Epictetus (Epiktet)

Men are disturbed not by things, but by the views which they take of them.

You need but will, and it is done; but if you relax your efforts you will be ruined, for ruin and recovery are both from within.

Tylko wykształceni są wolni.

Only the educated are free.

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

Keep neither a blunt knife nor an ill-disciplined looseness of tongue.

First, learn the meaning of what you say, and then speak.

No man is free who is not a master of himself.

God has delivered yourself to your care, and says: I had no one fitter to trust than you.

There is only one way to happiness and that is to cease worrying about things which are beyond the power of our will. -- from The Enricheridion

To a reasonable creature, that alone is insupportable which is unreasonable; but everything reasonable may be supported.

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

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.

Any one thing in the creation is sufficient to demonstrate a Providence to an humble and grateful mind.

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

Practise yourself, for heaven's sake, in little things; and thence proceed to greater.

Difficulties are things that show what men are.

Appear to know only this,--never to fail nor fall.

There are some things which men confess with ease, and others with difficulty.

In every affair consider what precedes and what follows, and then undertake it.

First say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to do.

Everything has two handles,--one by which it may be borne; another by which it cannot.

W czasie uczty nie opowiadaj, jak należy jeść, tylko jedz jak należy.

Nie to, co się z tobą dzieje, ale to, jak na to reagujesz, ma znaczenie.

It’s not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters.

The key is to keep company only with people who uplift you, whose presence calls forth your best.

Men are disturbed, not by things, but by the principles and notions which they form concerning things.