Epictetus — "It is better to starve to death in freedom from grief and fear, than to live in …"
It is better to starve to death in freedom from grief and fear, than to live in plenty with perturbation.
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More from Epictetus
"How long are you going to wait before you demand the best for yourself?"
"Any person capable of angering you becomes your master; he can anger you only when you permit yourself to be disturbed by him."
"It is impossible for a man to begin to learn what he thinks he already knows."
"It is our attitude toward events, not events themselves, which determines how we will act."
"If you want to be rich, do not add to your possessions but subtract from your desires."
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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