75 Epictetus Quotes on Life, Philosophy and Empowerment

Epictetus was a Greek philosopher from present-day Turkey. He was born into slavery around 55 AD and worked for a wealthy household. With permission, he learned about philosophy and came to realize that it should be used as a guide for living rather than just a school subject. Much like other philosophers at that time, Epictetus’ quotes about life, philosophy and more are plentiful due to historical documentations and his association with Marcus Aurelius.

Epictetus was a believer in Stoicism, the ancient school of thought that teaches self-control and acceptance of things when they cannot change. He was eventually freed from slavery as an adult, and was able to teach philosophy in Rome. However, the Roman Emperor Domitian banished all philosophers, so Epictetus escaped to Greece.

Many of Epictetus' thoughts and beliefs were documented by one of his pupils, Arrian. These 75 famous and popular quotes by Epictetus continue to spark conversation among today’s students and followers of Stoic philosophy, as well as regular folks who just want some inspiration for how to live a more fearless life.

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75 Epictetus Quotes

1. “Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants.”
2. “Don't explain your philosophy. Embody it.”
3. “It's not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters.”
4. “You are a little soul carrying around a corpse.”
5. “God has entrusted me with myself. No man is free who is not master of himself. A man should so live that his happiness shall depend as little as possible on external things. The world turns aside to let any man pass who knows where he is going.”

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6. “First learn the meaning of what you say, and then speak.”
7. “It is impossible to begin to learn that which one thinks one already knows.”
8. “Keep silence for the most part, and speak only when you must, and then briefly.”
9. “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.”

10. “He who laughs at himself never runs out of things to laugh at.”
11. “Nothing truly stops you. Nothing truly holds you back. For your own will is always within your control.”
12. “Make the best use of what is in your power, and take the rest as it happens.”
13. “Don't hope that events will turn out the way you want, welcome events in whichever way they happen: this is the path to peace.”
14. “It is the nature of the wise to resist pleasures, but the foolish to be a slave to them.”
15. “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.”
16. “Don’t demand or expect that events happen as you would wish them do. Accept events as they actually happen. That way, peace is possible.”
17. “Progress is not achieved by luck or accident, but by working on yourself daily.”
18. “We should not moor a ship with one anchor, or our life with one hope.”
19. “Man is not worried by real problems so much as by his imagined anxieties about real problems.”

20. “You have been given your own work to do. Get to it right now, do your best at it, and don’t be concerned with who is watching you. Create your own merit.”
21. “If anyone tells you that a certain person speaks ill of you, do not make excuses about what is said of you but answer, 'He was ignorant of my other faults, else he would not have mentioned these alone.'”
22. “First say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to do.”
23. “The key is to keep company only with people who uplift you, whose presence calls forth your best.”
24. “Freedom is the only worthy goal in life. It is won by disregarding things that lie beyond our control.”
25. “Only the educated are free.”
26. “People are not disturbed by things, but by the views they take of them.”

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27. “Difficulties are things that show a person what they are.”
28. “Desire and happiness cannot live together.”
29. “I laugh at those who think they can damage me. They do not know who I am, they do not know what I think, they cannot even touch the things which are really mine and with which I live.”
30. “Other people's views and troubles can be contagious. Don't sabotage yourself by unwittingly adopting negative, unproductive attitudes through your associations with others.”
31. “Tentative efforts lead to tentative outcome.”
32. “All religions must be tolerated... for every man must get to heaven in his own way.”
33. "Seek not the good in external things; seek it in yourselves."

34. “The best place to get help is from yourself.”
35. “To accuse others for one's own misfortune is a sign of want of education. To accuse oneself shows that one's education has begun. To accuse neither oneself nor others shows that one's education is complete.”
36. “Happiness and personal fulfillment are the natural consequences of doing the right thing.”
37. “Any person capable of angering you becomes your master; he can anger you only when you permit yourself to be disturbed by him.”
38. “We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak.”
39. “Circumstances don't make the man, they only reveal him to himself.”
40. “It is our attitude toward events, not events themselves, which we can control. Nothing is by its own nature calamitous – even death is terrible only if we fear it.”
41. “The world turns aside to let any man pass who knows where he is going.”
42. “The essence of philosophy is that a man should so live that his happiness shall depend as little as possible on external things.”
43. “Don't just say you have read books. Show that through them you have learned to think better, to be a more discriminating and reflective person. Books are the training weights of the mind. They are very helpful, but it would be a bad mistake to suppose that one has made progress simply by having internalized their contents.”
44. “Man is troubled not by events, but by the meaning he gives them.”
45. “Freedom and happiness are won by disregarding things that lie beyond our control.”
46. “He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has.”

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47. “You become what you give your attention to.”
48. “Don’t seek to have events happen as you wish, but wish them to happen as they do happen, and all will be well with you.”
49. “If evil be spoken of you and it be true, correct yourself, if it be a lie, laugh at it.”
50. “The greater the difficulty the more glory in surmounting it. Skillful pilots gain their reputation from storms and tempests.”
51. “When you are offended at any man’s fault, turn to yourself and study your own failings. Then you will forget your anger.”
52. "Know, first, who you are, and then adorn yourself accordingly."
53. “Remember, it is not enough to be hit or insulted to be harmed, you must believe that you are being harmed. If someone succeeds in provoking you, realize that your mind is complicit in the provocation. Which is why it is essential that we not respond impulsively to impressions; take a moment before reacting, and you will find it easier to maintain control.”
54. “Suffering arises from trying to control what is uncontrollable, or from neglecting what is within our power.”
55. “Try not to react merely in the moment. Pull back from the situation. Take a wider view. Compose yourself.”
56. "Control thy passions lest they take vengeance on thee."
57. "First learn the meaning of what you say, and then speak."
58. “There is only one way to happiness and that is to cease worrying about things which are beyond the power or our will.”
59. “Nature hath given men one tongue but two ears, that we may hear from others twice as much as we speak.”
60. "Happiness and freedom begin with a clear understanding of one principle: Some things are within our control, and some things are not."

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61. “In prosperity, it is very easy to find a friend; but in adversity, it is the most difficult of all things.”
62. “Freedom is not procured by a full enjoyment of what is desired, but by controlling the desire.”
63. “We cannot choose our external circumstances, but we can always choose how we respond to them.”
64. “Every difficulty in life presents us with an opportunity to turn inward and to invoke our own submerged inner resources. The trials we endure can and should introduce us to our strengths.”
65. “If anyone is unhappy, remember that his unhappiness is his own fault. Nothing else is the cause of anxiety or loss of tranquility except our own opinion.”
66. “Men are disturbed not by things, but by the views they take of them.”
67. “No great thing is created suddenly, any more than a bunch of grapes or a fig. If you tell me that you desire a fig, I answer you that there must be time. Let it first blossom, then bear fruit, then ripen.”
68. “Attach yourself to what is spiritually superior, regardless of what other people think or do. Hold to your true aspirations no matter what is going on around you.”
69. “It is not so much what happens to you as how you think about what happens.”
70. “The flourishing life cannot be achieved until we moderate our desires and see how superficial and fleeting they are.”
71. “In life our first job is this, to divide and distinguish things into two categories: externals I cannot control, but the choices I make with regard to them I do control. Where will I find good and bad? In me, in my choices.”
72. “It’s so simple really: If you say you’re going to do something, do it. If you start something, finish it.”
73. “We can’t control the impressions others form about us, and the effort to do so only debases our character.”
74. “An ignorant person is inclined to blame others for his own misfortune. To blame oneself is proof of progress. But the wise man never has to blame another or himself.”
75. “Learn to distinguish what you can and can’t control. Within our control are our own opinions, aspirations, desires and the things that repel us. They are directly subject to our influence.”

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