Epictetus Quotes

In the end you can't always choose what to keep. You can only choose how you let it go.

Never in any case say I have lost such a thing, but I have returned it. Is your child dead? It is a return. Is your wife dead? It is a return. Are you deprived of your estate? Is not this also a return?

Accepting death is a massive problem for everybody.

What i’m saying is, my friends, one ought to be able to let go. If a path does not please us, instead of insisting on going that specific way, of making our selfishness the guide, we ought to forsake. The books we cannot write, the films we cannot shoot, the projects we cannot develop, the jobs we cannot pursue and the people who no longer love us. Being able to let go, at times, is the most beautiful of all!

Even as I hold you, I am letting you go.

Because I do not hope to turn again Because I do not hope Because I do not hope to turn Desiring this man's gift and that man's scope I no longer strive to strive towards such things (Why should the aged eagle stretch its wings?) Why should I mourn The vanished power of the usual reign?

If you were wise enough to know that this life would consist mostly of letting go of things you wanted, then why not get good at the letting go, rather than the trying to have?

You can be as mad as a mad dog at the way things went, you can curse the fates, but when it comes to the end, you have to let go.

I've come to a much more controlled idea about death and loss, but I don't think it's possible to come to that much more controlled idea until you've gone through the crazy part . . . I don't mean that I'm controlled. I mean that I gave up the idea that I had control. That's the new control.

Whatever life takes away from you, let it go.

It takes a lot more courage to let something go than it does to hang on to it, trying to make it better. Letting go doesn't mean ignoring a situation. Letting go means accepting what is, exactly as it is, without fear, resistance, or a struggle for control.

At some point, we all have to let go.

The more you lose, the more is to be lost, yet it matters less.

You'll find it-when you try to die- The Easier to let go- For recollecting such as went- You could not spare-you know.

You cannot, sir, take from me any thing that I will more willingly part withal: except my life, except my life, except my life.

Never say of anything I have lost it, only say that I have given it back.

We only keep what we lose.

I do not hope for what I cannot have! I do not cling to things I cannot keep!

Ma'alesh; no matter; never mind; what can you do but accept things as they are? Ma'alesh, your pot overturned in the fire; ma'alesh, your prize mare died; ma'alesh, you lost all your possessions and half your family. The word was the everyday essence of Islam - which itself, after all, means "submission.

Some of us think holding on makes us strong; but sometimes it is letting go.

It's a consoling notion that death is a very tiny hole, and you need to make yourself very small to get through it. One obviously needs to lighten off, and a rucksack full of bricks or a mantelpiece full of trophies will certainly have to be abandoned - the sooner the better, I say.

I've had no contact with my daughter for years. That's her choice. Anyway, you move on. If people don't want to bother with me, fine. You know, God bless them, and move on.

Renunciation remains sorrow, though a sorrow borne willingly.

You can't be scared of death. When that time comes, it comes.