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
"Show me a man who is sick and happy, in danger and happy, dying and happy, exiled and happy, disgraced and happy: show him to me, for the sake of the gods! I long to see a Stoic."
"Consider at what price you sell your integrity; but do not sell it for a small price."
"It is not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters."
"What need is there to weep over parts of life? The whole of it calls for tears."
"Circumstances do not rise to meet our expectations. Events happen as they do. People behave as they are. Embrace what you actually get."
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.