Epictetus — "The greater the difficulty, the more glory in surmounting it. Skillful pilots ga…"
The greater the difficulty, the more glory in surmounting it. Skillful pilots gain their reputation from storms and tempests.
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More from Epictetus
"If you want to be a man, or a woman, and do what is proper to a human being, do not go to others and ask, 'Am I a human being?'"
"Small-minded people are fond of saying, 'By Zeus, I wish I were not a philosopher!'"
"If a man is unhappy, this must be due to his own fault, that he does not understand that it is in his power to be happy."
"What does not transmit light creates darkness."
"If you are kissed by a beautiful woman, or boy, do not say, 'I am fortunate,' but 'I have been kissed by a beautiful woman.'"
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.