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If you wish to be good, first believe that you are bad.

Epictetus

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Epictetus
Philosopher
Epictetus of Hierapolis
Goodness
Wish
Firsts
First
Believe
Good

More quotes by Epictetus

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The Beginning of Philosophy is a Consciousness of your own Weakness and inability in necessary things.
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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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Difficulty shows what men are. Therefore when a difficulty falls upon you, remember that God, like a trainer of wrestlers, has matched you with a rough young man. Why? So that you may become an Olympic conqueror but it is not accomplished without sweat.
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The origin of sorrow is this: to wish for something that does not come to pass.
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Act well your given part the choice rests not with you.
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Man is not worried by real problems so much as by his imagined anxieties about real problems
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Envy is the antagonist of the fortunate.
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When we act pugnaciously, and injuriously, and angrily, and rudely, to what level have we degenerated? To the level of the wild beasts. Well, the fact is that some of us are wild beasts of a larger size, while others are little animals, malignant and petty.
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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.
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What is it to be a philosopher? Is it not to be prepared against events?
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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.
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Things themselves don't hurt or hinder us. Things simply are what they are. How we view these things is another matter.People think what they will think it is of no concern to us.
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Give me by all means the shorter and nobler life, instead of one that is longer but of less account!
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He who exercises wisdom exercises the knowledge which is about God.
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Were I a nightingale, I would act the part of a nightingale were I a swan, the part of a swan.
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There is nothing good or evil save in the will.
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Every habit and faculty is preserved and increased by correspondent actions, as the habit of walking, by walking of running, by running.
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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.
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It has been ordained that there be summer and winter, abundance and dearth, virtue and vice, and all such opposites for the harmony of the whole, and (Zeus) has given each of us a body, property, and companions.
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In theory there is nothing to hinder our following what we are taughtbut in life there are many things to draw us aside.
Epictetus