Epictetus — "No man is free who is not master of himself."
No man is free who is not master of himself.
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More from Epictetus
"Men are disturbed not by things, but by the views which they take of them."
"If a man is unhappy, this must be due to his own fault, that he has forgotten that all things are in his own power."
"If a man should be in a passion and curse you, go away and say, 'This man is angry with me.' Do not say, 'He has cursed me.' For that is to add to the injury."
"The more we value things outside our control, the less control we have."
"Freedom is the only worthy goal in life. It is won by disregarding things that are not within our control."
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.