The teachings of your instructor constitute only a small fraction of what you will learn. Your master of each movement will depend almost completely on individual, earnest practice.
~ Morihei Ueshiba
slip:4a408.
Earnest practice →
Facing two ways →
Choose, then, which you prefer, to be loved as you used to be by those who loved you formerly by remaining like your former self, or to be better and not meet with that same affection. For if this latter course is preferable, direct yourself at once to that, and do not let the other considerations draw you away from it; for no one can make progress while facing two ways.
~ Epictetus
slip:4a385.
Not in our power →
And who can never be hindered? The man who sets his desire on nothing that is not his own. And what are those things that are not our own? Those that are not in our power, either to have or not to have, or to have them of a particular nature, or under specific conditions. Our body, therefore, is not our own, its parts are not our own, and our property is not our own. So if you become attached to any of these as your own, you will be punished, as he deserves to be who sets his desire on what is not his own.
~ Epictetus
slip:4a205.
The aim of an argument →
The aim of an argument, or of a discussion, should not be victory but progress.
~ Karl Popper
slip:4a606.
For all who come →
Does the road wind uphill all the way?
~ Christina Rossetti
Yes, to the very end.
Will the day’s journey take the whole long day?
From morn to night, my friend.
Shall I find comfort, travel-sore and weak?
Of labour you shall find the sum.
Will there be beds for me and all who seek?
Yea, beds for all who come.
slip:4a581,
True freedom →
And say while you are training yourself day after day, as you do here, not that you are pursuing philosophy (to claim that title would surely be pretentious), but that you are providing for your emancipation. For this is true freedom.
~ Epictetus
slip:4a210.
Towards the pebbled shore →
Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore,
~ William Shakespeare
So do our minutes hasten to their end;
Each changing place with that which goes before,
In sequent toil all forwards do content.
slip:4a580.
When thus prepared →
And when you are thus prepared and thus trained to distinguish what is not your own from your own, what is subject to hindrance from what is not, to regard the latter as your concern and the form as not, and carefully keep your desire directed toward the latter, and your aversion directed towards the former, will there any longer be anyone for you to fear?
~ Epictetus
slip:4a215.
More sweet than truth →
I have known days like that, of warm winds drowsing in the heat of noon and all of summer spinning slowly on its reel, days briefly lived, that leave long music in the mind more sweet that truth; I play and rewind.
~ Russel Hoban
slip:4a579.
Great and noble and valuable →
Further, then, answer me this: Do you think freedom to be something great and noble and valuable? — “How should I not?” Is it possible, then, that he who acquires anything so great and valuable and noble should be mean-spirited?
~ Epictetus
slip:4a220.