Epictetus — "What do you want to be? A philosopher? Then do what philosophers do."
What do you want to be? A philosopher? Then do what philosophers do.
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More from Epictetus
"First learn the meaning of what you say, and then speak."
"The greater the difficulty, the more glory in surmounting it."
"What does not transmit light creates darkness."
"To a reasonable creature, that alone is insupportable which is unreasonable; but everything reasonable may be supported."
"When you have decided that a thing is good, and you cling to it, and you are not disturbed by it, then you have found your true good."
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.