Epictetus

When then have I told you that my head alone cannot be cut off?

Men are disturbed not by the things which happen, but by the opinions about the things: for example, death is nothing terrible, for if it were, it would have seemed so to Socrates; for the opinion about death, that it is terrible, is the terrible thing.

Slave, where was there a father in this matter that you could kill him?

Lameness is an impediment to the leg, but not to the will.

Nothing great, said Epictetus, is produced suddenly, since not even the grape or the fig is.

Remember that in life you ought to behave as at a banquet.

Tomorrow, I said, you will find an earthen lamp: for a man only loses that which he has.

Remember that it is not he who reviles you or strikes you, who insults you, but it is your opinion about these things as being insulting.

Man, do not be a spectator at all; and you will not be squeezed.

For different men are formed by nature for different things.

But at present, if men cannot swallow even a morsel, they buy whole volumes and attempt to devour them; and this is the reason why they vomit them up or suffer indigestion

Immediately prescribe some character and some form to yourself, which you shall observe both when you are alone and when you meet with men.

A tyrant never killed a man in six months: but a fever is often a year about it.

Everything has two handles, the one by which it may be borne, the other by which it may not.

Why do you wonder then if in the cases which you have studied, in those you have improved; but in those which you have not studied, in those you remain the same?

The life which is implicated with fortune (depends on fortune) is like a winter torrent: for it is turbulent, and full of mud, and difficult to cross, and tyrannical, and noisy, and of short duration.

It will be a great thing for you if you do return safe, and it will be worthwhile to burn lights for such a person: for you ought to be immortal and exempt from disease.

No man who loves money, and loves pleasure, and loves fame, also loves mankind, but only he who loves virtue.

But who is eager to play with an ass or to bray with it? for though it is small, it is still a little ass.

It is better by assenting to truth to conquer opinion, than by assenting to opinion to be conquered by truth.