Epictetus — "If a man is unhappy, this must be due to himself, that is, to his own false choi…"
If a man is unhappy, this must be due to himself, that is, to his own false choices.
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More from Epictetus
"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…"
"What would you rather have? A beautiful garden, or a good one? A beautiful garden is one that is good; a good garden is not necessarily beautiful."
"If you want to be a man, or a woman, and do what is proper to a human being, do not go to others and ask, 'Am I a human being?'"
"If a man should be in a passion and curse you, go away and say, 'This man is angry with me.' Do not say, 'He has cursed me.' For that is to add to the injury."
"Every difficulty in life presents us with an opportunity to turn inward and to invoke our own resources. The challenges to our spirit are not to be avoided, but embraced."
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.