Epictetus — "When you have decided that a thing is good, and you cling to it, then do not be …"
When you have decided that a thing is good, and you cling to it, then do not be ashamed to say that you cling to it.
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More from Epictetus
"If you want to be a philosopher, prepare to be mocked."
"The key is to keep company only with people who uplift you, whose presence calls forth your best."
"Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants."
"If you have assumed a character beyond your strength, you have both dishonored yourself in that, and neglected what you might have done."
"Don't seek to have things happen as you wish, but wish them to happen as they do happen, and all will be well with you."
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.