Epictetus — "Don't seek to have things happen as you wish, but wish them to happen as they do…"
Don't seek to have things happen as you wish, but wish them to happen as they do happen, and all will be well with you.
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More from Epictetus
"No man can rob us of our will."
"Whoever is not content with what he has, would not be content with what he wishes to have."
"Remember that if you are doing something for your own good, you must not be ashamed of it, even if the mob is going to misinterpret it."
"It is the nature of the wise to resist pleasures, but the foolish to be a slave to them."
"When you have decided that you are going to take a bath, be careful how you act, and don't make a scene."
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.