Epictetus Quotes

That which is cannot be true.

Things are not what they appear to be: nor are they otherwise.

We are what we seem to be.

Let us affirm what seems to be the truth, that, whether one is or is not, one and the others in relation to themselves and one another, all of them, in every way, are and are not, and appear to be and appear not to be.

There is no frontier between being and appearing.

Being is like pretending.

I'm nothing more than what you actually see, but I am also the complete opposite.

You need to be real enough to be believable, but you don't necessarily have to be real enough to be real. There is a distinction.

Esse quam videri," Celia says. "To be, rather than to seem.

Appearances to the mind are of four kinds. Things either are what they appear to be; or they neither are, nor appear to be; or they are, and do not appear to be; or they are not, and yet appear to be. Rightly to aim in all these cases is the wise man's task.

I think there's more real in the unreal than there is in the real.

Scientific truth is always paradox, if judged by everyday experience, which catches only the delusive appearance of things.

The world is an illusion, but an illusion which we must take seriously.

Even if a man should chance to speak the most complete truth, yet he himself does not know it; all things are wrapped in appearances

...it's just as bad to live in a place where what you do see isn't there as it is to live in one where what you don't see is.

Seeming and being are not one and the same.

Watt's concern, deep as it appeared, was not after all what the figure was, in reality, but with what the figure appeared to be, in reality.

I’m not anything that you think I am.

Things are entirely what they appear to be and behind them... there is nothing.

Everything is illusion. Even that last sentence.

It was a dance of masks and every mask was perfect because every mask was a real face and every face was a real mask so there was no mask and there was no face for there was but one dance in which there was but one mask but one true face which was the same and which was a thing without a name which changed and changed into itself over and over.

There are some as are what they are. And there are some as aren't what they seem to be. And there are some as only seem to be what they seem to be.

If they [the dead] should speak, it would be found that in matters of opinion no departed person was exactly what he had passed for in life. They would realise, deep down, that they, and whole nations along with them, are not really what they seem to be-and never can be.

Photography deals exquisitely with appearances, but nothing is what it appears to be.

Sometimes my art is just an illusion - or is it?