Epictetus — "Do not act as if you were going to live ten thousand years. Death hangs over you…"
Do not act as if you were going to live ten thousand years. Death hangs over you. While you live, while it is in your power, be good.
Get This Quote & Author's Image Illustrated On:
Click any product to generate a realistic preview. Up to 3 at a time.
* Initial load can take up to 90 seconds — revising the preview in another color is nearly instant.
Kitchen
Apparel
Other
More from Epictetus
"If a man is unhappy, this must be due to his own fault, that he has forgotten that all things are in his own power."
"I must die. I must be imprisoned. I must suffer exile. But must I die groaning? Must I whine as well? Can anyone hinder me from going into exile with a smile? The master threatens to chain me: what sa…"
"You will be an admirable person, if you care for nothing but your own will."
"Freedom is the only worthy goal in life. It is won by disregarding things that are not within our control."
"We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak."
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 sentiment is more prominently found in Marcus Aurelius's 'Meditations,' though the idea of living virtuously in the face of death is Stoic.
Date: c. 108 AD (approximate)
Life & DeathVerification
Unverifiable
Found in 1 providers: grok
1 source checked