Insight: Stoicism teaches us that we can only rely on what Epictetus describes as "reasoned choice" - the ability to use reason to choose how we respond to external events.
Insight: Epictetus focused on answering questions such as "what is the best way to live?", "what can I do about my anger?", "why am I afraid to die?".
"The chief task in life is simply this: to identify and separate matters so that I can say clearly to myself which are externals not under my control, and which have to do with the choices I actually control." - Epictetus, Discourses 2.5.4
Insight: The most important practice in Stoicism is to distinguish between what is within our control, and what is not.
"The essence of good is a certain kind of reasoned choice; just as the essence of evil is another kind. What about externals, then? They are only the raw material for our reasoned choice, which finds its own good or evil in working with them. How will it find the good? Not by marvelling at the material! For if judgments about the material are straight that makes our choices good, but if those judgments are twisted, our choices turn bad." - Epictetus, Discourses 1.29.1-3
Insight: Our reasoning can help us to distinguish good choices from bad.
Insight: Serenity and stability are the result of choices and judgement, not your environment.
Principle: Use sound judgement.
"What is the fruit of these teachings? Only the most beautiful and proper harvest of the truly educated—tranquility, fearlessness, and freedom. We should not trust the masses who say only the free can be educated, but rather the lovers of wisdom who say that only the educated are free." - Epictetus, Discourses 2.1.21-23
Insight: Knowledge is freedom.
"The proper work of the mind is the exercise of choice, refusal, yearning, repulsion, preparation, purpose, and assent. What then can pollute and clog the mind’s proper functioning? Nothing but its own corrupt decisions." - Epictetus, Discourses 4.11.6-7
Principle: Make choices to do and think right.
Principle: Refuse temptations.
Principle: Better yourself.
Principle: Repulse negativity, bad influences, what isn't true.
Principle: Prepare well for the future.
Principle: Be guided by highest priorities and principles.
Principle: Be free of deception about what is inside and outside your control.
"Some things are in our control, while others are not. We control our opinion, choice, desire, aversion, and, in a word, everything of our own doing. We don’t control our body, property, reputation, position, and, in a word, everything not of our own doing. Even more, the things in our control are by nature free, unhindered, and unobstructed, while those not in our control are weak, slavish, can be hindered, and are not our own." - Epictetus, Enchiridion 1.1-2
Insight: We don't control situations, but we control what we think about them.
Insight: Everything outside our control has a corresponding area that is within our control - this gives us power.
Principle: Direct your focus inward.
"For if a person shifts their caution to their own reasoned choices and the acts of those choices, they will at the same time gain the will to avoid, but if they shift their caution away from their own reasoned choices to things not under their control, seeking to avoid what is controlled by others, they will then be agitated, fearful, and unstable." - Epictetus, Discourses, 2.1.12
Insight: Serenity and stability are the result of choices and judgement, not your environment.
"Keep this thought at the ready at daybreak, and through the day and night—there is only one path to happiness, and that is in giving up all outside of your sphere of choice, regarding nothing else as your possession, surrendering all else to God and Fortune." - Epictetus, Discourses, 4.4.39
Principle: Constantly remind yourself what is, and what is not within your control.
"We control our reasoned choice and all acts that depend on that moral will. What’s not under our control are the body and any of its parts, our possessions, parents, siblings, children, or country — anything with which we might associate." - Epictetus, Discourses, 1.22.10
Insight: A wise person distinguishes what is inside and outside their control.
Insight: According to the stoics there is only one thing in our control - our mind.
"A podium and a prison is each a place, one high and the other low, but in either place your freedom of choice can be maintained if you so wish." - Epictetus, Discourses, 2.6.25
Insight: In all circumstances we only have one thing to do - focus on what is in our control.
"There are three areas in which the person who would be wise and good must be trained. The first has to do with desires and aversions — that a person may never miss the mark in desires nor fall into what repels them. The second has to do with impulses to act and not to act—and more broadly, with duty—that a person may act deliberately for good reasons and not carelessly. The third has to do with freedom from deception and composure and the whole area of judgment, the assent our mind gives to its perceptions. Of these areas, the chief and most urgent is the first which has to do with the passions, for strong emotions arise only when we fail in our desires and aversions." - Epictetus, Discourses, 3.2.1–3a
Principle: Decide what to desire, and what to avoid.
Principle: Examine motivations.
Principle: Use judgement and reasoning.
"If you wish to improve, be content to appear clueless or stupid in extraneous matters—don’t wish to seem knowledgeable. And if some regard you as important, distrust yourself." - Epictetus, Enchiridion, 13a
Principle: Be comfortable saying "I don't know."
Principle: Cut media consumption.
"When I see an anxious person, I ask myself, what do they want? For if a person wasn’t wanting something outside of their own control, why would they be stricken by anxiety?" - Epictetus, Discourses, 2.13.1
Insight: Anxiety stems from focusing on things outside our control - this is futile.
"Who then is invincible? The one who cannot be upset by anything outside their reasoned choice." - Epictetus, Discourses, 1.18.21
Principle: Cultivate reasoned choice - how you respond to things.
"Keep constant guard over your perceptions, for it is no small thing you are protecting, but your respect, trustworthiness and steadiness, peace of mind, freedom from pain and fear, in a word your freedom. For what would you sell these things?" - Epictetus, Discourses, 4.3.6b–8
Principle: Protect your peace of mind - don't be afraid to make changes.
"Whenever you get an impression of some pleasure, as with any impression, guard yourself from being carried away by it, let it await your action, give yourself a pause. After that, bring to mind both times, first when you have enjoyed the pleasure and later when you will regret it and hate yourself. Then compare to those the joy and satisfaction you’d feel for abstaining altogether." - Epictetus, Enchiridion, 34
Principle: Connect temptation with actual effects so that self-control becomes the real pleasure and temptation the regret.
"It is quite impossible to unite happiness with a yearning for what we don’t have. Happiness has all that it wants, and resembling the well-fed, there shouldn’t be hunger or thirst." - Epictetus, Discourses, 3.24.17
Insight: Awaiting future happiness ruins your chance at happiness now.
"This is the true athlete—the person in rigorous training against false impressions. Remain firm, you who suffer, don’t be kidnapped by your impressions! The struggle is great, the task divine—to gain mastery, freedom, happiness, and tranquility." - Epictetus, Discourses, 2.18.27–28
Principle: Prepare as much as possible for bad times.
"Remember to conduct yourself in life as if at a banquet. As something being passed around comes to you, reach out your hand and take a moderate helping. Does it pass you by? Don't stop it. It hasn't yet come? Don't burn in desire for it, but wait until it arrives in front of you. Act this way with children, a spouse, toward position, with wealth—one day it will make you worthy of a banquet with the gods." - Epictetus, Enchiridion 15
Principle: Be patient.
Principle: Practice gratitude.
Principle: Enjoy the present moment.
Principle: Do not be greedy.
Principle: Practice selflessness (help and clean up afterwards).
Principle: Be the host (give to others).
"Remember that it's not only the desire for wealth and position that debases and subjugates us, but also the desire for peace, leisure, travel, and learning. It doesn't matter what the external thing is, the value we place on it subjugates us to another... where our heart is set, there our impediment lies." - Epictetus, Discourses 4.4.1–2;15
Insight: What we desire makes us vulnerable - to losing self-control when fate intervenes and we don't get it.
Principle: When it comes to goals and desires ask: "Am I in control of them, or are they controlling me?".
"Of all the things that are, some are good, others bad, and yet others indifferent. The good are virtues and all that share in them; the bad are the vices and all that indulge them; the indifferent lie in between virtue and vice and include wealth, health, life, death, pleasure, and pain." - Epictetus, Discourses 2.19.12b–13
Insight: Power comes from being indifferent to material things.
"The soul is like a bowl of water, and our impressions are like the ray of light falling upon the water. When the water is troubled, it appears that the light itself is moved too, but it isn’t. So, when a person loses their composure it isn’t their skills and virtues that are troubled, but the spirit in which they exist, and when that spirit calms down so do those things." - Epictetus, Discourses 3.3.20–22
Principle: When you are disturbed - pause, and regain composure.
"When children stick their hand down a narrow goody jar they can’t get their full fist out and start crying. Drop a few treats and you will get it out! Curb your desire—don’t set your heart on so many things and you will get what you need." - Epictetus, Discourses 3.9.22
Principle: Focus.
Principle: Prioritise.
Principle: Ask: "Do I need this? What will happen if I don't get it? Can I make do without it?".
"An important place to begin in philosophy is this: a clear perception of one’s own ruling principle." - Epictetus, Discourses 1.26.15
Principle: Exercise reason.
Principle: Question your emotions and beliefs.
"These things don’t go together. You must be a unified human being, either good or bad. You must diligently work either on your own reasoning or on things out of your control—take great care with the inside and not what’s outside, which is to say, stand with the philosopher, or else with the mob!" - Epictetus, Discourses 3.15.13
Principle: Focus on self-awareness.
"These things don’t go together. You must be a unified human being, either good or bad. You must diligently work either on your own reasoning or on things out of your control—take great care with the inside and not what’s outside, which is to say, stand with the philosopher, or else with the mob!" - Epictetus, Discourses 3.15.13
Insight: If we do not focus on internal integration - self awareness - we risk being taken apart by external disintegration.
"The person is free who lives as they wish, neither compelled, nor hindered, nor limited—whose choices aren’t hampered, whose desires succeed, and who don’t fall into what repels them. Who wishes to live in deception—tripped up, mistaken, undisciplined, complaining, in a rut? No one. These are base people who don’t live as they wish; and so, no base person is free." - Epictetus, Discourses 4.1.1–3a
Principle: Be aware of what you commit to, consider whether it is an important and necessary use of your time.
"In public avoid talking often and excessively about your accomplishments and dangers, for however much you enjoy recounting your dangers, it’s not so pleasant for others to hear about your affairs." - Epictetus, Enchiridion 33.14
Insight: Constructing stories about the past can lead to distortion from reality.
Principle: Live in what is real.
Principle: Don't tell yourself stories.
Principle: Listen and connect with people, don't perform for them.
"If a person gave away your body to some passerby, you’d be furious. Yet you hand over your mind to anyone who comes along, so they may abuse you, leaving it disturbed and troubled — have you no shame in that?" - Epictetus, Enchiridion 28
Insight: We are less disciplined with our minds - we are not disciplined, and we are often easy to distract.
Principle: Maintain control over your mind and perceptions.
"Above all, keep a close watch on this—that you are never so tied to your former acquaintances and friends that you are pulled down to their level. If you don’t, you’ll be ruined... You must choose whether to be loved by these friends and remain the same person, or to become a better person at the cost of those friends... if you try to have it both ways you will neither make progress nor keep what you once had." - Epictetus, Discourses 4.2.1; 4–5
Principle: Surround yourself with the right people - those that encourage you to be better.
"The unrestricted person, who has in hand what they will in all events, is free. But anyone who can be restricted, coerced, or pushed into something against what they will is a slave." - Epictetus, Discourses 4.1.128b–129a
Insight: Material success often comes at the cost of freedom.
"Whenever you find yourself blaming providence, turn it around in your mind and you will see that what has happened is in keeping with reason." - Epictetus, Discourses 3.17.1
Insight: The feeling of being wronged is often an awareness problem - of the bigger picture.
"You are not your body and hair-style, but your capacity for choosing well. If your choices are beautiful, so too will you be." - Epictetus, Discourses 3.1.39b–40a
Insight: It is easy to confuse the image we present to the world with who we actually are.
"For there are two rules to keep at the ready—that there is nothing good or bad outside my own reasoned choice, and that we shouldn’t try to lead events but to follow them." - Epictetus, Discourses 3.10.18
Insight: We are always in control of our judgements.
"What is it then to be properly educated? It is learning to apply our natural preconceptions to the right things according to Nature, and beyond that to separate the things that lie within our power from those that don’t." - Epictetus, Discourses 1.22.9–10a
Principle: Focus on what you can control.
Principle: Practice awareness and reflection.
"Eat like a human being, drink like a human being, dress up, marry, have children, get politically active—suffer abuse, bear with a headstrong brother, father, son, neighbour, or companion. Show us these things so we can see that you truly have learned from the philosophers." - Epictetus, Discourses 3.21.5–6
Insight: Experiences help us to understand what we learn, or test it.
"...freedom isn't secured by filling up on your heart's desire but by removing your desire." - Epictetus, Discourses 4.1.175
Insight: There are two ways to be wealthy - to get everything you want, or to want everything you have. The same applies to feeling free.
"If you should ever turn your will to things outside your control in order to impress someone, be sure that you have wrecked your whole purpose in life. Be content, then, to be a philosopher in all that you do, and if you wish also to be seen as one, show yourself first that you are and you will succeed." - Epictetus, Enchiridion 23
Insight: "We buy things we don't need, to impress people we don't like" - Fight Club.
"First off, don’t let the force of the impression carry you away. Say to it, ‘hold up a bit and let me see who you are and where you are from—let me put you to the test’..." - Epictetus, Discourses 2.18.24
Principle: Trust, but verify.
"There are two things that must be rooted out in human beings—arrogant opinion and mistrust. Arrogant opinion expects that there is nothing further needed, and mistrust assumes that under the torrent of circumstance there can be no happiness." - Epictetus, Discourses 3.14.8
Principle: Expect to change your opinions.
"When it comes to money, where we feel our clear interest, we have an entire art where the tester uses many means to discover the worth . . . just as we give great attention to judging things that might steer us badly. But when it comes to our own ruling principle, we yawn and doze off, accepting any appearance that flashes by without counting the cost." - Epictetus, Discourses 1.20.8; 11
Principle: Scrutinise and test things, don't assume.
"From the very beginning, make it your practice to say to every harsh impression, ‘you are an impression and not at all what you appear to be.’ Next, examine and test it by the rules you possess, the first and greatest of which is this—whether it belongs to the things in our control or not in our control, and if the latter, be prepared to respond, ‘It is nothing to me." - Epictetus, Enchiridion 1.5
Insight: Our senses about things can be wrong, biased, or not serve us well.
Principle: Take a step back, analyse your senses, and question them.
Principle: Trust, but verify.
"It isn’t events themselves that disturb people, but only their judgments about them." - Epictetus, Enchiridion 5
Insight: Observing and perceiving are different. The former is objective, the latter includes judgement.
"Throw out your conceited opinions, for it is impossible for a person to begin to learn what he thinks he already knows." - Epictetus, Discourses 2.17.1
Insight: Ego is the enemy of our ability to learn and grow: we cannot learn what we think we already know.
Principle: If you want to learn, be humble.
"What is bad luck? Opinion. What are conflict, dispute, blame, accusation, irreverence, and frivolity? They are all opinions, and more than that, they are opinions that lie outside of our own reasoned choice, presented as if they were good or evil. Let a person shift their opinions only to what belongs in the field of their own choice, and I guarantee that person will have peace of mind, whatever is happening around them." - Epictetus, Discourses 3.3.18b–19
Insight: We are constantly observing the world and putting our opinion on top of that, which often brings up negative emotions.
Principle: Just observe things as they are, without judgement.
"When you let your attention slide for a bit, don’t think you will get back a grip on it whenever you wish—instead, bear in mind that because of today’s mistake everything that follows will be necessarily worse. . . . Is it possible to be free from error? Not by any means, but it is possible to be a person always stretching to avoid error. For we must be content to at least escape a few mistakes by never letting our attention slide." - Epictetus, Discourses 4.12.1; 19
Insight: Attention matters. It is a habit.
Principle: Don't let your attention slide.
"Just as what is considered rational or irrational differs for each person, in the same way what is good or evil and useful or useless differs for each person. This is why we need education, so that we might learn how to adjust our preconceived notions of the rational and irrational in harmony with nature. In sorting this out, we don’t simply rely on our estimate of the value of external things, but also apply the rule of what is in keeping with one’s character." - Epictetus, Discourses 1.2.5–7
Insight: Knowing what you believe and why is an antidote to many of the things that don't serve us well in life.
"First tell yourself what kind of person you want to be, then do what you have to do. For in nearly every pursuit we see this to be the case. Those in athletic pursuit first choose the sport they want, and then do that work." - Epictetus, Discourses 3.23.1–2a
Insight: You are unlikely to reach the goals you don't aim for.
Principle: Think about priorities, and then act according to them.
"Those who receive the bare theories immediately want to spew them, as an upset stomach does its food. First digest your theories and you won’t throw them up. Otherwise they will be raw, spoiled, and not nourishing. After you’ve digested them, show us the changes in your reasoned choices, just like the shoulders of gymnasts display their diet and training, and as the craft of artisans show in what they’ve learned." - Epictetus, Discourses 3.21.1–3
Principle: Show, not tell, what you know.
"The raw material for the work of a good and excellent person is their own guiding reason, the body is that of the doctor and the physical trainer, and the farm the farmer’s." - Epictetus, Discourses 3.3.1
Insight: Your mind is your asset that must be worked on most, and understood best.
"Then what makes a beautiful human being? Isn’t it the presence of human excellence? Young friend, if you wish to be beautiful, then work diligently at human excellence. And what is that? Observe those whom you praise without prejudice. The just or the unjust? The just. The even- tempered or the undisciplined? The even-tempered. The self-controlled or the uncontrolled? The self-controlled. In making yourself that kind of person, you will become beautiful—but to the extent you ignore these qualities, you’ll be ugly, even if you use every trick in the book to appear beautiful." - Epictetus, Discourses 3.1.6b–9
Insight: Good traits run deeper than appearances.
"God laid down this law, saying: if you want some good, get it from yourself." - Epictetus, Discourses 1.29.4
Principle: Do good things.
"Where is Good? In our reasoned choices. Where is Evil? In our reasoned choices. Where is that which is neither Good nor Evil? In the things outside of our own reasoned choice." - Epictetus, Discourses 2.16.1
Insight: The right thing to do always comes from whether it is the right choice, not what the outcome will be.
"Every habit and capability is confirmed and grows in its corresponding actions, walking by walking, and running by running... therefore, if you want to do something make a habit of it, if you don’t want to do that, don’t, but make a habit of something else instead. The same principle is at work in our state of mind. When you get angry, you’ve not only experienced that evil, but you’ve also reinforced a bad habit, adding fuel to the fire." - Epictetus, Discourses 2.18.1–5
Insight: We are the product of what we consistently do, or think.
"If you don’t wish to be a hot-head, don’t feed your habit. Try as a first step to remain calm and count the days you haven’t been angry. I used to be angry every day, now every other day, then every third or fourth... if you make it as far as 30 days, thank God! For habit is first weakened and then obliterated. When you can say ‘I didn’t lose my temper today, or the next day, or for three or four months, but kept my cool under provocation,’ you will know you are in better health." - Epictetus, Discourses 2.18.11b–14
Insight: We can build good habits and break bad ones by performing the right actions day by day and keeping the chain going.
Principle: Be consistent.
"Show me someone sick and happy, in danger and happy, dying and happy, exiled and happy, disgraced and happy. Show me! By God, how much I’d like to see a Stoic. But since you can’t show me someone that perfectly formed, at least show me someone actively forming themselves so, inclined in this way... Show me!" - Epictetus, Discourses 2.19.24–25a, 28
Insight: We are always a work in progress.
Principle: Apply what you learn.
"That’s why the philosophers warn us not to be satisfied with mere learning, but to add practice and then training. For as time passes we forget what we learned and end up doing the opposite, and hold opinions the opposite of what we should." - Epictetus, Discourses 2.9.13–14
Insight: In order to truly learn we must do.
Principle: Learn, practice, train.
"But what is philosophy? Doesn’t it simply mean preparing ourselves for what may come? Don’t you understand that really amounts to saying that if I would so prepare myself to endure, then let anything happen that will? Otherwise, it would be like the boxer exiting the ring because he took some punches. Actually, you can leave the boxing ring without consequence, but what advantage would come from abandoning the pursuit of wisdom? So, what should each of us say to every trial we face? This is what I’ve trained for, for this my discipline!" - Epictetus, Discourses 3.10.6–7
Insight: We become stronger through facing and overcoming adversity.
"I can’t call a person a hard worker just because I hear they read and write, even if working at it all night. Until I know what a person is working for, I can’t deem them industrious... I can if the end they work for is their own ruling principle, having it be and remain in constant harmony with Nature." - Epictetus, Discourses 4.4.41; 43
Principle: Be smart about the way you work.
"We cry to God Almighty, how can we escape this agony? Fool, don’t you have hands? Or could it be God forgot to give you a pair? Sit and pray your nose doesn’t run! Or, rather just wipe your nose and stop seeking a scapegoat." - Epictetus, Discourses 2.16.13
Insight: Self-pity is futile.
Principle: Get active to turn your situation around.
"In this way you must understand how laughable it is to say, ‘Tell me what to do!’ What advice could I possibly give? No, a far better request is, ‘Train my mind to adapt to any circumstance.’... In this way, if circumstances take you off script... you won’t be desperate for a new prompting." - Epictetus, Discourses 2.2.20b–1; 24b–25a
Insight: It is better to be taught than given, better to be flexible than stick to a script.
Principle: Do not aim to have all the answers or a plan for every situation, rather aim to be adaptable to circumstance.
"Don’t you know life is like a military campaign? One must serve on watch, another in reconnaissance, another on the front line... So it is for us—each person’s life is a kind of battle, and a long and varied one too. You must keep watch like a soldier and do everything commanded... You have been stationed in a key post, not some lowly place, and not for a short time but for life." - Epictetus, Discourses 3.24.31–36
Insight: We are continuously fighting for our life.
Insight: The following is necessary to winning wars: discipline, fortitude, courage, clearheadedness, selflessness, sacrifice.
Insight: The following attributes lose wars: cowardice, rashness, disorganisation, overconfidence, weakness, selfishness.
"Every event has two handles—one by which it can be carried, and one by which it can’t. If your brother does you wrong, don’t grab it by his wronging, because this is the handle incapable of lifting it. Instead, use the other—that he is your brother, that you were raised together, and then you will have hold of the handle that carries." - Epictetus, Enchiridion 43
Principle: Be open to other perspectives and wisdom, look at things from a different point of view.
"If you are defeated once and tell yourself you will overcome, but carry on as before, know in the end you’ll be so ill and weakened that eventually you won’t even notice your mistake and will begin to rationalise your behaviour." - Epictetus, Discourses 2.18.31
Insight: Hope is not a strategy.
Insight: Failure is not a choice, learning from failure is.
Principle: Try something different.
"The beautiful and good person neither fights with anyone nor, as much as they are able, permits others to fight... this is the meaning of getting an education—learning what is your own affair and what is not. If a person carries themselves so, where is there any room for fighting?" - Epictetus, Discourses 4.5.1; 7b–8a
Principle: Pause and resist the temptation for conflict.
"What assistance can we find in the fight against habit? Try the opposite!" - Epictetus, Discourses 1.27.4
Principle: If what you are doing isn't working, try the opposite.
"The task of a philosopher: we should bring our will into harmony with whatever happens, so that nothing happens against our will and nothing that we wish for fails to happen." - Epictetus, Discourses 2.14.7
Principle: Turn your to-do lists into get-to-do list.
Principle: Don't try to impose your will on the world, see yourself as fortunate in the world.
"Protect your own good in all that you do, and as concerns everything else take what is given as far as you can make reasoned use of it. If you don’t, you’ll be unlucky, prone to failure, hindered and stymied." - Epictetus, Discourses 4.3.11
Principle: Maintain the goodness inside you.
"But what does Socrates say? ‘Just as one person delights in improving his farm, and another his horse, so I delight in attending to my own improvement day by day.’" - Epictetus, Discourses 3.5.14
Principle: Invest in yourself.
"Every great power is dangerous for the beginner. You must therefore wield them as you are able, but in harmony with nature." - Epictetus, Discourses 3.13.20
Principle: In learning do not ignore fundamentals. Take the time to learn things properly.
"Whenever disturbing news is delivered to you, bear in mind that no news can ever be relevant to your reasoned choice. Can anyone break news to you that your assumptions or desires are wrong? No way! But they can tell you someone died—even so, what is that to you?" - Epictetus, Discourses 3.18.1–2
Principle: Focus on that which you can take action on.
"You must stop blaming God, and not blame any person. You must completely control your desire and shift your avoidance to what lies within your reasoned choice. You must no longer feel anger, resentment, envy, or regret." - Epictetus, Discourses 3.22.13
Principle: No matter where you find yourself, focus on what lies within your reasoned choices.
Principle: Don't blame others - get focused.
"We don’t abandon our pursuits because we despair of ever perfecting them." - Epictetus, Discourses 1.2.37b
Insight: Perfection is the enemy of action.
Insight: We're never going to get to perfect.
Principle: Aim pursuits at progress, regardless of how small.
"For nothing outside my reasoned choice can hinder or harm it—my reasoned choice alone can do this to itself. If we would lean this way whenever we fail, and would blame only ourselves and remember that nothing but opinion is the cause of a troubled mind and uneasiness, then by God, I swear we would be making progress." - Epictetus, Discourses 3.19.2–3
Principle: Practice not blaming others.
Principle: Frame everything in terms of your reasoned choices.
"A good person is invincible, for they don’t rush into contests in which they aren’t the strongest. If you want their property, take it—take also their staff, profession, and body. But you will never compel what they set out for, nor trap them in what they would avoid. For the only contest the good person enters is that of their own reasoned choice. How can such a person not be invincible?" - Epictetus, Discourses 3.6.5–7
Principle: Do not try to beat an opponent where they are strongest.
Principle: Think well before deciding, and be reasonable in choices.
"Men, the philosopher’s lecture-hall is a hospital—you shouldn’t walk out of it feeling pleasure, but pain, for you aren’t well when you enter it." - Epictetus, Discourses 3.23.30
Insight: Healing hurts.
"We must undergo a hard winter training and not rush into things for which we haven't prepared." - Epictetus, Discourses 1.2.32
Insight: In life there is no time off. We should not do things halfheartedly.
"Remember, then, if you deem what is by nature slavish to be free, and what is not your own to be yours, you will be shackled and miserable, blaming both gods and other people. But if you deem as your own only what is yours, and what belongs to others as truly not yours, then no one will ever be able to coerce or to stop you, you will find no one to blame or accuse, you will do nothing against your will, you will have no enemy, no one will harm you, because no harm can affect you." - Epictetus, Enchiridion 1.3
Principle: Focus on what you alone can control.
"You can bind up my leg, but not even Zeus has the power to break my freedom of choice." - Epictetus, Discourses 1.1.23
Insight: Our power to make our own decisions cannot be broken - only relinquished.
"Consider who you are. Above all, a human being, carrying no greater power than your own reasoned choice, which oversees all other things, and is free from any other master." - Epictetus, Discourses 2.10.1
Insight: No matter how limited or small, we still have the power to use reason to make choices.
"No, it is events that give rise to fear—when another has power over them or can prevent them, that person becomes able to inspire fear. How is the fortress destroyed? Not by iron or fire, but by judgments... here is where we must begin, and it is from this front that we must seize the fortress and throw out the tyrants." - Epictetus, Discourses 4.1.85–86; 87a
Insight: We are in control of our inner selves.
Insight: We should protect ourselves from fear and judgement by practicing control of our own minds.
"First practice not letting people know who you are—keep your philosophy to yourself for a bit. In just the manner that fruit is produced—the seed buried for a season, hidden, growing gradually so it may come to full maturity. But if the grain sprouts before the stalk is fully developed, it will never ripen... That is the kind of plant you are, displaying fruit too soon, and the winter will kill you." - Epictetus, Discourses 4.8.35b–37
Principle: Practice the principles you want to instil so that they are firmly rooted and can help you, particularly in difficult times.
"Difficulties show a person’s character. So when a challenge confronts you, remember that God is matching you with a younger sparring partner, as would a physical trainer. Why? Becoming an Olympian takes sweat! I think no one has a better challenge than yours, if only you would use it like an athlete would that younger sparring partner." - Epictetus, Discourses 1.24.1–2
Insight: How we respond to events, particularly adversity, demonstrates our true character.
Insight: The greats do not avoid challenges, rather they seek them out as a pathway to greatness.
"How appropriate that the gods put under our control only the most powerful ability that governs all the rest—the ability to make the right use of external appearances—and that they didn’t put anything else under our control. Was this simply because they weren’t willing to give us more? I think if it had been possible they would have given us more, but it was impossible." - Epictetus, Discourses 1.1.7–8
Insight: We all have the ability to decide how to respond to events.
"When the standards have been set, things are tested and weighed. And the work of philosophy is just this, to examine and uphold the standards, but the work of a truly good person is in using those standards when they know them." - Epictetus, Discourses 2.11.23–25
Principle: Set standards, and do not compromise them.
"Since habit is such a powerful influence, and we’re used to pursuing our impulses to gain and avoid outside our own choice, we should set a contrary habit against that, and where appearances are really slippery, use the counterforce of our training." - Epictetus, Discourses 3.12.6
Insight: Good habits drive out bad habits.
Insight: When bad habits reveal themselves, counteract it by committing to a good one.
"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 4.1.62–64
Insight: Two essential tasks in life are to be a good person, and to pursue what you love to do - all else is a waste of energy.
Principle: Say no to what is not essential.
"Don’t seek for everything to happen as you wish it would, but rather wish that everything happens as it actually will — then your life will flow well." - Epictetus, Enchiridion 8
Insight: We cannot change what has happened, only our view of it.
Principle: Accept what happens.
"It is easy to praise providence for anything that may happen if you have two qualities: a complete view of what has actually happened in each instance and a sense of gratitude. Without gratitude what is the point of seeing, and without seeing what is the object of gratitude?" - Epictetus, Discourses 1.6.1–2
Principle: Amor fati - love what happens.
"But I haven’t at any time been hindered in my will, nor forced against it. And how is this possible? I have bound up my choice to act with the will of God. God wills that I be sick, such is my will. He wills that I should choose something, so do I. He wills that I reach for something, or something be given to me—I wish for the same. What God doesn’t will, I do not wish for." - Epictetus, Discourses 4.1.89
Insight: Outcomes are ultimately not in our hands.
"Don’t trust in your reputation, money, or position, but in the strength that is yours—namely, your judgments about the things that you control and don’t control. For this alone is what makes us free and unfettered, that picks us up by the neck from the depths and lifts us eye to eye with the rich and powerful." - Epictetus, Discourses 3.26.34–35
Principle: Focus inward on acquiring power.
"Remember that you are an actor in a play, playing a character according to the will of the playwright — if a short play, then it’s short; if long, long. If he wishes you to play the beggar, play even that role well, just as you would if it were a cripple, a honcho, or an everyday person. For this is your duty, to perform well the character assigned you. That selection belongs to another." - Epictetus, Enchiridion 17
Principle: Do the best with what you have.
"He was sent to prison. But the observation ‘he has suffered evil,’ is an addition coming from you." - Epictetus, Discourses 3.8.5b–6a
Insight: Events are objective, how we describe them or think about them is up to us.
Insight: Acceptance is not passive. It is the first step in an active process of self-improvement.
"In short, you must remember this—that if you hold anything dear outside of your own reasoned choice, you will have destroyed your capacity for choice." - Epictetus, Discourses 4.4.23
Insight: Attachment to things is dangerous because we do not have control over them, and it makes it hard for us to accept change.
Insight: Everything is in a constant state of change.
"Whenever you experience the pangs of losing something, don’t treat it like a part of yourself but as a breakable glass, so when it falls you will remember that and won’t be troubled. So too, whenever you kiss your child, sibling, or friend, don’t layer on top of the experience all the things you might wish, but hold them back and stop them, just as those who ride behind triumphant generals remind them they are mortal. In the same way, remind yourself that your precious one isn’t one of your possessions, but something given for now, not forever..." - Epictetus, Discourses 3.24.84–86a
Principle: Remember that things come to an end, we all die.
"Philosophy does not claim to get a person any external possession. To do so would be beyond its field. As wood is to the carpenter, bronze to the sculptor, so our own lives are the proper material in the art of living." - Epictetus, Discourses 1.15.2
Insight: Philosophy is an essential practice that can help us solve the problems of life.
Principle: Treat life as one of continuous improvement.
"Anything that can be prevented, taken away, or coerced is not a person’s own—but those things that can’t be blocked are their own." - Epictetus, Discourses 3.24.3
Insight: What we own can be taken away.
"Keep death and exile before your eyes each day, along with everything that seems terrible—by doing so, you’ll never have a base thought nor will you have excessive desire." - Epictetus, Enchiridion 21
Insight: Things end and are not guaranteed, keep this in mind.
"I tell you, you only have to learn to live like the healthy person does... living with complete confidence. What confidence? The only one worth holding, in what is trustworthy, unhindered, and can’t be taken away—your own reasoned choice." - Epictetus, Discourses 3.26.23b–24
Insight: It is dangerous to have faith in what you do not control.
Insight: Have confidence in your reasoned choice, since this is in your control.
"Do you then ponder how the supreme of human evils, the surest mark of the base and cowardly, is not death, but the fear of death? I urge you to discipline yourself against such fear, direct all your thinking, exercises, and reading this way —and you will know the only path to human freedom." - Epictetus, Discourses 3.26.38–39
Insight: Death contains within it the end of fear.
Principle: Fear the fear of death.
