Epictetus

“If you desire to be good, begin by believing that you are wicked.”

“Freedom is not procured by a full enjoyment of what is desired, but by controlling the desire.”

“It takes more than just a good looking body. You've got to have the heart and soul to go with it.”

“We are not to give credit to the many, who say that none ought to be educated but the free; but rather to the philosophers, who say that the well-educated alone are free.”

“Nothing great is created suddenly, any more than a bunch of grapes or a fig. If you tell me that you desire a fig. I answer you that there must be time. Let it first blossom, then bear fruit, then ripen.”

“It is not death or pain that is to be dreaded, but the fear of pain or death.”

“No great thing is created suddenly.”

“When you are offended at any man's fault, turn to yourself and study your own failings. Then you will forget your anger.”

“Make the best use of what is in your power, and take the rest as it happens.”

“Is freedom anything else than the right to live as we wish? Nothing else.”

“God has entrusted me with myself.”

“People are not disturbed by things, but by the view they take of them.”

“Imagine for yourself a character, a model personality, whose example you determine to follow, in private as well as in public.”

“We should not moor a ship with one anchor, or our life with one hope.”

“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.”

“The key is to keep company only with people who uplift you, whose presence calls forth your best.”

“Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants.”

“There is only one way to happiness and that is to cease worrying about things which are beyond the power of our will.”

“If virtue promises happiness, prosperity and peace, then progress in virtue is progress in each of these for to whatever point the perfection of anything brings us, progress is always an approach toward it.”

“Neither should a ship rely on one small anchor, nor should life rest on a single hope.”

“If you wish to be a writer, write.”