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.
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More from Epictetus
"The world turns aside to let any man pass who knows where he is going."
"If a man is unhappy, this must be due to himself, that is, to his own false choices."
"It is not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters."
"If you have assumed a character beyond your strength, you have both played a poor figure in that, and neglected one that is within your powers."
"Every difficulty in life presents us with an opportunity to turn inward and to invoke our own resources. The trials we endure can and should introduce us to our strengths."
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)
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