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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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Epictetus
Philosopher
Epictetus of Hierapolis
Persons
Smile
Mentioned
Person
Guess
Excuses
Motivational
Spoken
Wouldn
Bother
Particular
Excuse
Anyone
Faults
Defenses
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Defense
Critically
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Otherwise
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More quotes by Epictetus

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The origin of sorrow is this: to wish for something that does not come to pass.
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Neither the victories of the Olympic Games nor those achieved in battles make the man happy. The only victories that make him happy are those achieved against himself. Temptations and tests are combats. You have beaten one, two, many times still fight. If you defeat at last you will be happy your entire life, as if you have always defeated.
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If what the philosophers say be true, that all men's actions proceed from one source that as they assent from a persuasion that a thing is so, and dissent from a persuasion that it is not, and suspend their judgment from a persuasion that it is uncertain, so likewise they seek a thing from a persuasion that it is for their advantage.
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When the Idea, of any Pleasure strikes your Imagination... let that time be employed in making a just Computation between, the duration of the Pleasure, and that of the Repentance sure to follow it.
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When our friends are present we ought to treat them well and when they are absent, to speak of them well.
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Ask yourself, How are my thoughts, words and deeds affecting my friends, my spouse, my neighbour, my child, my employer, my subordinates, my fellow citizens?
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Unless we place our religion and our treasure in the same thing, religion will always be sacrificed.
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Know you not that a good man does nothing for appearance sake, but for the sake of having done right?
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The materials are indifferent, but the use we make of them is not a matter of indifference.
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Think of God more often than thou breathest.
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Against specious appearances we must set clear convictions, bright and ready for use. When death appears as an evil, we ought immediately to remember that evils are things to be avoided, but death is inevitable.
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No living being is held by anything so strongly as by its own needs. Whatever therefore appears a hindrance to these, be it brother, or father, or child, or mistress, or friend, is hated, abhorred, execrated.
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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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You ought to choose both physician and friend, not the most agreeable, but the most useful.
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Any person capable of angering you becomes your master.
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What is a child? Ignorance. What is a child? Want of instruction.
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When something happens, the only thing in your power is your attitude toward it. It is not the things that disturb us, but our interpretation of their significance. Things and people are not what we wish them to be nor are they what they seem to be. They are what they are.
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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
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What ought one to say then as each hardship comes? I was practicing for this, I was training for this.
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When you have decided that a thing ought to be done and are doing it, never avoid bein seen doing it, though many shall form an unfavorable opinion about it. For if it is not right to do it, avoid doing the thing but if it is right, why are you afraid of those who shall find fault wrongly?
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