Epictetus — "If you are praised by others, do not be puffed up; if you are blamed, do not be …"
If you are praised by others, do not be puffed up; if you are blamed, do not be cast down.
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More from Epictetus
"If you are struck by the appearance of any promised pleasure, guard yourself against being carried away by it; but let this thought wait for you, 'How long will it last, and then how much remorse and …"
"Seek not to have things happen as you wish, but wish things to happen as they do, and you will have peace."
"As a man, you are a fragment of God; you have within you a part of Him. Why then are you ignorant of your own kinship, or do you not know whence you came?"
"Every difficulty in life presents us with an opportunity to turn inward and to invoke our own resources. The challenges to our spirit are not to be avoided, but embraced."
"If you see anybody wail and complain, call him a slave, though he be clad in purple."
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.