Epictetus — "When you have done good and received good, why do you look for any other reward?"
When you have done good and received good, why do you look for any other reward?
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More from Epictetus
"If you are kissed by a beautiful woman, or boy, do not say, 'I am fortunate,' but 'I have been kissed by a beautiful woman.'"
"Make the best use of what is in your power, and take the rest as it happens."
"If you see anybody wail and complain, call him a slave, though he be clad in purple."
"What would you rather have, a pig that grunts contentedly or a philosopher who complains?"
"It is our attitude toward events, not events themselves, which determines how we will act."
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.