Epictetus quotes...Proof Cognitive Therapy has been around for ages

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

• Do not seek to bring things to pass in accordance with your wishes, but wish for them as they are, and you will find them.

• It is impossible to begin to learn that which one thinks one already knows.

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

• He is a wise man who does not grieve for the tings which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has.

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

• If evil be spoken of you and it be true, correct yourself, if it be a lie, laugh at it.

• It is not he who reviles or strikes you who insults you, but your opinion that these things are insulting.

• It is not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters.

• Don’t let the force of an impression when it first hit you knock you off your feet; just say to it: Hold on a moment; let me see who you are and what you represent.  Let me put you to the test. 

• In life our first job is this, to divide and distinguish things into two categories: externals I cannot control, but the choices I make with regard to them I do control.  Where will I find good and bad?  In me, in my choices.

Favorite Quotes

• He who controls others may be powerful, but he who has mastered himself is mightier still. Lao Tzu

• A person who thinks all the time has nothing to think about except thoughts, so he loses touch with reality and lives in a world of illusions.  Alan Watts

• A proud man is always looking down on things and people; and, of course, as long as you are looking down, you cannot see something that is above you.  C.S. Lewis

• And why should we feel anger at the world?  As if the world would notice!  Euripides

• I don’t like work—no man does—but I like what is in the work—the chance to find yourself.  Joseph Conrad

• Objective judgment, now at this very moment.  Unselfish action, now at this very moment.  Willing acceptance—now at this very moment—of all the external events.  That’s all you need.  Marcus Aurelius

• Choose not to be harmed—and you won’t feel harmed.  Don’t feel harmed—and you haven’t been.  Marcus Aurelius

• A good person dyes events with his own color…and turns whatever happens to his own benefit.  Seneca

• Nothing is easier than to denounce the evil doer; nothing is more difficult than understanding him. Fyodor Dostoevsky

• No man or woman who tries to pursue an ideal in his or her own way is without enemies. Daisy Bates

• For we pay a price for everything we get or take in this world; and although ambitions are well worth having, they are not cheaply won. Phaedrus

• There is no formula for success except perhaps an unconditional acceptance of life and what it brings. Arthur Rubinstein

• A sad soul can kill you quicker, far quicker, than a germ. John Steinbeck

• All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves. We must die to one life before we can enter another. Anatole France

• The past is our definition. We may strive, with good reason, to escape it, or to escape what is bad in it, but we will escape it only by adding something better to it. Wendell Berry

• Reason is not automatic; those who deny it cannot be conquered by it. Ayn Rand

• Let us consider that we are all insane. It will explain us to each other; it will un-riddle many riddles. Mark Twain

• For those who believe no proof is necessary. For those who don’t believe no proof is possible. Stuart Chase

• In order for the light to shine so brightly, the darkness must be present. Francis Bacon

• There is no lasting hope in violence, only temporary relief from hopelessness. Kingman Brewster, Jr.

• What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us. Ralph Waldo Emerson

• He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby becomes a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you. Nietzsche

• Men are more ready to repay an injury than a benefit, because gratitude is a burden and revenge a pleasure. Tacitus

• If I am what I have, and if I lose what I have, who then am I? Erich Fromm

• Experience is a brutal teacher, but you learn; my god, do you learn. C.S. Lewis

• We’re all sentenced to solitary confinement inside our own skins, for life. Tennessee Williams

• Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls. The most massive characters are seared with scars. Khalil Gibran

• Some of the best lessons are learned from past mistakes. The error of the past is the wisdom of the future. Dale Turner