Frases de Epicteto

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“Primero descubre lo que quieres ser; luego haz lo que tengas que hacer.”

“Solo los enseñados son libres”

“Si te dicen que alguien habló mal de ti, no te defiendas, sino di: parece que no conoce mis otros defectos porque, si no, no habría mencionado solamente ésos.”

“Porque el dolor y la muerte no son terribles, sino el miedo al dolor o a la muerte.”

“Los hombres no se perturban por las cosas, sino por la opinión que tienen de éstas.”

“La felicidad sólo puede ser hallada en el interior.”

“La felicidad no consiste en desear cosas sino en ser libre.”

“Sólo existe una forma de felicidad, que es dejar de preocuparnos por aquellas cosas que estén más allá del poder de nuestro deseo.”

“No pretendas que las cosas ocurran como tu quieres. Desea, más bien, que se produzcan tal como se producen, y serás feliz.”

“El alma es como una ciudad sitiada: detrás de sus muros resistentes vigilan los defensores. Si los cimientos son fuertes, la fortaleza no tendrá que capitular.”

“El hombre sabio no debe abstenerse de participar en el gobierno del Estado, pues es un delito renunciar a ser útil a los necesitados y una cobardía ceder el paso a los indignos.”

“Sobre todo, no hablemos jamás de los hombres para denigrarlos, ensalzarlos o compararlos.”

“Yo veo bastantes hombres que publican las máximas de los estoicos, pero no veo un verdadero estoico. Manifiéstame, pues, uno; uno es el que pido. Un estoico, esto es, un hombre que en la enfermedad se crea dichoso, que en el peligro se crea dichoso, que en un destierro se crea dichoso, que despreciado y calumniado se crea dichoso. Si no puedes manifestarme un estoico perfecto y acabado, muéstrame uno, aunque imperfecto, y no envidies a un viejo como yo, esa gran dicha que te confieso no he podido gozar todavía.”

“La primera misión del filósofo es despojarse de todo engreimiento. Pues es imposible que un hombre aprenda lo que cree que sabe.”

“Un barco no debería navegar con una sola ancla, ni la vida con una sola esperanza.”

“La verdad triunfa por sí misma, la mentira necesita siempre complicidad.”

“Si quieres ser bueno, cree primero que eres malo.”

“El origen de la filosofía es percatarse de la propia debilidad e impotencia.”

“Engrandecerás a tu pueblo no elevando los tejados de sus viviendas, sino las almas de sus habitantes.”

“¿Qué ganarías con injuriar a una piedra que es incapaz de oírte? Pues bien, imita a la piedra y no oigas las injurias que te dirijan tus enemigos.”

“¿He de preocuparme por el lugar en que me halle o por los compañeros que tenga o por lo que ellos digan de mí? De ninguna manera. Por el contrario, ¿no deberá esforzarse todo mi ser por seguir a Dios, sus leyes y mandamientos?”

“Los cuervos arrancan los ojos a los muertos cuando ya no les hacen falta; pero los aduladores destruyen las almas de los vivos cegándoles los ojos.”

“La vida es demasiado corta, y tienes cosas importantes que hacer.”

“Para alcanzar la libertad sólo hay un camino: el desprecio de las cosas que no dependen de nosotros.”

“No está en nuestras manos el ser ricos, pero sí el ser felices. Además, las riquezas no son siempre un bien, sobre que suelen ser poco duraderas. En cambio, la felicidad que proviene de la sabiduría dura siempre.”

“Acusar a los demás de los infortunios propios es un signo de falta de educación. Acusarse a uno mismo demuestra que la educación ha comenzado.”

“El error del anciano es que pretende enjuiciar el hoy con el criterio del ayer.”

“El que tiene suerte, encuentra en el yerno un hijo; el que no la tiene, pierde una hija.”

“Acuérdate que debes comportarte en la vida como en un banquete. Si se pone algún plato delante de ti, puedes meter la mano y tomar honestamente tu parte; si sólo pasa por delante de ti, guárdate bien de detenerlo o de meter la mano en él temerariamente: antes, espera apacible a que vuelva a ti. Lo mismo debes hacer para con tu mujer, tus hijos, las dignidades, las riquezas y todas las otras cosas de este género. Porque por este medio te harás merecedor de comer a la mesa de los dioses. Empero, si eres tan generoso que rehúses también lo que te presentan, no solamente serás digno de comer a la mesa de los dioses, sino que merecerás tener parte en su poder.”

“No es la pobreza la que aflige, sino la avaricia; así como no son las riquezas las que preservan de todo temor, sino la razón.”

“No hay que tener miedo de la pobreza ni del destierro, ni de la cárcel, ni de la muerte. De lo que hay que tener miedo es del propio miedo.”

“No son las cosas que nos pasan las que nos hacen sufrir, sino lo que nos decimos sobre estas cosas.”

“Si dicen mal de ti con fundamento, corrígete; de lo contrario, échate a reír.”

“La conclusión final de esta filosofía es que el bien y el mal se relacionan exclusivamente con nuestra prohairesis, es decir: con nuestro libre albedrío, por lo que no dependen de las cosas externas o circunstanciales. En otras palabras, somos nuestro propio bien y nuestro propio mal, más allá de las circunstancias, puesto que la facultad de elegir en nuestro libre albedrío. Somos nosotros los que elegimos. Tenemos la facultad de elegir entre el bien y el mal y, por lo tanto, somos responsables por nuestro propio Destino ya que el mismo está en nuestras propias manos. No así la Fatalidad, que es lo que "nos sucede" y que responde a causas externas fuera de nuestro control, mientras que al Destino lo vamos construyendo con las cosas que hacemos suceder porque las elegimos.
[Prólogo de Denes Martos]”

“Cuando estés de noche en tu habitación, aun cuando tengas las puertas y las ventanas cerradas y apagada la luz, no digas que estás solo: nunca se está solo.”

“Es más difícil que una persona rica sea modesta a que una persona modesta sea rica.”

“Oh, Dios, hágase de mí tu voluntad. Mi parecer se identifica con el tuyo. Te pertenezco. No pido dispensa de nada que a tus ojos aparezca bueno. Llévame adonde quieras, vísteme con el traje que quieras…”

“Recuerda que no eres aquí sino el actor de un drama, el cual será breve o largo según la voluntad del poeta.”

“Toda la filosofía se basa en dos palabras: sustentarse y abstenerse.”

“Cuando hayas de sentenciar procura olvidar a los litigantes y acordarte sólo de la causa.”

“La envidia es el adversario de los más afortunados.”

“Lo que tú evitas sufrir no lo hagas sufrir a otros.”

“Whatever moral rules you have deliberately proposed to yourself abide by them as they were laws, and as if you would be guilty of impiety by violating any of them. Don't regard what anyone says of you, for this, after all, is no concern of yours. How long, then, will you put off thinking yourself worthy of the highest improvements and follow the distinctions of reason? You have received the philosophical theorems, with which you ought to be familiar, and you have been familiar with them. What other master, then, do you wait for, to throw upon that the delay of reforming yourself?… Let whatever appears to be the best be to you an inviolable law.”

“You have not stirred my spirit. For what can I see in you to stir me, as a spirited horse will stir a judge of horses? Your body? That you maltreat. Your dress? That is luxurious. Your behavior, your look?—Nothing whatsoever.”

“Freedom is the name of virtue: Slavery, of vice…. None is a slave whose acts are free.”

“Of pleasures, those which occur most rarely give the most delight.”

“Who is there whom bright and agreeable children do not attract to play and creep and prattle with them?”

“Two principles we should always have ready — that there is nothing good or evil save in the will; and that we are not to lead events, but to follow them.”

“Remember that you ought to behave in life as you would at a banquet. As something is being passed around it comes to you; stretch out your hand, take a portion of it politely. It passes on; do not detain it. Or it has not come to you yet; do not project your desire to meet it, but wait until it comes in front of you. So act toward children, so toward a wife, so toward office, so toward wealth.”

“Have this thought ever present with thee, when thou losest any outward thing, what thou gainest in its stead; and if this be the more precious, say not, I have suffered loss.”

“You are a little soul, carrying a corpse.”

“When we are invited to a banquet, we take what is set before us; and were one to call upon his host to set fish upon the table or sweet things, he would be deemed absurd. Yet in a word, we ask the Gods for what they do not give; and that, although they have given us so many things!”

“It is the act of an ill-instructed man to blame others for his own bad condition; it is the act of one who has begun to be instructed, to lay the blame on himself; and of one whose instruction is completed, neither to blame another, nor himself.”

“For what constitutes a child?—Ignorance. What constitutes a child?—Want of instruction; for they are our equals so far as their degree of knowledge permits.”

“The first and most necessary topic in philosophy is that of the use of moral theorems, such as, "We ought not to lie;" the second is that of demonstrations, such as, "What is the origin of our obligation not to lie;" the third gives strength and articulation to the other two, such as, "What is the origin of this is a demonstration." For what is demonstration? What is consequence? What contradiction? What truth? What falsehood? The third topic, then, is necessary on the account of the second, and the second on the account of the first. But the most necessary, and that whereon we ought to rest, is the first. But we act just on the contrary. For we spend all our time on the third topic, and employ all our diligence about that, and entirely neglect the first.”

“Kings and tyrants have armed guards wherewith to chastise certain persons, though they be themselves evil. But to the Cynic conscience gives this power—not arms and guards.”

“Give me by all means the shorter and nobler life, instead of one that is longer but of less account!”

“If what the philosophers say be true,—that all men's actions proceed from one source; that as they assent from a persuasion that a thing is so, and dissent from a persuasion that it is not, and suspend their judgment from a persuasion that it is uncertain,—so likewise they seek a thing from a persuasion that it is for their advantage.”

“To the rational being only the irrational is unendurable, but the rational is endurable.”

“Reason is not measured by size or height, but by principle.”

“Let not another's disobedience to Nature become an ill to you; for you were not born to be depressed and unhappy with others, but to be happy with them. And if any is unhappy, remember that he is so for himself; for God made all men to enjoy felicity and peace.”

“Seemeth it nothing to you, never to accuse, never to blame either God or Man? to wear ever the same countenance in going forth as in coming in? This was the secret of Socrates: yet he never said that he knew or taught anything… Who amongst you makes this his aim? Were it indeed so, you would gladly endure sickness, hunger, aye, death itself.”

“And are all profited by what they hear, or only some among them? So that it seems that there is an art of hearing as well as one of speaking.”

“O slavish man! will you not bear with your own brother, who has God for his Father, as being a son from the same stock, and of the same high descent? But if you chance to be placed in some superior station, will you presently set yourself up for a tyrant?”

“The materials of action are variable, but the use we make of them should be constant.”

“Yet God hath not only granted these faculties, by which we may bear every event without being depressed or broken by it, but like a good prince and a true father, hath placed their exercise above restraint, compulsion, or hindrance, and wholly without our own control.”

“It is not reasonings that are wanted now; for there are books stuffed full of stoical reasonings.”

“The soul that companies with Virtue is like an ever-flowing source. It is a pure, clear, and wholesome draught; sweet, rich, and generous of its store; that injures not, neither destroys.”

“What is the first business of one who practices philosophy? To get rid of self-conceit. For it is impossible for anyone to begin to learn that which he thinks he already knows.”

“These reasonings are unconnected: "I am richer than you, therefore I am better"; "I am more eloquent than you, therefore I am better." The connection is rather this: "I am richer than you, therefore my property is greater than yours;" "I am more eloquent than you, therefore my style is better than yours." But you, after all, are neither property nor style.”

“Upon all occasions we ought to have these maxims ready at hand:
Conduct me, Jove, and you, O Destiny,
Wherever your decrees have fixed my station. ~ Cleanthes.

I follow cheerfully; and, did I not,
Wicked and wretched, I must follow still
Whoever yields properly to Fate, is deemed
Wise among men, and knows the laws of heaven. ~ Euripides, Frag. 965.”