Epictetus — "Control your perceptions. Direct your actions properly. Accept what is outside y…"
Control your perceptions. Direct your actions properly. Accept what is outside your control. Willingly do what needs to be done.
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More from Epictetus
"If, however, he has his victim's weakness to exploit, then his efforts are worth his while."
"Those proficient praise no one, blame no one, and accuse no one. They say nothing concerning their self as being anybody or knowing anything."
"If a man has a bad smell, he is not to blame for it, but his clothes. If a man is ill, he is not to blame for it, but his body. If a man is a fool, he is not to blame for it, but his mind."
"Man is not worried by real problems so much as by his imagined anxieties about real problems."
"Think of yourself as a slave, and you will not be disturbed by anything that happens to you."
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.
Details
This is a modern summary of core Stoic principles, not a single direct quote from Epictetus.
Date: c. 108 AD (approximate)
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