Epictetus Quotes on Virtue
Epictetus's Discourses and Enchiridion organize Stoic ethics around prohairesis — the rational faculty of choice in which alone genuine virtue and vice reside. External goods, possessions, reputation, even the body itself are not up to us and so cannot constitute virtue or vice, only their occasion. The cardinal virtues — wisdom, courage, justice, moderation — are unified expressions of a single rational discipline, the discipline of using impressions correctly, and the philosophical life is the daily training of this faculty against the misjudgments of habit and culture.
Quotes
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Attributed to Epictetus:
“It is not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters.”
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“First say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to do.”
Τίς εἶναι θέλεις, σαυτῷ πρῶτον ἐιπέ· εἶθ᾿ οὕτως ποίει ἃ ποιεῖς. -
Attributed to Epictetus:
“Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants.”
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“No man is free who is not master of himself.”
Οὐδεὶς ἐλεύθερος ἑαυτοῦ μὴ κρατῶν. -
Attributed to Epictetus:
“If you wish to be a writer, write.”
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Attributed to Epictetus:
“Don't explain your philosophy. Embody it.”
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“Yet God hath not only granted these faculties, by which we may bear every event without being depressed or broken by it, but like a good prince and a true father, hath placed their exercise above restraint, compulsion, or hindrance, and wholly within our own control.”
καίτοι ὅ γε θεὸς οὐ μόνον ἔδωκεν ἡμῖν τὰς δυνάμεις ταύτας, καθ᾿ ἃς οἴσομεν πᾶν τὸ ἀποβαῖνον μὴ ταπεινούμενοι μηδὲ συγκλώμενοι ὑπ᾿ αὐτοῦ, ἀλλ᾿ ὃ ἦν ἀγαθοῦ βασιλέως καὶ ταῖς ἀληθείαις πατρός, ἀκώλυτον τοῦτο ἔδωκεν, ἀνανάγκαστον, ἀπαραπόδιστον, ὅλον αὐτὸ ἐφ᾿ ἡμῖν ἐποίησεν.