Epictetus — "If a man has a bad character, he is bad for himself; if he has a good character,…"
If a man has a bad character, he is bad for himself; if he has a good character, he is good for himself.
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More from Epictetus
"There is only one way to happiness and that is to cease worrying about things which are beyond the power of our will."
"The price of apathy is to be at the mercy of those who are not."
"What, then, is the fruit of these doctrines? Tranquillity, fearlessness, freedom."
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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.