Top 500 Epictetus Quotes (2025 Update)
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401. “Resistance is vain in any case; it only leads to useless struggle while inviting grief and sorrow.”

— Epictetus

402. “Every habit and faculty is preserved and increased by correspondent actions, as the habit of walking, by walking; of running, by running.”

— Epictetus

403. “If you must be affected by other people’s misfortunes, show them pity instead of contempt. Drop this readiness to hate and take offence.”

— Epictetus

404. “The gods do not exists, and even if they exist they do not trouble themselves about people, and we have nothing in common with them. The piety and devotion to the gods that the majority of people invoke is a lie devised by swindlers and con men and, if you can believe it, by legislators, to keep criminals in line by putting the fear of God into them.”

— Epictetus

405. “Death is not dreadful or else it would have appeared dreadful to Socrates.”

— Epictetus

406. “There is a time and place for diversion and amusements, but you should never allow them to override your true purposes.”

— Epictetus

407. “In theory it is easy to convince an ignorant person; in actual life, men not only object to offer themselves to be convinced, but hate the man who has convinced them.”

— Epictetus

408. “Man, the rational animal, can put up with anything except what seems to him irrational; whatever is rational is tolerable.”

— Epictetus

409. “If you meet temptation, use self-control; if you meet pain, use fortitude; if you meet revulsion, use patience.”

— Epictetus

410. “Let thy speech of God be renewed day by day, aye, rather than thy meat and drink.”

— Epictetus

411. “You should be especially careful when associating with one of your former friends or acquaintances not to sink to their level; otherwise you will lose yourself. If you are troubled by the idea that ‘He’ll think I’m boring and won’t treat me the way he used to,’ remember that everything comes at a price. It isn’t possible to change your behavior and still be the same person you were before.”

— Epictetus

412. “Settle on the type of person you want to be and stick to it, whether alone or in company.”

— Epictetus

413. “Stop honouring externals, quit turning yourself into the tool of mere matter, or of people who can supply you or deny you those material things.”

— Epictetus

414. “What would Heracles have been if he had said, “How am I to prevent a big lion from appearing, or a big boar, or brutal men?” What care you, I say? If a big boar appears, you will have a greater struggle to engage in; if evil men appear, you will free the world from evil men.”

— Epictetus

415. “Wherefore it is a shame for man to begin and to leave off where the brutes do. Rather he should begin there, and leave off where Nature leaves off in us: and that is at contemplation, and understanding, and a manner of life that is in harmony with herself. See then that ye die not without being spectators of these things.”

— Epictetus

416. “It is wicked to withdraw from being useful to the needy, and cowardly to give way to the worthless.”

— Epictetus

417. “Let whatever appears to be the best be to you an inviolable law. And if any instance of pain or pleasure, glory or disgrace, be set before you, remember that now is the combat, now the Olympiad comes on, nor can it be put off; and that by one failure and defeat honor may be lost or – won.”

— Epictetus

418. “If you are told that such an one speaks ill of you, make no defense against what was said, but answer, “He surely knows not my other faults, else he would not have mentioned these only!”

— Epictetus

419. “Pleasure, like a kind of bait, is thrown before everything which is really bad, and easily allures greedy souls to the hook of perdition.”

— Epictetus

420. “Happiness is an equivalent for all troublesome things.”

— Epictetus

421. “Shall I show you the sinews of a philosopher? What sinews are those? – A will undisappointed; evils avoided; powers daily exercised; careful resolutions; unerring decisions.”

— Epictetus

422. “I must die; so must I die groaning too?”

— Epictetus

423. “As long as you honour material things, direct your anger at yourself rather than the thief or adulterer.”

— Epictetus

424. “If you pin your hopes on things outside your control, taking upon yourself things which rightfully belong to others, you are liable to stumble, fall, suffer, and blame both gods and men. But if you focus your attention only on what is truly your own concern, and leave to others what concerns them, then you will be in charge of your interior life. No one will be able to harm or hinder you. You will blame no one, and have no enemies.”

— Epictetus

425. “To a reasonable creature, that alone is insupportable which is unreasonable; but everything reasonable may be supported.”

— Epictetus

426. “You ought to choose both physician and friend, not the most agreeable, but the most useful.”

— Epictetus

427. “What will the world be quite overturned when you die?”

— Epictetus

428. “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

429. “Do not so much be ashamed of that disgrace which proceeds from men’s opinion as fly from that which comes from the truth.”

— Epictetus

430. “Who are these people whose admiration you seek? Aren’t they the ones you are used to describing as mad? Well, then, is that what you want – to be admired by lunatics?”

— Epictetus

431. “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

432. “Freedom, you see, is having events go in accordance with our will, never contrary to it.”

— Epictetus

433. “Since it is Reason which shapes and regulates all other things, it ought not itself to be left in disorder.”

— Epictetus

434. “If thou rememberest that God standeth by to behold and visit all that thou doest; whether in the body or in the soul, thou surely wilt not err in any prayer or deed; and thou shalt have God to dwell with thee.”

— Epictetus

435. “Things true and evident must of necessity be recognized by those who would contradict them.”

— Epictetus

436. “Follow your principles as though they were laws. Do not worry if others criticize or laugh at you, for their opinions are not your concern.”

— Epictetus

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

— Epictetus

438. “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

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

— Epictetus

440. “For what else are tragedies but the ordeals of people who have come to value externals, tricked out in tragic verse?”

— Epictetus

441. “Either God wants to abolish evil, and cannot; or he can, but does not want to.”

— Epictetus

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

— Epictetus

443. “If you have assumed a character beyond your strength, you have both played a poor figure in that, and neglected one that is within your powers.”

— Epictetus

444. “What saith Antisthenes? Hast thou never heard? – It is a kingly thing, O Cyrus, to do well and to be evil spoken of.”

— Epictetus

445. “Very little is needed for everything to be upset and ruined, only a slight lapse in reason.”

— Epictetus

446. “Remember from now on whenever something tends to make you unhappy, draw on this principle: ‘This is no misfortune; but bearing with it bravely is a blessing.”

— Epictetus

447. “If you have assumed any character beyond your strength, you have both demeaned yourself ill in that and quitted one which you might have supported.”

— Epictetus

448. “These reasonings do not cohere: I am richer than you, therefore I am better than you; I am more eloquent than you, therefore I am better than you. On the contrary these rather cohere, I am richer than you, therefore my possessions are greater than yours: I am more eloquent than you, therefore my speech is superior to yours. But you are neither possession nor speech.”

— Epictetus

449. “Finally, when he crowns it off by becoming a senator, then he becomes a slave in fine company, then he experiences the poshest and most prestigious form of enslavement.”

— Epictetus

450. “Yes, but my nose is running.’ Then what do you have hands for, you slave?”

— Epictetus