Epictetus — "You are a little soul carrying around a corpse."
You are a little soul carrying around a corpse.
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More from Epictetus
"To be happy is to desire nothing, since a man who desires something is not happy, but rather miserable, if he does not get what he desires."
"If you want to be rich, do not add to your possessions but subtract from your desires."
"If you do not wish to be prone to anger, do not feed the habit; give it nothing which may tend to its increase."
"We are not to be disturbed by the things that happen, but by the opinions which we have of them."
"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."
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.