Epictetus was born a slave in AD 55 in Hierapolis, Phrygia (present day Turkey), and he later lived and taught in Greece and Rome. Many of his teachings are just as applicable today as they were 2,00 years ago; they  have been translated and adapted into a book called The Art of Living. Enjoy 15 of our favorite stress relief quotes from Epictetus:

1. “He who laughs at himself never runs out of things to laugh at.”

2. “It’s not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters.”

3. “Man is not worried by real problems so much as by his imagined anxieties about real problems”

4. “Other people’s views and troubles can be contagious. Don’t sabotage yourself by unwittingly adopting negative, unproductive attitudes through your associations with others.”

5. “First say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to do.”

6. “There is only one way to happiness and that is to cease worrying about things which are beyond the power or our will. ”

7. “If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid.”

8. “Any person capable of angering you becomes your master; he can anger you only when you permit yourself to be disturbed by him.”

9. “First learn the meaning of what you say, and then speak.”

10. “The greater the difficulty, the more glory in surmounting it. Skillful pilots gain their reputation from storms and tempests. ”

11. “Circumstances don’t make the man, they only reveal him to himself.”

12. “It is impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows.”

13. “He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has. ”

14. “It is not so much what happens to you as how you think about what happens.”

15. “Demand not that things happen as you wish, but wish them to happen as they do, and you will go on well.”