Epictetus — "What need is there to weep over parts of life? The whole of it calls for tears."
What need is there to weep over parts of life? The whole of it calls for tears.
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More from Epictetus
"As a mark is not set up for the purpose of missing the aim, so neither does the nature of evil exist in the universe."
"If you do not wish to be prone to anger, do not feed the habit; give it nothing which may tend to its increase."
"If a man has a bad smell, he may be asked, 'To what does this belong?' To a man. 'Yes, but to a bad man.' To a bad man? 'Yes, for he is a beast.'"
"Man is not worried by real problems so much as by his imagined anxieties about real problems."
"What is the result of all this? To be free, serene, and happy."
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.