Epictetus — "When you are offended at any man's fault, turn to yourself and study your own fa…"
When you are offended at any man's fault, turn to yourself and study your own failings.
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More from Epictetus
"We are not to be disturbed by the things that happen, but by the opinions which we have of them."
"No man is free who is not master of himself."
"If you want to be a man of leisure, do not be a man of business. For if you are a man of business, you must be a man of trouble."
"Never say about anything, 'I have lost it,' but only, 'I have given it back.'"
"Don't just say you have read books. Show that through them you have learned to think more accurately, to be less of a slave to your passions."
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.