Epictetus

Don’t be concerned with other people’s impressions of you. They are dazzled and deluded by appearances. Stick with your purpose. This alone will strengthen your will and give your life coherence.
– Epictetus

Never depend on the admiration of others for self-satisfaction. It is a fact of life that other people, even people who love you, will not necessarily agree with your ideas, understand you always, or share your enthusiasms.
– Epictetus

When you actively engage in gradually refining yourself, you retreat from your lazy ways of covering yourself or making excuses. Instead of feeling a persistent current of low-level shame, you move forward by using the creative possibilities of this moment, your current situation.
– Epictetus

It’s time to stop being vague. If you wish to be an extraordinary person, if you wish to be wise, then you should explicitly identify the kind of person you aspire to become.
– Epictetus

If you wish to live a life free from sorrow, think of what is going to happen as if it had already happened.
– Epictetus

Keep your attention focused entirely on what is truly your own concern, and be clear that what belongs to others is their business and none of yours.
– Epictetus

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

Freedom and slavery, the one is the name of virtue, and the other of vice, and both are acts of the will.
– Epictetus

To live a life of virtue, you have to become consistent, even when it isn’t convenient, comfortable, or easy.
– Epictetus

You become what you give your attention to…If you yourself don’t choose what thoughts and images you expose yourself to, someone else will, and their motives may not be the highest.
– Epictetus