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61 " I cannot call somebody ‘hard-working’ knowing only that they read and write. Even if ‘all night long’ is added, I cannot say it – not until I know the focus of all this energy. "
― Epictetus , Of Human Freedom (Penguin Great Ideas)
62 " Isn’t reading a kind of preparation for life?’ But life is composed of things other than books. It is as if an athlete, on entering the stadium, were to complain that he’s not outside exercising.This was the goal of your exercise, of your weights, your practice ring and your training partners. "
63 " If, on the other hand, we read books entitled On Impulse not just out of idle curiosity, but in order to exercise impulse correctly; books entitled On Desire and On Aversion so as not to fail to get what we desire or fall victim to what we would rather avoid; and books entitled On Moral Obligation in order to honour our relationships and never do anything that clashes or conflicts with this principle; then we wouldn’t get frustrated and grow impatient with our reading. Instead we would be satisfied to act accordingly. And rather than reckon, as we are used to doing, ‘How many lines I read, or wrote, today,’ we would pass in review how ‘I applied impulse today the way the philosophers recommend "
64 " Once I was liable to the same mistakes, but, thanks to God, no longer …’Well, isn’t it just as worthwhile to have devoted and applied yourself to this goal as to have read or written fifty pages? "
65 " We should realize that an opinion is not easily formed unless a person says and hears the same things every day and practises them in real life. "
― Epictetus , Discourses and Selected Writings
66 " It isn't death, pain, exile or anything else you care to mention that accounts for the way we act, only our opinion about death, pain and the rest. "
67 " Neither should a ship rely on one small anchor, nor should life rest on a single hope. "
― Epictetus , The Art of Living: The Classical Manual on Virtue, Happiness and Effectiveness
68 " Be careful to leave your sons well instructed rather than rich, for the hopes of the instructed are better than the wealth of the ignorant. "
― Epictetus , Fragments
69 " We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak. "
― Epictetus
70 " First learn the meaning of what you say, and then speak. "
71 " People are not disturbed by things, but by the view they take of them. "
72 " It is the nature of the wise to resist pleasures, but the foolish to be a slave to them. "
73 " The key is to keep company only with people who uplift you, whose presence calls forth your best. "
74 " Imagine for yourself a character, a model personality, whose example you determine to follow, in private as well as in public. "
75 " It's not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters. "
76 " Men are disturbed not by things, but by the view which they take of them. "
77 " When you are offended at any man's fault, turn to yourself and study your own failings. Then you will forget your anger. "
78 " Is freedom anything else than the right to live as we wish? Nothing else. "
79 " If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid with regard to external things. Don't wish to be thought to know anything; and even if you appear to be somebody important to others, distrust yourself. "
― Epictetus , A Selection from the Discourses of Epictetus with the Encheiridion
80 " Your happiness depends on three things, all of which are within your power: your will, your ideas concerning the events in which you are involved, and the use you make of your ideas. "