Epictetus — "Circumstances do not rise to meet our expectations. Events happen as they do. Pe…"
Circumstances do not rise to meet our expectations. Events happen as they do. People behave as they are. Embrace what you actually get.
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More from Epictetus
"Make the best use of what is in your power, and take the rest as it happens."
"If you want to be a writer, write."
"As long as you are a human being, you are a member of a great whole, and you have a part to play. If you play it badly, you will be hissed off the stage; if well, applauded."
"Imagine a dog tied to a cart. If the dog wants to follow, it follows, adding its own will to the inevitable. But if the dog refuses to follow, it will be dragged along anyway."
"If you are grieved about anything external, it is not the thing itself that troubles you, but your judgment about it. And it is in your power to wipe out this judgment at any moment."
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.