Epictetus — "It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, that is poor."
It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, that is poor.
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More from Epictetus
"If you want to live a life free from trouble, you must train your mind to be indifferent to external things."
"It is the nature of the wise to resist pleasures, but the foolish to be a slave to them."
"If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid with regard to external things."
"What, then, is the fruit of these doctrines? It is the same as that of a vine: leaves, then a blossom, then a ripe cluster. So here, first an appearance, then an impulse, then an act. And the fruit is…"
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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.