Epictetus — "Circumstances don't make the man, they only reveal him to himself."
Circumstances don't make the man, they only reveal him to himself.
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More from Epictetus
"If a man has a bad smell, he may be asked, 'To what does this belong?' To a man. 'Yes, but to a bad man.' To a bad man? 'Yes, for he is a beast.'"
"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."
"If you are praised by others, do not be puffed up; if you are blamed, do not be cast down."
"If a man has seen a snake, and has not been bitten, but has been frightened, he is not on that account the less afraid, although he may say, 'I am not afraid.'"
"An uninstructed person will lay the fault of his own bad condition upon others. To begin to be instructed, he will lay the fault on himself. When he is fully instructed, he will blame neither others n…"
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.