Epictetus — "It is not poverty that makes a man miserable, but covetousness."
It is not poverty that makes a man miserable, but covetousness.
Get This Quote & Author's Image Illustrated On:
Click any product to generate a realistic preview. Up to 3 at a time.
* Initial load can take up to 90 seconds — revising the preview in another color is nearly instant.
Kitchen
Apparel
Other
More from Epictetus
"If you are going to write, be content to be unlearned. If you are going to wrestle, be content to be beaten. For if you are not content with these things, you will not write, nor will you wrestle."
"What would you rather have, a pig that grunts contentedly or a philosopher who complains?"
"The greater the difficulty, the more glory in surmounting it. Skillful pilots gain their reputation from storms and tempests."
"If you have assumed a character beyond your strength, you have both played a poor figure in that, and neglected one that is within your powers."
"Protect what belongs to you at all costs; don't desire what belongs to another."
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.
Verification
Unverifiable
Found in 1 providers: grok
1 source checked