Now is the time to get serious about living your ideals. How long can you afford to put off who you really want to be? Your nobler self cannot wait any longer. Put your principles into practice – now. Stop the excuses and the procrastination. This is your life! You aren’t a child anymore. The...

A city is not adorned by external things, but by the virtue of those who dwell in it.

Know you not that a good man does nothing for appearance sake, but for the sake of having done right?

What you shun enduring yourself, attempt not to impose on others. You shun slavery- beware enslaving others! If you can endure to do that, one would think you had been once upon a time a slave yourself. For vice has nothing in common with virtue, nor Freedom with slavery.

If you want to make progress, put up with being perceived as ignorant or naive in worldly matters, don’t aspire to a reputation for sagacity. If you do impress others as somebody, don’t altogether believe it. You have to realize, it isn’t easy to keep your will in agreement with nature, as well as externals....

When a youth was giving himself airs in the Theatre and saying, ‘I am wise, for I have conversed with many wise men,’ Epictetus replied, ‘I too have conversed with many rich men, yet I am not rich!’.

Kein Mensch, der in Furcht oder Sorge oder Chaos lebt, ist frei, aber wer sich von Sorgen, Furcht und Chaos befreit, wird dadurch auch aus der Sklaverei befreit.

You know yourself what you are worth in your own eyes; and at what price you will sell yourself. For men sell themselves at various prices. This is why, when Florus was deliberating whether he should appear at Nero’s shows, taking part in the performance himself, Agrippinus replied, ‘Appear by all means.’ And when Florus...

When any person harms you, or speaks badly of you, remember that he acts or speaks from a supposition of its being his duty. Now, it is not possible that he should follow what appears right to you, but what appears so to himself. Therefore, if he judges from a wrong appearance, he is the...

Freedom is secured not by the fulfilling of men’s desires, but by the removal of desire.

No man is free who is not master of himself.

What really frightens and dismays us is not external events themselves, but the way in which we think about them. It is not things that disturb us, but our interpretation of their significance.

Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants.

How does this prove it? What exactly is a proof, what is logical inference, what is contradiction, what is truth, what is falsehood?” Thus, the third field is necessary because of the second, and the second because of the first. The most important, though, the one that should occupy most of our time, is the...

If anyone tells you that a certain person speaks ill of you, do not make excuses about what is said of you but answer, “He was ignorant of my other faults, else he would not have mentioned these alone.

Man is not worried by real problems so much as by his imagined anxieties about real problems

There is only one way to happiness and that is to cease worrying about things which are beyond the power or our will.

Very little is needed for everything to be upset and ruined, only a slight lapse in reason.

Don’t explain your philosophy. Embody it.

As the sun does not wait for prayers and incantations tob e induced to rise, but immediately shines and is saluted by all, so do you also not wait for clappings of hands and shouts of praise tob e induced to do good, but be a doer of good voluntarily and you will be beloved...

I must die. Must I then die lamenting? I must be put in chains. Must I then also lament? I must go into exile. Does any man then hinder me from going with smiles and cheerfulness and contentment?

When you do anything from a clear judgment that it ought to be done, never shrink from being seen to do it, even though the world should misunderstand it; for if you are not acting rightly, shun the action itself; if you are, why fear those who wrongly censure you?

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...

Fortify yourself with contentment for this is an impregnable fortress.

If you wish to be a writer, write.

It is not so much what happens to you as how you think about what happens.” Epictetus

All religions must be tolerated… for every man must get to heaven in his own way.

God save me from fools with a little philosophy – no one is more difficult to reach.

Only the educated are free.

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...

It is our attitude toward events, not events themselves, which we can control. Nothing is by its own nature calamitous — even death is terrible only if we fear it.

Men are not afraid of things, but of how they view them.

You may fetter my leg, but Zeus himself cannot get the better of my free will.

Whoever is going to listen to the philosophers needs a considerable practice in listening.

First say to yourself what you would be;and then do what you have to do.

An ignorant person is inclined to blame others for his own misfortune. To blame oneself is proof of progress. But the wise man never has to blame another or himself.

As a man, casting off worn out garments taketh new ones, so the dweller in the body, entereth into ones that are new.