Epictetus, Discourses and Selected Writings

"We should realize that an opinion is not easily formed unless a person says and hears the same things every day and practises them in real life."

"It isn't death, pain, exile or anything else you care to mention that accounts for the way we act, only our opinion about death, pain and the rest."

"And where there is ignorance, there is also want of learning and instruction in essentials."

"So what oppresses and scares us? It is our own thoughts, obviously, What overwhelms people when they are about to leaves friends, family, old haunts and their accustomed way of life? Thoughts."

"Freedom is not archived by satisfying desire, but by eliminating it."

"Freedom, you see, is having events go in accordance with our will, never contrary to it."

"Don't put your purpose in one place and expect to see progress made somewhere else."

"Philosophy does not claim to secure for us anything outside our control. Otherwise it would be taking on matters that do not concern it. For as wood is the material of the carpenter, and marble that of the sculptor, so the subject matter of the art of life is the life of the self."