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“It is difficulties that show what men are.”

Epictetus

Book I, ch. 24.
Discourses

“If a Cynic is an object of pity, he seems a mere beggar; all turn away, all are offended at him. Nor should be be slovenly of look, so as not to scare men from him in this way either; on the contrary, his very roughness should be clean and attractive.”

Epictetus

118
Golden Sayings of Epictetus

“Think of God more often than thou breathest.”

Epictetus

Fragment xix.
Golden Sayings of Epictetus, Fragments

“If thou rememberest that God standeth by to behold and visit all that thou doest; whether in the body or in the soul, thou surely wilt not err in any prayer or deed; and thou shalt have God to dwell with thee.”

Epictetus

Fragment xxiv.
Golden Sayings of Epictetus, Fragments

“But in the present condition of things, which resembles an Army in battle array, ought not the Cynic to be free from all distraction and given wholly to the service of God, so that he can go in and out among men, neither fettered by the duties nor entangled by the relations of common life? For if he transgresses them, he will forfeit the character of a good man and true; whereas if he observe them, there is an end of him as the Messenger, the Spy, the Herald of the Gods!”

Epictetus

116
Golden Sayings of Epictetus

“The essence of good and evil is a certain disposition of the will.”

Epictetus

Of Courage, Chap. xxix.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“Every habit and faculty is preserved and increased by correspondent actions,—as the habit of walking, by walking; of running, by running.”

Epictetus

How the Semblances of Things are to be combated, Chap. xviii.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“In a word, neither death, nor exile, nor pain, nor anything of this kind is the real cause of our doing or not doing any action, but our inward opinions and principles.”

Epictetus

Book I, ch. 6.
Discourses

“For it is not death or pain that is to be feared, but the fear of pain or death.”

Epictetus

Book II, ch. 1 http://classics.mit.edu/Epictetus/discourses.2.two.html <br class="br">Discourses <br class="br">Variant: For death or pain is not formidable, but the fear of pain or death.

“There are some things which men confess with ease, and others with difficulty.”

Epictetus

Of Inconsistency, Chap. xxi.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“If what philosophers say of the kinship of God and Men be true, what remains for men to do but as Socrates did: never, when asked one’s country, to answer, 'I am an Athenian or a Corinthian,' but 'I am a citizen of the world.”

Epictetus

15
Golden Sayings of Epictetus

“Were I a nightingale, I would act the part of a nightingale; were I a swan, the part of a swan.”

Epictetus

Book I, ch. 16.
Discourses

“Whatever moral rules you have deliberately proposed to yourself abide by them as they were laws, and as if you would be guilty of impiety by violating any of them. Don't regard what anyone says of you, for this, after all, is no concern of yours. How long, then, will you put off thinking yourself worthy of the highest improvements and follow the distinctions of reason? You have received the philosophical theorems, with which you ought to be familiar, and you have been familiar with them. What other master, then, do you wait for, to throw upon that the delay of reforming yourself?… Let whatever appears to be the best be to you an inviolable law.”

Epictetus

50
The Enchiridion (c. 135)

“You have not stirred my spirit. For what can I see in you to stir me, as a spirited horse will stir a judge of horses? Your body? That you maltreat. Your dress? That is luxurious. Your behavior, your look?—Nothing whatsoever.”

Epictetus

81
Golden Sayings of Epictetus

“Freedom is the name of virtue: Slavery, of vice…. None is a slave whose acts are free.”

Epictetus

Fragment x.
Golden Sayings of Epictetus, Fragments

“Of pleasures, those which occur most rarely give the most delight.”

Epictetus

Fragment xi.
Golden Sayings of Epictetus, Fragments

“Who is there whom bright and agreeable children do not attract to play and creep and prattle with them?”

Epictetus

Concerning a Person whom he treated with Disregard, Chap. xxiv.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“Two principles we should always have ready — that there is nothing good or evil save in the will; and that we are not to lead events, but to follow them.”

Epictetus

Book III, ch. 10.
Discourses

“Remember that you ought to behave in life as you would at a banquet. As something is being passed around it comes to you; stretch out your hand, take a portion of it politely. It passes on; do not detain it. Or it has not come to you yet; do not project your desire to meet it, but wait until it comes in front of you. So act toward children, so toward a wife, so toward office, so toward wealth.”

Epictetus

15
The Enchiridion (c. 135)

“Have this thought ever present with thee, when thou losest any outward thing, what thou gainest in its stead; and if this be the more precious, say not, I have suffered loss.”

Epictetus

27
Golden Sayings of Epictetus