or do I have to die moaning and groaning too?”

— Epictetus

355. “Watch yourself as you go about your daily business and later reflect on what you saw, trying to identify the sources of distress in your life and thinking about how to avoid that distress.”

— Epictetus

356. “Is it not the same distance to God everywhere?”

— Epictetus

357. “So what oppresses and scares us? It is our own thoughts, obviously.”

— Epictetus

358. “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

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

— Epictetus

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

— Epictetus

361. “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

362. “We all dread a bodily paralysis, and would make use of every contrivance to avoid it; but none of us is troubled about a paralysis of the soul.”

— Epictetus

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

— Epictetus

364. “Give me by all means the shorter and nobler life, instead of one that is longer but of less account!”

— Epictetus

365. “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.”

— Epictetus

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

— Epictetus

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

— Epictetus

368. “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

369. “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

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

— Epictetus

371. “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

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

— Epictetus

373. “Ask not that events should happen as you will, but let your will be that events should happen that you will have peace.”

— Epictetus

374. “It is better to starve to death in a calm and confident state of mind than to live anxiously amidst abundance. And.”

— Epictetus

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

— Epictetus

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

— Epictetus

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

— Epictetus

378. “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

379. “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

380. “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

381. “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

382. “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

383. “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

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

— Epictetus

385. “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

386. “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

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

— Epictetus

388. “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

389. “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

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

— Epictetus

391. “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

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

— Epictetus

393. “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

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

— Epictetus

395. “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

396. “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

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

— Epictetus

398. “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

399. “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

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

— Epictetus