Epictetus — "To receive benefits is to lose liberty."
To receive benefits is to lose liberty.
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More from Epictetus
"Never say about anything, 'I have lost it,' but only 'I have given it back.' Is your child dead? It is given back. Is your wife dead? She is given back. Is your estate taken from you? Is not this also…"
"If a man has a bad character, he is bad for himself; if he has a good character, he is good for himself."
"Circumstances don't make the man, they only reveal him to himself."
"If you want to be a great writer, write great books. If you want to be a great painter, paint great pictures. But if you want to be a great philosopher, be a great human being."
"To a reasonable creature, that alone is insupportable which is unreasonable; but everything reasonable may be supported."
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.