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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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Epictetus
Philosopher
Epictetus of Hierapolis
Really
Way
Frightens
Things
Dismay
Think
Disturb
Thinking
External
Life
Interpretation
Significance
Events

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Reason is not measured by size or height, but by principle.
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Wish that everything should come about just as it does.
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And have you not received faculties which will enable you to bear all that happens to you? Have you not received greatness of spirit? Have you not received courage? Have you not received endurance?
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I am always content with what happens for I know that what God chooses is better than what I choose.
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Know, first, who you are, and then adorn yourself accordingly.
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Neither should a ship rely on one small anchor, nor should life rest on a single hope.
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Things true and evident must of necessity be recognized by those who would contradict them.
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We can't control the impressions others form about us, and the effort to do so only debases our character.
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We all dread a bodily paralysis, and would make use of every contrivance to avoid it but none of us is troubled about a paralysis of the soul.
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The essence of good and evil is a certain disposition of the will.
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There are some things which men confess with ease, and others with difficulty.
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When a youth was giving himself airs in the Theatre and saying, 'I am wise, for I have conversed with many wise men,' Epictetus replied, 'I too have conversed with many rich men, yet I am not rich!’.
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The soul's impurity consists in bad judgements, and purification consists in producing in it right judgements, and the pure soul is one which has right judgements, for this alone is proof against confusion and pollution in its functions.
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What is it to be a philosopher? Is it not to be prepared against events?
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Men are not worried by things, but by their ideas about things. When we meet with difficulties, become anxious or troubled, let us not blame others, but rather ourselves. That is: our ideas about things.
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Seek not the good in external thingsseek it in yourselves.
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If you would be a reader, read if a writer, write.
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-….when things seem to have reached that stage, merely say “I won’t play any longer”, and take your departure but if you stay, stop lamenting.
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To adorn our characters by the charm of an amiable nature shows at once a lover of beauty and a lover of man.
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