This is the list of Epictetus quotes used in the text in my blog. Born a slave, he became a great source of inspirations for one of the most well-known and best Roman Emperors. Although he never wrote anything himself, one of his students, Arrian, made sure to take extensive notes. He created the Discourses and the Handbook from wich most of these quotes come. Through these works they continue to inspire and teach us even now, 2000 years later. When reading quotes online, make sure that they are real. There are many false quotes roaming the different platforms. Gregory Sadler started a YouTube series where he looks into them. Check his video on Aristotle here.
We see more quotes by Marcus Aurelius or Seneca pass our screen, but Epictetus deserves more attention. This list hopes to bring his wisdom to the general public, feel free to use it. A link as a reference to this page would be greatly appreciated. These are all taken from The Discourses and the Handbook, the Everyman version. But the references should still work for many others versions. Enjoy the list and I hope you’ll get something out of it.
“Some things are in our control and others not. Things in our control are opinion, pursuit, desire, aversion, and, in a word, whatever is our own action. Things not in our control are body, property, reputation, command, and, in one word, whatever is not our action.”
Epictetus, The handbook of Epictetus, 1
Post: On What we Control, How Externals Crush Who we Are
“Some things are in our control and others not. Things in our control are opinion, pursuit, desire, aversion, and, in a word, whatever is our own action. Things not in our control are body, property, reputation, command, and, in one word, whatever is not our action. The things that are up to us are by nature free, unhindered and unimpeded; but those that are not up to us are weak, servile, subject to hindrance, and not our own.”
Epictetus, The handbook of Epictetus, 1
Post: What is Stoicism
“If you intend to engage in any activity, remind yourself what the nature of the activity is. If you are going to bathe, imagine yourself what happens in baths: the splashing of water, the crowding, the scolding, the stealing. And like that, you will more steadily engage in the activity if you frankly say ‘I want the bathe and want to hold my will in accordance with nature.”
Epictetus, The Handbook of Epictetus, 4
Post: On Dealing with the General Public
“What harm is there while you are kissing your child to say softly, ‘Tomorrow you will die’.”
Epictetus, the Discourses, Book 3, Chapter 24.87
Post: On Dealing With Loss, What is Stoicism
“Enable my mind to adapt itself to whatever comes to pass.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 2, Chapter 2.21
Post: What is Stoicism
“Above all, keep a close watch on this – that you are never so tied to your former acquainances and friends that you are pulled down to their level. If you don’t, you’ll be ruined. You must choose whether to be loved by these friends and remain the same person, or to become a better person at the cost of those friends… if you try to have it both ways you will neither make progress nor keep what you once had.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Chapter 2
Post: Friendship and Growth Through a Stoic Lens
“First say to yourself, what manner of man you want to be; when you have settled this, act upon it in all you do.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 3, Chapter 23.1
Post: How to Know Yourself
“Difficulties are the things that show what men are.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 24.1
Post: How our Mirror Fails to Reflect
“For it is you who know yourself, and what value you set upon yourself, and at what rate you sell yourself.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 2.11
Post: How our Mirror Fails to Reflect
“You should drop your desire; do not covey many things, and you will get what you want.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 3, Chapter 9.22
Post: Budgeting like a Stoic: How to save more money
“If it ever happens that you turn to external things in the desire to please some other person, realize that you ahe ruined your scheme of life. Be content, then, with being a philosopher in everything; and if you wish also to be seen as one, show yourself that you are one, and you will be able to achieve it.”
Epictetus, The Handbook, 23
Post; The Collective Existential Crisis
“If you take on a role that is beyond your powers, you not only disgrace yourself in that role, but you neglect the role that you were capable of fulfilling.”
Epictetus, The Handbook, 37
Post: How to Find your Purpose Through Stoicism, How to Deal With the Imposter Syndrome Through Stoicism, How to Increase your Self-Awareness
“Examine who you are… For you are capable of understanding the divine governance of the universe, and of reasoning on what follows from that.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 2, Chapter 10
Post: How to Find your Purpose Through Stoicism
“When you are about to undertake some action, remind yourself what sort of action it is.”
Epictetus, The Handbook, 4
Post: How to Act Like a Stoic
“Practice, then, from the start to say to every harsh impression, ‘You are an impression, and not at all the thing you appear to be.’ Then examine it and test it by these rules which you have, and firstly, and chielfy, by this: Whether the impression has to do with things which are up to us, or those which are not, and, if it has to do with thing that are not up to us, be ready to reply. ‘It is nothing to me’.”
Epictetus, The Handbook, 1
Post: How to deal with your emotions
“But it is a much finer thing to be happy, to have a peaceful and undisturbed mind, to have what concerns you dependent on nobody but yourself.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 4, Chapter 4.36
Post: How to Be Alone
“In a similar way, you too should remind yourself that what you love is mortal, that what you love is not your own. It is granted to you for the present while, and not irrevocably, nor for ever, but like a fig or a bunch of grapes in the appointed season; and if you long for it in the winter, you are a fool.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 3, Chapter 24.86
Post: How to Love
“In the case of everything that delights the mind, or is useful, or is loved with fond affection, remember to tell yourself what sort of things it is, beginning with the least of things. If you are fond of a jug, say, ‘It is a jug that I am fond of’; then, if it is broken, you will not be disturbed. If you kiss your child, or your wife, say to yourself that it is a human being that you are kissing; and then you will not be disturbed if either of them dies.”
Epictetus, The Handbook, 3
Post: How to Love
“What a man sets his heart on, that he naturally loves. Do men set their heart on evils? – By no means. Or on what does not concern them? – No again. It remains for us to conclude, then, that good things alone are what they set their heart on: and if they set their heart on those, they love them too. Whoever, therefore, has knowledge of good things would also know how to love them; and he who cannot distinguish good things from evil, and things that are neither good nor evil from both of these, how could he still have power to love? It follows that the wise man alone has the power to love.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 2, Chapter 22.1
Post: How to Love
“For universally (and you should not be deceived on this) every living creature is attached to nothing so strongly as it is to its own interest.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book Two, Chapter 22.12
Post: What is True Friendship
“Eteocles: ‘Where will you stand before the walls?’
Polyneices: ‘For what reason do you ask me?’
Eteocles: ‘I mean to face you and slay you.’
Polyneices: ‘And so is my desire too.’”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book Two, Chapter 22.12
Post: What is True Friendship
“…you have not been invited to such a person’s banquet, because you have not paid him the price for which a meal is sold. It is sold for praise; it is sold for attention. Make up the price, then, if that is to your advantage. But if you would at the same time not pay the one and yet receive the other, you are greedy and stupid. Have you nothing, then, in place of the meal? Yes, indeed, you have: that of not praising someone you did not want to praise, and of not putting up with the people around his door.”
Epictetus, The Handbook, 25
Post: What is True Friendship
“Philosophers exhort us not to be contented with mere learning, but to add practice also, and then training.”
Epictetus, the Discourses, book two, chapter 9.13
Post: The Stoic Reading List for Beginners
“Besides: do you think that I fall into evil voluntarily, and miss the good? Heaven forbid. What, then, is the cause of my going wrong? Ignorance.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1.26
Post: How to Forgive Like a Stoic
“For you will find that it is in reality true, that these things which are eagerly pursued and admired are of no use to those who have gained them; while those who have not yet gained them imagine that, once these things are theirs, they will possess all that is good, and then, when they are theirs, there is the same scorching heat, the same agitation, the same nausea and the same desire of what they do not have. For freedom is not secured by the fulfilment of people’s desires, but by the suppression of desire.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 4.1, 174, 175
Post: What is Success: A Stoic View
“Only consider at what price you sell your own will and choice, man: if for nothing else, that you may not sell it cheap.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 2.33
Post: How to Respect your Character
“It starts with knowing yourself, and what value you set upon yourself.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 2.11
Post: How to Respect your Character
“For as soon as a person even considers such questions, comparing and calculating the values of external things, he draws close to those who have lost all sense of their proper character.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 2.12
Post: How to Respect your Character
“You will do your part, and I mine: It is yours to kill, and mine to die without trembling.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 2.19
Post: How to Respect your Character
“To a rational creature, only what is contrary to reason is unendurable: but everything rational he can endure.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 2.1
Post: How to Respect your Character
“The Reasoning Faculty; for that alone of the faculties that we have received comprehends both itself – what it is, what it is capable of, and with what valuable powers it has come to us- and all the other faculties likewise.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1 Chapter 1.4
Post: What is Our Reasoning Faculty
“To make the best of what is in our power, and take the rest as it naturally happens.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1 Chapter 1.17
Post: What is Our Reasoning Faculty
“We choose instead to take care of many, and to encumber ourselves with many; body, property, brother, friend, child, and slave.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 1.14
Post: What is Our Reasoning Faculty
“What, then, should we have at hand upon such occasions? Why, what else than to know what is mine, and what is not mine, what is within my power, and what is not.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 1.21
Post: What is Our Reasoning Faculty
“Why do you not study to be contented with what is alloted to you?”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 1.27
Post: What is Our Reasoning Faculty
“I must die. If instantly, I will die instantly; if in a short time, I will dine first, since the hour for dining is here, and when the time comes, then I will die. How? As becomes a person who is giving back what is not his to own.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 1.32
Post: What is Our Reasoning Faculty
“but since in our birth we have these two elements mingled within us, a body in common with the animals, and reason and intelligence with the gods, many of us incline towards the former kinship, miserable as it is and wholly mortal, and only some few to the divine and blessed one.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 3.3
Post: What is the Stoic God
“Those few who think they are born to fidelity, and honour, and a securely grounded use of their impressions, will harbour no abject or ignoble thought about themselves, whilst the multitude will think the opposite.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 3.4
Post: What is the Stoic God
“Look, then, and take care that you do not become one of these roguish creatures.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 3.8
Post: What is the Stoic God
“What does virtue achieve? Peace of Mind.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 4.5
Post: How to Make Progress Like a Stoic
“Now if virtue promises happiness, an untroubled mind and serenity, then progress towards virtue is certainly progress towards each of these.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 4.3
Post: How to Make Progress Like a Stoic
“Seek it in that place, wretch, where your task lies. And where does it lie?”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 4.11
Post: How to Make Progress Like a Stoic
“Do not ask things to happen as you wish, but wish them to happen as they do happen, and your life will go smoothly.”
Epictetus, The Handbook, 8
Post: How to Make Progress Like a Stoic, How to Manage Expectations Like a Stoic
“If any of you, withdrawing himself from externals, turns to his own faculty of choice, working at it and perfecting it, so as to bring it fully into harmony with nature, elevated, free, unrestrained, unhindered, faithful, self-respecting.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 4.18
Post: How to Make Progress Like a Stoic
“When he rises in the morning, he observes and keeps to these rules; bathes and eats as a man of fidelity and honour; and thus, in every matter that befalls, puts his guiding principles to work.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 4.20
Post: How to Make Progress Like a Stoic
“It is the action of an uneducated person to lay the blame for his own bad condition upon others; of one who has made a start on his education to lay the blame on himself; and of one who is fully educated, to blame neither others nor himself.”
Epictetus, The Handbook, 5
Post: How to Make Progress Like a Stoic, How to Deal with Rejection
“‘Take the treatise On Impulse, and see how thoroughly I have read it.’ That’s not what I am looking for, slave, but how you exercise your impulse to act and not to act, how you manage your desires and aversions, how you approach things, how you apply yourself to them, and prepare for the, and whether in harmony with nature or out of harmony. For if you are acting in harmony with nature, give me evidence of that, and I will say that you are making progress; but if you are acting out of harmony, go your way, and do not merely comment on these treatises, but even write such works yourself.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 4.14
Post: How to Make Progress Like a Stoic
“Most of us fear the deadening of the body… but the deadening of the soul concerns us not a bit.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 5.4
Post: How to Save the Soul
“Is there no difference, then, between that impression and the other? – ‘None.’ – Can I argue with this man any longer?”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 5.6-7
Post: How to Save the Soul
“Such petrification takes two forms: the one, a petrification of the understanding, and the other of the sense of shame when a person has obstinately set himself neither to assent to evident truths nor to abandon the defence of contradiction.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 5.3
Post: How to Save the Soul
“One man does not see the contradiction; he is in a bad state. Another does see it, but he is not moved, nor does he improve; he is in an even worse state.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 5.8
Post: How to Save the Soul
“He is aware of it, but pretends that he is not; he is even worse than a corpse.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 5.7
Post: How to Save the Soul
“We might be fluent in the classroom but drag us out into practice and we’re miserably shipwrecked.”
Epictetus, The Discourses, Book 2, Chapter 16.20 (Paraphrased)
