Epictetus — "We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak."
We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak.
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More from Epictetus
"What would it be like to be a sheep? To have no reason, no sense of shame, to be driven by instinct alone? It would be terrible, wouldn't it?"
"The essence of philosophy is to put up with things."
"Consider at what price you sell your integrity; but do not sell it for a small price."
"Any person capable of angering you becomes your master; he can anger you only when you permit yourself to be disturbed by him."
"When you are about to say anything, first examine what you are going to say, and then speak."
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.