Related:

• Difficulties are things that show what men are. -- Epictetus (c.
  60 AD) -- Discourses, Book i, Chap. xxiv...
• The appearance of things to the mind is the standard of every action to man.
  -- Epictetus (c. 60 AD) -- That we ought not to be angry with Mankind, -- Discourses, Book i, Chap....
• There are some things which men confess with ease, and others with difficulty.
  -- Epictetus (c. 60 AD) -- Of Inconsistency, -- Discourses, Book ii, Chap. xxi...
• Who is there whom bright and agreeable children do not attract to play and creep and prattle with them?
  -- Epictetus (c. 60 AD) -- Concerning a Person whom he treated with Disregard, -- Discourses, Book ii, Chap....
• Two rules 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....
• Since it is Reason which shapes and regulates all other things, it ought not itself to be left in disorder.
  -- Epictetus (c. 60 AD) -- Discourses, Chap. xvii...
• If we are not stupid or insincere when we say that the good or ill of man lies within his own will, and that all beside is nothing to us, why are we still troubled?
  -- Epictetus (c. 60 AD) -- Discourses, Book i, Chap. xxv...
• Yet God hath not only granted these faculties, by which we may bear every event without being depressed or broken by i
  but like a good prince and a true father, hath placed their exercise above restraint, compulsion, or hindrance, and wholly without our own control....
• In theory there is nothing to hinder our following what we are taugh
  but in life there are many things to draw us aside....