Epictetus — "Freedom is not the right to do what you want, but the power to do what is right."
Freedom is not the right to do what you want, but the power to do what is right.
Get This Quote & Author's Image Illustrated On:
Click any product to generate a realistic preview. Up to 3 at a time.
* Initial load can take up to 90 seconds — revising the preview in another color is nearly instant.
Kitchen
Apparel
Other
More from Epictetus
"The greater the difficulty, the more glory in surmounting it. Skillful pilots gain their reputation from storms and tempests."
"If you want to be rich, do not seek to increase your possessions, but to decrease your desires."
"The reason why we have two ears and only one mouth is that we may listen the more and talk the less."
"It is the nature of the wise to resist pleasures, but the foolish to be a slave to them."
"If you have a mind to be a philosopher, prepare yourself from the first to be laughed at, to be sneered at by the multitude."
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.
Details
While this encapsulates a core Stoic idea, the exact phrasing is more of a modern summary.
Date: c. 108 AD (approximate)
Justice & RightsVerification
Unverifiable
Found in 1 providers: grok
1 source checked