Epictetus Quotes

'What am I missing?' is a much more important question than 'How cool am I?'

Testing of self is a regular part of our own lives, so it seems natural to make it a part of the lives of my characters, as well, albeit on a much different level.

I resolve for 1920 to sit down all by myself and take a personal stock-taking once a month. To be no more charitable in viewing my own faults than I am an viewing the faults of others. To face the facts candidly and courageously. To address myself carefully, prayerfully, to remedying defects.

That is the hardest thing of all. It is much harder to judge yourself than to judge others. If you succeed in judging yourself, it's because you're truly a wise man.

It's rare for artists to really stare deeply at themselves in the mirror, literally, because there's constantly a mirror on you. But figuratively speaking, I'm really into growth, so when I look in the mirror, I see somebody who's just trying to get better everyday.

The first step to improvement, whether mental, moral, or religious, is to know ourselves - our weaknesses, errors, deficiencies, and sins, that, by divine grace, we may overcome and turn from them all.

You need to take a long, hard look in the mirror and not come away thinking, "Hey, there's something wrong with this mirror."

I used to be weird about it, but I think sometimes you can learn from watching yourself and all the mistakes you make and try to continue growing. But I'm completely uncomfortable for sure.

No man has a chance to enjoy permanent success until he begins to look in a mirror for the real cause of all his mistakes.

When you blame and criticize others, you are avoiding some truth about yourself.

If those persons, who fancy themselves gifted with both the power and the right to define and punish other men's vices, would but turn their thoughts inwardly, they would probably find that they have a great work to do at home; and that, when that shall have been completed, they will be little disposed to do more towards correcting the vices of others, than simply to give to others the results of their experience and observation.

Get to know yourself. Know your own failings, passions, and prejudices so you can separate them from what you see. Know also when you actually have thought through to the nature of the thing with which you are dealing and when you are not thinking at all... Knowing yourself and knowing the facts, you can judge whether you can change the situation so it is more to your liking. If you cannot--or if you do not know how to improve on things--then discipline yourself to the adjustments that will be necessary.

We are on a perilous margin when we begin to look passively at our future selves, and see our own figures led with dull consent into insipid misdoing and shabby achievement.

I wish I could say confidently that pacing remains my weak point, if you could talk about your own stuff without sounding like you're self-obsessed. But I think you kind of have to be.

We justify ourselves when we should judge ourselves. If we learned humility, it might spare us the humiliation.

It's more important to know your weaknesses than your strengths.

But let's face it, I still have to look at my self and look at the things I've done down the stretch.

You have to attempt to be objective about yourself.

I'm not going to lie, there are more interesting ways to spend your time than answering questions about yourself. But if there were no questions to ask me, I might have a beef with that.

The key thing is you can be the only person, your own critic.

Testing oneself is best when done alone.

I'm not good at watching myself.

Through therapy and a lot of thinking and writing my memoirs, I've been able to use my life as a lesson.

To learn to know oneself, to judge oneself with truth and impartiality, must be the great objects of one's exertion; they are only attainable by constant and cool self-examination.

I gotta say, I know my strengths, and I know my weaknesses, and, well, Fix-It Felix, I'm not too far from that kid.