Epictetus — "When you have decided that a thing is good, and you cling to it, and you are not…"
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.
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.
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"Sickness is an impediment to the body, but not to the will, unless the will itself chooses. Lameness is an impediment to the leg, but not to the will. And this you should say on every occasion: for in…"
"It is a universal law — have no illusion — that every creature alive is attached to nothing so much as to its own self-interest."
"Any person capable of angering you becomes your master."
"The more we value things outside our control, the less control we have."
"Make the best use of what is in your power, and take the rest as it happens."
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.
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