Epictetus — "The greater the difficulty, the more glory in surmounting it. Skillful pilots ga…"
The greater the difficulty, the more glory in surmounting it. Skillful pilots gain their reputation from storms and tempests.
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More from Epictetus
"Think of yourself as a slave, and you will not be disturbed by anything that happens to you."
"Don't demand that things happen as you wish, but wish that they happen as they do happen, and you will go on well."
"We are not to be disturbed by the things that happen, but by the opinions which we have of them."
"Remember, it is not enough to be hit or insulted to be harmed, you must believe that you are being harmed. If someone succeeds in provoking you, realize that your mind is complicit in the provocation.…"
"If you would be a reader, read; if a writer, write."
About Epictetus (c. 50-135 CE)
Greek Stoic philosopher and former slave whose Discourses (recorded by his student Arrian) shaped Marcus Aurelius and the modern Stoic revival. Closely associated with Seneca (earlier Roman Stoic) and Marcus Aurelius (his student-by-text on the imperial throne). For an intellectual contrast, see Epicurus, Greek philosopher of pleasure-as-tranquility — the Stoic-Epicurean rivalry was the central philosophical debate of the Hellenistic and Roman world for 400 years — Epicurean materialist hedonism is the precise alternative the Stoic discipline-of-acceptance was built against.
The standard scholarly entry points to Epictetus's work: A.A. Long (UC Berkeley, Classics) — Epictetus: A Stoic and Socratic Guide to Life (2002); Pierre Hadot (Collège de France) — Philosophy as a Way of Life (1995); Anthony R. Birley (Manchester, Roman historian) — Marcus Aurelius (1987) — the standard biography of Epictetus's most famous student. These are the works graduate seminars cite when teaching Epictetus.