Discources and Selected Writings Quotes

“Because you think of yourself as no more than a single thread in the robe, whose duty it is to conform to the mass of people – just as a single white thread seemingly has no wish to clash with the remainder of the garment. [18] But I aspire to be the purple stripe, that is, the garment’s brilliant hem. However small a part it may be, it can still manage to make the garment as a whole attractive. Don’t tell me, then, ‘Be like the rest,’ because in that case I cannot be the purple stripe”
― Epictetus, Discources and Selected Writings

“When you are alone, you should call this tranquility and freedom and when you are with many you shouldn’t call this a crowd, or trouble or uneasiness but festival and company and contentedly accept it.”
― Epictetus, Discources and Selected Writings

“Remember that it is we who torment, we who make difficulties for ourselves – that is, our opinions do. What, for instance, does it mean to be insulted? Stand by a rock and insult it, and what have you accomplished? If someone responds to insult like a rock, what has the abuser gained with his invective?”
― Epictetus, Discources and Selected Writings

“But it would be beneath my dignity.’ Well, that is an additional factor that you bring to the question, not me. You are the one who knows yourself – which is to say, you know how much you are worth in your own estimation, and therefore at what price you will sell yourself; because people sell themselves at different rates.”
― Epictetus, Discources and Selected Writings

“Will you never come to a realisation of who you are, what you have been born for and the purpose for which the gift of vision was made in our case?”
― Epictetus, Discources and Selected Writings

“I, personally, was never kept from something I wanted, nor had forced upon me something I was opposed to. How did I manage it? I submitted my will to God.

He wants me to be sick? Well then, so do I. He wants me to choose something? Then I choose it. He wants me to desire something? Then I desire it. He wants me to get something? I want the same, or he doesn’t want me to get it, and I concur. Thus, I even assent to death and torture. Now, no one can make me or keep me from acting in line with my inclination any more than they can similarly manipulate God.”
― Epictetus, Discources and Selected Writings

“Everything, you see, that you throw at me I will transform into a blessing, a boon, something dignified - even enviable.”
― Epictetus, Discources and Selected Writings

“But if we are endowed by nature with the potential for greatness, why do only some of us achieve it?'
Well, do all horses become stallions? Are all dogs greyhounds? Even if I lack the talent, I will not abandon the effort on that account. Epictetus will not be better than Socrates. But if I am no worse, I am satisfied. I mean, I will never be Milo either; nevertheless, I don't neglect my body. Nor will I be another Croesus - and still, I don't neglect my property. In short, we do not abandon any discipline for despair of ever being the best in it.”
― Epictetus, Discources and Selected Writings

“It all amounts to nothing - and I was expecting to be overwhelmed”
― Epictetus, Discources and Selected Writings

“Free is the person who lives as he wishes - And cannot be coerced, impeded, or compelled, whose impulses cannot be thwarted, who always gets what he desires, and never has to experience what he would rather avoid.”
― Epictetus, Discources and Selected Writings

“Por esto la mayor y primera tarea del filósofo es poner a prueba las representaciones y juzgarlas y no aceptar ninguna sin haberla puesto a prueba”
― Epictetus, Discources and Selected Writings

“You can understand Archedemus and still be an adulterer and a cheater, a wolf or an ape rather than a human being; what's to stop you?”
― Epictetus, Discources and Selected Writings