Bill > Bill's Quotes

“The best revenge is to be unlike him who performed the injury.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

“Accept the things to which fate binds you, and love the people with whom fate brings you together,but do so with all your heart.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

“Whenever you are about to find fault with someone, ask yourself the following question: What fault of mine most nearly resembles the one I am about to criticize?”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

“The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

“The best revenge is not to be like your enemy.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

“Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones.”
― Marcus Aurelius

“How much more grievous are the consequences of anger than the causes of it.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

“Do not act as if you were going to live ten thousand years. Death hangs over you. While you live, while it is in your power, be good.”
― Marcus Aurelius

“Think of yourself as dead. You have lived your life. Now, take what's left and live it properly. What doesn't transmit light creates its own darkness.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

“Don't explain your philosophy. Embody it.”
― Epictetus

“Don't just say you have read books. Show that through them you have learned to think better, to be a more discriminating and reflective person. Books are the training weights of the mind. They are very helpful, but it would be a bad mistake to suppose that one has made progress simply by having internalized their contents.”
― Epictetus, The Art of Living: The Classical Manual on Virtue, Happiness and Effectiveness

“First say to yourself what you would be;
and then do what you have to do.”
― Epictetus

“How long are you going to wait before you demand the best for yourself and in no instance bypass the discriminations of reason? You have been given the principles that you ought to endorse, and you have endorsed them. What kind of teacher, then, are you still waiting for in order to refer your self-improvement to him? You are no longer a boy, but a full-grown man. If you are careless and lazy now and keep putting things off and always deferring the day after which you will attend to yourself, you will not notice that you are making no progress, but you will live and die as someone quite ordinary.
From now on, then, resolve to live as a grown-up who is making progress, and make whatever you think best a law that you never set aside. And whenever you encounter anything that is difficult or pleasurable, or highly or lowly regarded, remember that the contest is now: you are at the Olympic Games, you cannot wait any longer, and that your progress is wrecked or preserved by a single day and a single event. That is how Socrates fulfilled himself by attending to nothing except reason in everything he encountered. And you, although you are not yet a Socrates, should live as someone who at least wants to be a Socrates.”
― Epictetus (From Manual 51)

“It is impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows.”
― Epictetus

“He who laughs at himself never runs out of things to laugh at.”
― Epictetus

“You are a little soul carrying around a corpse”
― Epictetus

“First learn the meaning of what you say, and then speak.”
― Epictetus

“To accuse others for one's own misfortune is a sign of want of education. To accuse oneself shows that one's education has begun. To accuse neither oneself nor others shows that one's education is complete.”
― Epictetus

“Nature hath given men one tongue but two ears, that we may hear from others twice as much as we speak.”
― Epictetus, The Golden Sayings of Epictetus

“He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has.”
― Epictetus

“Don't seek to have events happen as you wish, but wish them to happen as they do happen, and all will be well with you.”
― Epictetus

“Caretake this moment. Immerse yourself in its particulars. Respond to this person, this challenge, this deed. Quit evasions. Stop giving yourself needless trouble. It is time to really live; to fully inhabit the situation you happen to be in now.”
― Epictetus

“Do not try to seem wise to others. ”
― Epictetus

“Small-minded people blame others. Average people blame themselves. The wise see all blame as foolishness”
― Epictetus

“You become what you give your attention to.”
― Epictetus, The Art of Living: The Classical Manual on Virtue, Happiness and Effectiveness

“If evil be said of thee, and if it be true, correct thyself; if it be a lie, laugh at it.”
― Epictetus

“Know, first, who you are, and then adorn yourself accordingly.”
― Epictetus

“Preach not to others what they should eat, but eat as becomes you and be silent. ”
― Epictetus

“If you wish to be a writer, write.”
― Epictetus

“If you would be a reader, read; if a writer, write.”
― Epictetus