Epictetus — "What, then, is the fruit of these doctrines? Tranquillity, fearlessness, freedom…"
What, then, is the fruit of these doctrines? Tranquillity, fearlessness, freedom.
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More from Epictetus
"Men are disturbed not by things, but by the views which they take of them."
"It is better to die of hunger, exempt from grief and fear, than to live in affluence with perturbation."
"Suffering arises from trying to control what is uncontrollable, or from neglecting what is within our power."
"If you have assumed a character beyond your strength, you have both dishonored yourself in that, and neglected what you might have done."
"If you want to be a man of leisure, don't be a slave to your desires."
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.