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

Epictetus

Renew every day your conversation with God: Do this even in preference to eating. Think more often of God than you breathe.
EPICTETUS

Breathe Conservation Eat God Preference Thinking
The key is to keep company only with people who uplift you, whose presence calls forth your best.
EPICTETUS

Company Friendship Key People Presence
The world turns aside to let any man pass who knows where he is going.
EPICTETUS

Going Man Philosophy Wisdom World
Know you not that a good man does nothing for appearance sake, but for the sake of having done right?
EPICTETUS

Appearance Done Goodness Inspirational Man Sake
No great thing is created suddenly. There must be time. Give your best and always be kind.
EPICTETUS

Business Entrepreneur Giving Inspirational Patience Time
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

Alone Appearance Impression Life People Strength
Don’t demand or expect that events happen as you would wish them do. Accept events as they actually happen. That way, peace is possible.
EPICTETUS

Acceptance Demand Expectation Happen Peace Possible
Freedom is the only worthy goal in life. It is won by disregarding things that lie beyond our control.
EPICTETUS

Control Freedom Goals Life Win Worth
Happiness and freedom begin with a clear understanding of one principle.
EPICTETUS

Beginning Clear Freedom Happiness Principle Understand
Man is not worried by real problems so much as by his imagined anxieties about real problems.
EPICTETUS

Anxiety Imagination Man Problem Worry
Nothing truly stops you. Nothing truly holds you back. For your own will is always within your control.
EPICTETUS

Control Hold Inspirational Positive Stop True
Books are the training weights of the mind.
EPICTETUS

Book Mind One Liner Training Weight
Circumstances don’t make the man, they only reveal him to himself.
EPICTETUS

Circumstance Deep Himself Man Mask Reveal
Desire and happiness cannot live together.
EPICTETUS

Desire Happiness Live One Liner Togetherness
Wisdom means understanding without any doubt that circumstances do not rise to meet our expectations. Events happen as they may. People behave as they will.
EPICTETUS

Behaviour Circumstance Expectation People Understand Wisdom
I laugh at those who think they can damage me. They do not know who I am, they do not know what I think, they cannot even touch the things which are really mine and with which I live.
EPICTETUS

Attitude Damage Laugh Live Thinking
If evil be spoken of you and it be true, correct yourself, if it be a lie, laugh at it.
EPICTETUS

Evil Laugh Speak True Yourself
Any person capable of angering you becomes your master; he can anger you only when you permit yourself to be disturbed by him.
EPICTETUS

Angry Disturb Master Permit Person Yourself
He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has.
EPICTETUS

Grief Happiness Man Rejoice Satisfaction Wise
It is not death or pain that is to be dreaded, but the fear of pain or death.
EPICTETUS

Death Depression Fear Love Pain
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

Aspire Extraordinary Inspirational Time Vague Wise
Give me by all means the shorter and nobler life, instead of one that is longer but of less account!
EPICTETUS

Account Giving Inspirational Life Positive
Is freedom anything else than the right to live as we wish? Nothing else.
EPICTETUS

Freedom Inspirational Live Right Satisfaction
The greater the difficulty, the more glory in surmounting it. Skillful pilots gain their reputation from storms and tempests.
EPICTETUS

Difficult Motivational Pilot Reputation Skill Storm
If you seek Truth, you will not seek to gain a victory by every possible means; and when you have found Truth, you need not fear being defeated.
EPICTETUS

Defeat Fear Gain Seek Truth Victory
Progress is not achieved by luck or accident, but by working on yourself daily.
EPICTETUS

Accident Achievement Improvement Inspirational Luck Progress
When something happens, the only thing in your power is your attitude toward it; you can either accept it or resent it.
EPICTETUS

Acceptance Attitude Happen Ignorance Power

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

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

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