Epictetus — "If you are praised, consider yourself a donkey. If you are blamed, consider your…"
If you are praised, consider yourself a donkey. If you are blamed, consider yourself a donkey.
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More from Epictetus
"The greater part of what we say and do is unnecessary, and if a man would cut it out, he would have more leisure and less disturbance."
"If evil be spoken of you and it be true, correct yourself; if it be a lie, laugh at it."
"What would it be like to be a donkey? To be driven by a stick, to carry burdens, to have no choice? It would be a simple life, wouldn't it?"
"When you are about to say anything, first examine what you are going to say, and then speak."
"You may fetter my leg, but Zeus himself cannot get the better of my free will."
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.