Epictetus — "When you have decided that a thing is good, and you cling to it, then do not be …"
When you have decided that a thing is good, and you cling to it, then do not be ashamed to say that you cling to it.
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More from Epictetus
"Freedom and slavery, the one is the name of virtue, and the other of vice, and both are acts of the will."
"Freedom is the only worthy goal in life. It is won by disregarding things that are not within our control."
"You will never do anything in this life worth remembering unless you give up the hope of being remembered."
"To receive benefits is to lose liberty."
"You are a little soul carrying around a corpse, as Epictetus used to say."
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.