Epiktet cytaty strona 4

„Nie usiłuj naginać biegu wydarzeń do swojej woli, ale naginaj wolę do biegu wydarzeń, a życie upłynie ci w pomyślności.”

„Opatrzność dała mężczyznom zarost, aby można ich było odróżnić od kobiet.”

„Śmierć sama w sobie nie jest straszna, lecz tylko mniemanie, że jest straszna, jest straszne.”

„Raz zobaczyć jakąś rzecz znaczy więcej, niż sto razy o niej słyszeć.”

„Najpierw naucz się znaczenia tego, co chcesz powiedzieć, a dopiero potem mów.”

„Czego szuka każdy człowiek??? Aby być bezpiecznym, szczęśliwym i bez przymusu robić to, na co ma ochotę.”

„Jest tylko jedna droga do szczęścia – przestać się martwić rzeczami, na które nie masz wpływu.”

„Zło to nie zdarzenie, które cię spotyka, lecz to, co robisz z tym zdarzeniem.”

„Cierp i panuj nad sobą.”

„Gdzie jest postęp? Jeśli ktokolwiek z was, wyrzekając się zewnętrzności, zwróci się ku swej woli, by ją ćwiczyć i doskonalić przez pracę oraz by uczynić ją zgodną z naturą, wzniosłą, wolną, niepodległą, niepohamowaną, wierną i skromną; jeśli nauczy się, że ten, kto pragnie lub unika rzeczy nieosiągalnych, nie jest ani wierny, ani wolny, lecz z konieczności musi poddać się ich żywiołowi i (…) ulec innym, którzy mają moc dostarczenia tego, czego pragnie lub zapobieżenia temu, czego chce uniknąć; (…) kiedy wstanie rano i jeśli przestrzega powyższych reguł, utrzymuje czystość i jada skromnie; podobnie, jeśli w każdej sprawie, która się pojawia, wypracowuje swoje główne zasady, jak biegacz, co skupia się na biegu – to jest to mężczyzna, który prawdziwie się rozwija i który nie poszukuje na darmo. Jeśli jednak skupi się na czytaniu książek, tylko w tym pracuje i podróżuje tylko po to, powiem mu, by wracał bezzwłocznie do domu i nie zaniedbywał swych obowiązków, gdyż to, czego szuka, jest niczym, a czymś jest coś zupełnie innego – badać, jak można uwolnić się od narzekań i jęków.”

Sustine et abstine

„Lekarstwem na przyzwyczajenie jest inne przyzwyczajenie.”

Źródło: O postępie lub poprawie

„Prawdziwym panem i królem jest jedynie mędrzec, który uwolnił się od namiętności i niczego nie potrzebuje.”

„Nic nie jest złe, co zgodne z naturą.”

„W czasie uczty nie opowiadaj, jak należy jeść, ale jedz, jak należy.”

„Powinniśmy mieć zasady gotowe do zastosowania w każdej okoliczności.”

„W żadnym razie nie nazywaj sam siebie filozofem i nie rozprawiaj wiele wśród tłumu o zasadach, ale postępuj stosownie do zasad. W czasie uczty, na przykład, nie opowiadaj, jak jeść należy, ale jedz, jak należy.”

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

Źródło: Mała księga cytatów, Halina Lipiec (red.), Oficyna Wydawnicza STON I, Radom 1994, ISBN 8390113228, s. 28.

Epiktet: Cytaty po angielsku

“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.”

Book I, ch. 16.
Discourses

“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.”

50
The Enchiridion (c. 135)

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

81
Golden Sayings of Epictetus

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

Fragment x.
Golden Sayings of Epictetus, Fragments

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

Fragment xi.
Golden Sayings of Epictetus, Fragments

“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.”

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

“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.”

Book III, ch. 10.
Discourses

“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.”

15
The Enchiridion (c. 135)

“You are a little soul, carrying a corpse.”

27
Golden Sayings of Epictetus

“When we are invited to a banquet, we take what is set before us; and were one to call upon his host to set fish upon the table or sweet things, he would be deemed absurd. Yet in a word, we ask the Gods for what they do not give; and that, although they have given us so many things!”

Fragment xxvi.
Golden Sayings of Epictetus, Fragments

“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.”

35
Golden Sayings of Epictetus

“For what constitutes a child?—Ignorance. What constitutes a child?—Want of instruction; for they are our equals so far as their degree of knowledge permits.”

5
tr. George Long (1888)
The Enchiridion (c. 135)

“The first and most necessary topic in philosophy is that of the use of moral theorems, such as, "We ought not to lie;" the second is that of demonstrations, such as, "What is the origin of our obligation not to lie;" the third gives strength and articulation to the other two, such as, "What is the origin of this is a demonstration." For what is demonstration? What is consequence? What contradiction? What truth? What falsehood? The third topic, then, is necessary on the account of the second, and the second on the account of the first. But the most necessary, and that whereon we ought to rest, is the first. But we act just on the contrary. For we spend all our time on the third topic, and employ all our diligence about that, and entirely neglect the first.”

That Courage is not inconsistent with Caution, book ii. Chap. i.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“Kings and tyrants have armed guards wherewith to chastise certain persons, though they be themselves evil. But to the Cynic conscience gives this power—not arms and guards.”

51
The Enchiridion (c. 135)

“Give me by all means the shorter and nobler life, instead of one that is longer but of less account!”

119
Golden Sayings of Epictetus

“If what the philosophers say be true,—that all men's actions proceed from one source; that as they assent from a persuasion that a thing is so, and dissent from a persuasion that it is not, and suspend their judgment from a persuasion that it is uncertain,—so likewise they seek a thing from a persuasion that it is for their advantage.”

Fragment ix.
Golden Sayings of Epictetus, Fragments

“To the rational being only the irrational is unendurable, but the rational is endurable.”

Book I, ch. 18.
Discourses

“Reason is not measured by size or height, but by principle.”

Variant translation: To a reasonable creature, that alone is insupportable which is unreasonable; but everything reasonable may be supported.
Book I, ch. 2.
Discourses

“Let not another's disobedience to Nature become an ill to you; for you were not born to be depressed and unhappy with others, but to be happy with them. And if any is unhappy, remember that he is so for himself; for God made all men to enjoy felicity and peace.”

Book I, ch. 12.
Discourses

“Seemeth it nothing to you, never to accuse, never to blame either God or Man? to wear ever the same countenance in going forth as in coming in? This was the secret of Socrates: yet he never said that he knew or taught anything… Who amongst you makes this his aim? Were it indeed so, you would gladly endure sickness, hunger, aye, death itself.”

That we ought not to be affected by Things not in our own Power, Chap. xxiv.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)