1
Slavery is founded in the selfishness of man's nature,--opposition to it in his love of justice.
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2
The Analytical Engine has no pretensions whatever to originate any thing. It can do whatever we know how to order it to perform.
3
The soul should take care of the body, just as a pilgrim on his way to Mecca takes care of his camel.
4
Every evening he should examine his heart as to what he has done to see whether he has gained or lost in his spiritual capital.
5
The aim of moral discipline is to purify the heart from the rust of passion and resentment, till, like a clear mirror, it reflects the light of God.
6
Life is a stern business in any case: why pretend that it is anything else?
7
There is no royal road to the control of the brain.
8
Not from space must I seek my dignity, but from the ruling of my thought.
9
I would permit no man, no matter what his colour might be, to narrow and degrade my soul by making me hate him.
10
Resolution is an act of courage in single instances, and if it becomes a characteristic trait, it is a habit of the mind.
11
Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity or registering wrongs.
12
Economic independence is a relative condition at best.
13
To give so much time to the improvement of yourself that you have no time to criticise others.
14
The style shall be simple and familiar; but style is the image of character; and the habits of correct writing may produce, without labour or design, the appearance of art and study.
15
After all is said, if the young people have an earnest purpose in life it is easy to plan a method of living and to carry it out.
16
Peace or harmony between the sexes and individuals does not necessarily depend on a superficial equalization of human beings; nor does it call for the elimination of individual traits and peculiarities.
17
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.
18
To admit failure at this stage was hard, but the facts had to be faced.
19
Every thought, every word is impressed upon it and carried out in amazing detail.
20
Whatever man feels deeply or images clearly, is impressed upon the subconscious mind, and carried out in minutest detail.
21
The student’s goal is Poise! Poise is Power.
22
The robbers of time are the past and the future.
23
Life is a mirror, and we find only ourselves reflected in our associates.
24
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
25
I accept with humility the honor which the American people have conferred upon me.