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We all carry the seeds of greatness within us, but we need an image as a point of focus in order that they may sprout.

Epictetus

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Epictetus
Philosopher
Epictetus of Hierapolis
Focus
Within
Point
Sprout
Order
Sprouts
May
Seeds
Need
Carry
Needs
Greatness
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More quotes by Epictetus

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If anyone should tell you that a particular person has spoken critically of you, don't bother with excuses or defenses. Just smile and reply, I guess that person doesn't know about all my other faults. Otherwise, he wouldn't have mentioned only these.
Epictetus
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A guide, on finding a man who has lost his way, brings him back to the right path—he does not mock and jeer at him and then take himself off. You also must show the unlearned man the truth, and you will see that he will follow. But so long as you do not show it him, you should not mock, but rather feel your own incapacity.
Epictetus
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Not things, but opinions about things, trouble men.
Epictetus
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It is better to die of hunger having lived without grief and fear, than to live with a troubled spirit, amid abundance
Epictetus
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If you see anybody wail and complain, call him a slave, though he be clad in purple.
Epictetus
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There is only one thing for which God has sent me into the world, and that is to develop every kind of virtue or strength, and there is nothing in all the world that I cannot use for this purpose.
Epictetus
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When a man is proud because he can understand and explain the writings of Chrysippus, say to yourself, 'if Chrysippus had not written obscurely, this man would have had nothing to be proud of.'
Epictetus
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What really frightens and dismays us is not external events themselves, but the way in which we think about them. It is not things that disturb us, but our interpretation of their significance.
Epictetus
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Unless we place our religion and our treasure in the same thing, religion will always be sacrificed.
Epictetus
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Here is the beginning of philosophy: a recognition of the conflicts between men, a search for their cause, a condemnation of mere opinion .. . and the discovery of a standard of judgement.
Epictetus
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What is a child? Ignorance. What is a child? Want of instruction.
Epictetus
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Man is not worried by real problems so much as by his imagined anxieties about real problems
Epictetus
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To know that you do not know and to be willing to admit that you do not know without sheepishly apologizing is real strength and sets the stage for learning and progress in any endeavor.
Epictetus
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What hurts this person is not the occurrence itself, for another person might not feel oppressed by this situation at all. What is hurting this person is the response he or she has uncritically adopted. It is not a demonstration of kindness or friendship to the people we care about to join them in indulging in wrongheaded, negative feelings.
Epictetus
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The origin of sorrow is this: to wish for something that does not come to pass.
Epictetus
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The Beginning of Philosophy is a Consciousness of your own Weakness and inability in necessary things.
Epictetus
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In order to please others, we loose our hold on our life's purpose.
Epictetus
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Wherever I go it will be well with me, for it was well with me here, not on account of the place, but of my judgments which I shall carry away with me, for no one can deprive me of these on the contrary, they alone are my property, and cannot be taken away, and to possess them suffices me wherever I am or whatever I do.
Epictetus
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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.
Epictetus
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Whoever does not regard what he has as most ample wealth, is unhappy, though he be master of the world.
Epictetus