Epictetus — "What would you rather have? A beautiful garden, or a good one? A beautiful garde…"
What would you rather have? A beautiful garden, or a good one? A beautiful garden is one that is good; a good garden is not necessarily beautiful.
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More from Epictetus
"Do not seek to have events happen as you want them to, but instead want them to happen as they do happen, and your life will go well."
"If a man is unhappy, this must be due to himself, that is, to his own false choices."
"Good and evil, per Epictetus, lie only in the will."
"Freedom isn't secured by filling up on your heart's desire but by removing your desire."
"Never say about anything, 'I have lost it,' but only 'I have given it back.' Is your child dead? It is given back. Is your wife dead? She is given back. Is your estate taken from you? Is not this also…"
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.