Epictetus — "Freedom isn't secured by filling up on your heart's desire but by removing your …"
Freedom isn't secured by filling up on your heart's desire but by removing your desire.
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More from Epictetus
"The greater the difficulty, the more glory in surmounting it. Skillful pilots gain their reputation from storms and tempests."
"If a man does not know to what port he is sailing, no wind is favorable."
"If you want to be rich, do not add to your possessions but subtract from your desires."
"First learn the meaning of what you say, and then speak."
"God save me from fools with a little philosophy—no one is more difficult to reach."
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.