Epictetus — "God save me from fools with a little philosophy—no one is more difficult to reac…"
God save me from fools with a little philosophy—no one is more difficult to reach.
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More from Epictetus
"Seek not to have things happen as you wish, but wish things to happen as they do, and you will have peace."
"A man's master is he who has power over what the man wishes or does not wish, to secure or to take away."
"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."
"If you want to be a man of leisure, do not be a man of business. For if you are a man of business, you must be a man of trouble."
"Do not be concerned with what people think of you. You are not living for them."
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.