Epictetus — "When you are about to say anything, first examine what you are going to say, and…"
When you are about to say anything, first examine what you are going to say, and then speak.
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More from Epictetus
"If evil be spoken of you and it be true, correct yourself; if it be a lie, laugh at it."
"Don't explain your philosophy. Embody it."
"The price of apathy is to be ruled by evil men."
"Suffering arises from trying to control what is uncontrollable, or from neglecting what is within our power."
"Don't demand that things happen as you wish, but wish that they happen as they do happen, and you will go on well."
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.