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 a man is unhappy, this must be due to his own fault, that he has forgotten that all things are in his own power."
"If you want to be a writer, write."
"Only the educated are free."
"He who is not a good servant will not be a good master."
"If you want to be a great writer, write great books. If you want to be a great painter, paint great pictures. But if you want to be a great philosopher, be a great human being."
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.