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
"If you wish to be good, know that you are bad."
"It is the nature of the wise to resist pleasures, but the foolish to be a slave to them."
"Other people's views and troubles can be contagious. Don't sabotage yourself by unwittingly adopting negative, unproductive attitudes through your associations with others."
"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."
"As a mark is not set up for the purpose of missing the aim, so neither does the nature of evil exist in the universe."
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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