‘We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak”
Epictetus was a Greek Stoic philosopher who lived in Rome and Greece around 2,000 years ago.
A friend of the Roman Emperor Hadrian, he had much to teach leaders across the many centuries since. Here is a selection of his aphorisms taken from the ‘Discourses’ and ‘Enchiridion’ of Epictetus:
1 First learn the meaning of what you say, and then speak.
2 Suffering arises from trying to control what is uncontrollable, or from neglecting what is within our power.
3 Keep your attention focused entirely on what is truly your own concern, and be clear that what belongs to others is their business and none of yours.
4 Small-minded people blame others. Average people blame themselves. The wise see all blame as foolishness.
5 People are not disturbed by things, but by the views they take of them.
6 The true man is revealed in difficult times.
7 Man is not worried by real problems so much as by his imagined anxieties about real problems.
8 Let silence be your general rule; or say only what is necessary and in few words.
9 Do not tie a ship to a single anchor, nor life to a single hope.
10 The key is to keep company only with people who uplift you, whose presence calls forth your best.
11 It is impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows.
12 There is only one way to happiness and that is to cease worrying about things which are beyond the power or our will.
13 Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants.
14 When someone is properly grounded in life, they should not have to look outside themselves for approval.
15 A man should so live that his happiness shall depend as little as possible on external things.
16 In prosperity it is very easy to find a friend; but in adversity it is the most difficult of all things.
17 Seek not the good in external things; seek it in yourselves.
18 Don’t explain your philosophy. Embody it
19 He who laughs at himself never runs out of things to laugh at.