Epictetus — "He who laughs at himself never runs out of things to laugh at."
He who laughs at himself never runs out of things to laugh at.
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More from Epictetus
"Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants."
"If you want to live a life free from trouble, you must train your mind to be indifferent to external things."
"If you have assumed a character beyond your strength, you have both dishonored yourself in that, and neglected what you might have done."
"It is better to starve to death in freedom from grief and fear, than to live in plenty with perturbation."
"Show me a man who is sick and happy, in danger and happy, dying and happy, exiled and happy, disgraced and happy: show him to me, for the sake of the gods! I long to see a Stoic."
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.