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141 " Don’t seek that all that comes about should come about as you wish, but wish that everything that comes about should come about just as it does, and then you’ll have a calm and happy life. "
― Epictetus , Discourses and Selected Writings
142 " If you choose, you are free; if you choose, you need blame no man—accuse no man. All things will be at once according to your mind and according to the Mind of God. "
― Epictetus , The Golden Sayings of Epictetus
143 " Protect what belongs to you at all costs; don't desire what belongs to another. "
144 " Adopt new habits yourself: consolidate your principles by putting them into practice. "
145 " Tell yourself what you want to be, then act your part accordingly. "
146 " Free is the person who lives as he wishes and cannot be coerced, impeded or compelled, whose impulses cannot be thwarted, who always gets what he desires and never has to experience what he would rather avoid. "
147 " You should be especially careful when associating with one of your former friends or acquaintances not to sink to their level; otherwise you will lose yourself. If you are troubled by the idea that ‘He’ll think I’m boring and won’t treat me the way he used to,’ remember that everything comes at a price. It isn’t possible to change your behavior and still be the same person you were before. "
148 " Restrict yourself to choice and refusal; and exercise them carefully, with discipline and detachment. "
149 " So don't make a show of your philosophical learning to the uninitiated, show them by your actions what you have absorbed. "
150 " Be happy when you find that doctrines you have learned and analysed are being tested by real events. If you’ve succeeded in removing or reducing the tendency to be mean and critical, or thoughtless, or foul-mouthed, or careless, or nonchalant; if old interests no longer engage you, at least not to the same extent; then every day can be a feast day – today because you acquitted yourself well in one set of circumstances, tomorrow because of another. "
― Epictetus , Of Human Freedom (Penguin Great Ideas)
151 " Is then the fruit of a fig-tree not perfect suddenly and in one hour, and would you possess the fruit of a man's mind in so short a time and so easily? "
― Epictetus , The Discourses
152 " If you wish it, you are free; if you wish it, you’ll find fault with no one, you’ll cast blame on no one, and everything that comes about will do so in accordance with your own will and that of God. "
153 " When then any man assents to that which is false, be assured that he did not intend to assent to it as false, for every soul is unwillingly deprived of the truth, as Plato says; but the falsity seemed to him to be true. "
― Epictetus , A Selection from the Discourses of Epictetus with the Encheiridion
154 " When someone is properly grounded in life, they shouldn't have to look outside themselves for approval. "
155 " He who is discontented with what he has, and with what has been granted to him by fortune, is one who is ignorant of the art of living, but he who bears that in a noble spirit, and makes reasonable use of all that comes from it, deserves to be regarded as a good man. "
156 " For I am not Eternity, but a human being—a part of the whole, as an hour is part of the day. I must come like the hour, and like the hour must pass! "
157 " So if you like doing something, do it regularly; if you don't like doing something, make a habit of doing something different. "
158 " In literature, too, it is not great achievement to memorize what you have read while not formulating an opinion of your own. "
159 " For where you find unrest, grief, fear, frustrated desire, failed aversion, jealousy and envy, happiness has no room for admittance. And where values are false, these passions inevitably follow. "
160 " Does anyone bathe hastily? Do not say that they do it ill, but hastily. Does anyone drink much wine? Do not say that they do ill, but that they drink a great deal. For unless you perfectly understand their motives, how should you know if they act ill? Thus you will not risk yielding to any appearances except those you fully comprehend. "
― Epictetus , The Art of Living: The Classical Manual on Virtue, Happiness and Effectiveness