1
Wretch, you are carrying about a god with you, and you know it not.
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5 quotes by Epictetus · clear filters
2
It is the act of an ill-instructed man to blame others for his own bad condition; it is the act of one who has begun to be instructed, to lay the blame on himself; and of one whose instruction is completed, neither to blame another, nor himself.
Epictetusdisputed·The Encheiridion, in A Selection from the Discourses of Epictetus (trans. George Long)·1888
Attribution contested
The fifth maxim is the source of the modern slogan it is not what happens to you but how you react to it, which translates nothing Epictetus wrote and has no attested author. The paraphrase stops halfway. Epictetus opens by saying men are disturbed by their opinions about things rather than by the things, but he ends here -- taking the blame yourself is only the middle stage, and the finished man blames nobody at all.
3
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.
4
No man can rob us of our Will--no man can lord it over that!
5
I am by Nature made for my own good; not for my own evil.