Epictetus — "When you are about to say something, ask yourself, 'Is it true? Is it necessary?…"
When you are about to say something, ask yourself, 'Is it true? Is it necessary? Is it kind?'
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More from Epictetus
"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."
"Don't be surprised if those outside are always talking against you and making jokes about you."
"What would it be like to be a sheep? To have no reason, no sense of shame, to be driven by instinct alone? It would be terrible, wouldn't it?"
"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.'"
"It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live."
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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