Discourses, Fragments, Handbook (Oxford World's Classics)

Yet it is a given of life that nothing is permanently and finally satisfying. Despite this fact, many of us believe that somewhere there is a person or thing that will be permanently satisfying. Such a chimerical belief, and the restless, desperate seeking that follows from it, can become deeply disheartening and self-defeating. In mindfulness we c

According to the classicist Anthony A. Long, Epictetus expected his pupils to satisfy two conditions: “(1) wanting to benefit from philosophy and (2) understanding what a commitment to philosophy entails.”20 Epictetus knew that his words would be wasted on students who didn’t yet recognize their own inadequacies or who weren’t willing to take the s

En ce qui concerne les choses qui ne dépendent pas de nous, telles la santé, la richesse, la gloire, les désirer, c’est s’exposer à la torture du désir insatisfait, puisque nous ne sommes pas maîtres de la réalisation de ces désirs. C’est pourquoi, en ce qui concerne les choses qui ne dépendent pas de nous, le premier thème recommande de n’avoir ni

“What, then, makes a person free from hindrance and self-determining? For wealth doesn’t, neither does high-office, state or kingdom—rather, something else must be found . . . in the case of living, it is the knowledge of how to live.” —EPICTETUS, DISCOURSES