Epictetus — "What, then, is the proper thing to do? To make the best of what is in our power,…"
What, then, is the proper thing to do? To make the best of what is in our power, and take the rest as it naturally happens.
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More from Epictetus
"Understand that the right to choose your own path is a sacred privilege. Use it. Live free and flourish."
"If someone is able to make you angry, then he is your master."
"When you have decided that you are going to take a bath, be careful how you act, and don't make a scene."
"When you are going to meet with any person, and particularly one of those who are considered to be great, represent to yourself what Socrates or Zeno would have done in such a case."
"It is better to starve to death in freedom from grief and fear, than to live in plenty with perturbation."
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.
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