Discourses and Selected Writings (Classics)

by Epictetus

Another person will not hurt you without your cooperation; you are hurt the moment you believe yourself to be.

[1] Settle on the type of person you want to be and stick to it, whether alone or in company.

Counter temptation by remembering how much better will be the knowledge that you resisted.

[2] Finally decide that you are an adult who is going to devote the rest of your life to making progress. Abide by what seems best as if it were an inviolable law. When faced with anything painful or pleasurable, anything bringing glory or disrepute, realize that the crisis is now, that the Olympics have started, and waiting is no longer an option; that the chance for progress, to keep or lose, turns on the events of a single day. [3] That’s how Socrates got to be the person he was, by depending on reason to meet his every challenge. You’re not yet Socrates, but you can still live as if you want to be him.