Epictetus

"In theory there is nothing to hinder our following what we are taught; but in life there are many things to draw us aside."

"For he who is unmusical is a child in music; he who is without letters is a child in learning; he who is untaught, is a child in life."

"'But' you say, 'I cannot comprehend all this at once.' —Why, who told you that your powers were equal to God's? Yet God hath placed by the side of each a man's own Guardian Spirit, who is charged to w…"

"A Philosopher's school is a Surgery: pain, not pleasure, you should have felt therein. For on entering none of you is whole. One has a shoulder out of joint, another an abscess: a third suffers from a…"

"Every art and every faculty contemplates certain things as its principal objects."

"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 f…"

"It is hard to combine and unite these two qualities, the carefulness of one who is affected by circumstances, and the intrepidity of one who heeds them not. But it is not impossible: else were happine…"

"Be not swept off your feet by the vividness of the impression, but say, "Impression, wait for me a little. Let me see what you are and what you represent. Let me try you."