#epictetus — Public Fediverse posts

Let silence be your general rule; or say only what is necessary and in a few words. If you can, win over the conversation of your company to what it should be by your own.
-- Epictetus (55-135 CE)

⬆ #Wisdom #Quotes #Epictetus #Silence

⬇ #Photography #Panorama #Guangxi #China #LiRiver #LiJiang #TowerKarst #Geology

Let silence be your general rule; or say only what is necessary and in a few words. If you can, win over the conversation of your company to what it should be by your own.
-- Epictetus (55-135 CE)

⬆ #Wisdom #Quotes #Epictetus #Silence

⬇ #Photography #Panorama #Guangxi #China #LiRiver #LiJiang #TowerKarst #Geology

Epictetus on Love and Loss: The Stoic Strategy for Surviving Heartbreak

https://fed.brid.gy/r/https://www.themarginalian.org/2026/07/20/epictetus-love-loss/

Epictetus on Love and Loss: The Stoic Strategy for Surviving Heartbreak

https://web.brid.gy/r/https://www.themarginalian.org/2026/07/20/epictetus-love-loss/

The Iron That Learns to Wait: On the Hard Years

https://legawa.com/2026/07/10/the-iron-that-learns-to-wait-on-the-hard-years/

The Iron That Learns to Wait: On the Hard Years

https://legawa.com/2026/07/10/the-iron-that-learns-to-wait-on-the-hard-years/

Ketika Kebodohan Duduk di Singgasana: Catatan tentang Kuasa yang Tak Ditopang Kebijaksanaan

https://legawa.com/2026/07/04/ketika-kebodohan-duduk-di-singgasana-catatan-tentang-kuasa-yang-tak-ditopang-kebijaksanaan/

Ketika Kebodohan Duduk di Singgasana: Catatan tentang Kuasa yang Tak Ditopang Kebijaksanaan

https://legawa.com/2026/07/04/ketika-kebodohan-duduk-di-singgasana-catatan-tentang-kuasa-yang-tak-ditopang-kebijaksanaan/

He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has.

— Epictetus

#Stoic #Stoicism #Epictetus

He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has.

— Epictetus

#Stoic #Stoicism #Epictetus

Your thoughts decide your peace. Train your mind to see truth, not chaos.
#PowerOfPerception #Epictetus #PhilosophyQuotes #InnerPeace #Quotes
https://quotes.thisgrandpablogs.com/power-of-perception/

“Paper is to write things down that we need to remember. Our brains are used to think.”*…

Henrik Karlsson argues that it can be more symbiotic than that…

Every few months I will read a tweet, or have a conversation, that makes me feel this is important, I must remember this. Often, these epiphanies are accompanied by a sense that I actually know this already, it had just somehow slipped my mind.

And for a few days, I do remember: my life shimmers with a new intensity, and I live the truth of what I grasped. But then, inevitably, the conveyor belt of things to pay attention to keeps churning, and my mind gets filled with small problems I need to solve, or new epiphanies or random noise, like news, and the shining fades from my eyes—I regress to being the same person as ever.

The Latin word for the tendency to lose track of what matters in the cacophony of things that attract our attention is stultitia. “Stultitia,” writes Michel Foucault in “Self-writing,”

is defined by mental agitation, distraction, change of opinions and wishes, and consequently weakness in the face of all the events that may occur; it is also characterized by the fact that it turns the mind toward the future, makes it interested in novel ideas, and prevents it from providing a fixed point for itself in the possession of acquired truth.

You can’t just read a blog post about high agency, get filled with a sense of possibility, and become, from then on, an agentic person. As John Gray puts it in his monograph on J.S. Mill, our character is “a cluster of habitual willings.” For changes to our behavior to become permanent, we must become different people.

In the same way that it is not enough to make a resolution that you will learn the piano, it is not enough to realize that when the kids act out, you shouldn’t lose your temper but slow down, listen, and regulate their nervous systems with the help of yours. Imagine how good a person I would be if having insights were enough! But reacting to the frustrations of your children with calm and curiosity is a skill as much as playing the piano is—and as with the piano, the act of learning it requires rewiring your nervous system through sustained attention and practice. Realizing the value of acting in a certain way might give you a temporary motivation to do it. But in order to actually live in accordance with what you believe in long-term, you must make it a habit.

And this is much harder than making a habit out of playing the piano. When you’re trying to make something like piano practice a habit, the standard advice is to chain it onto some already existing habit—to practice immediately after you brush your teeth in the morning, for example, or after you change out of your work clothes in the afternoon. Chaining the new habit to an already existing one provides a predictable trigger that helps remind you to practice. But the habits that make up our characters often do not follow a predictable schedule like this. I never know, for instance, when our children will act out (except that it will usually be when I’m least capable of handling it with grace—whenever both they and I are unusually hungry and tired). The conflicts seem to come out of nowhere, so I have to, somehow, always be ready to act in the proper way. I need to have the right reaction “ready at hand” (procheiron), as the Greek-philosopher-Roman-slave Epictetus put it. If Johanna and I talked about how we want to deal with the kids’ conflicts the night before, I will nearly always handle the situation well. The problem is to keep it top of mind.

During the first two centuries of the Roman Empire, there spread a practice known as hypomnēmata, a type of notetaking system, used as a tool for meditation, in which the writer would store quotes from books they had read. Each day, often in the morning, the notetaker would open their notebook and look for a passage relevant to something they were struggling with, and then they would meditate on that—unpacking it, making the idea top of mind, ensuring it was alive in them. If they needed courage, for instance, they could meditate on an anecdote that made it real for them what it meant to act bravely. The idea was that over time, the insights they gathered by reading would be transformed into character, something deeply ingrained in their way of thinking and seeing and acting.

This was, as I understand it, an exercise designed to combat the problem I outlined above. Meditating on what matters is a simple habit, which you can chain onto your morning routine, but it reinforces the habits you can’t plan, the habits that make up your character. It was, in the words of the French classicist Pierre Hadot, a spiritual exercise—an exercise because it required work and discipline, spiritual because it engaged the whole person, not just their intellect, but their emotions and their moral character. It was an attempt to treat the formation of character as a skilled practice, as something you can deliberately train and improve through targeted exercises…

…

… I have often noticed that my experience of reality improves if I write and think about something.

But it strikes me now that the practice Foucault wrote about was probably more transformative than what I’ve ended up doing. Essay writing is incredibly time-consuming, and a lot of that time is spent on things that aren’t self-transforming: I spend less time reshaping my mind than I spend solving literary-technical problems that help me write more functional and beautiful essays, for the joy of the craft and for the benefit of readers. Another limitation of my practice is that when an essay is done, I move on. The ideas—though they have been much deepened and more firmly lodged in my mind—fall out of attention and start to fade.

There is an element of self-deception involved here. I like to write essays, so it is comforting to think of it as a powerful practice, something that helps me live more fully and grow as a person. But if I look at it soberly, it is clear to me that essay writing is not a practice that is ideal for the purpose of ethopoiesis.6 It is common to think that what we do achieves what we want it to achieve, even if there is no evidence for it. There are many practices that promise to transform and improve us—therapy, meditation, psychedelics—, but that branding doesn’t mean that they actually do much for us: it is common to see people use these techniques for years without any obvious progress on their problems. If you want to achieve a particular outcome, it is important to start from that goal and evaluate which practices actually help you.

The most important ideas we need to return to weekly, even daily. Essay-writing, then, is not a functional substitute for having a practice that keeps the important truths top of mind, day after day. But it did help me reach that conclusion…

On a particular kind of commonplace book and staying centered: “How not to forget what matters,” from @henrikkarlsson.bsky.social.

* Abert Einstein

###

As we contemplate contemplation, we might that it was on this date in 1949 that the first science fiction series debuted on American television, the DuMont Network’s Captain Video and His Video Rangers.  Written by such luminaries as Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, James Blish, and Jack Vance, it was– even in its time, when early television productions often were thrown-together affairs– considered crude, owing much to the fact that the daily show was done live on a meager budget.  Indeed, the actors were paid so little they actually made more money from appearing in character at supermarket openings, county fairs, and the like than they did from their salaries.

Still, it ran for a total of 1,537 episodes, and quickly spawned competitive sci-fi offerings like Tom Corbet, Space Cadet and Space Patrol.

For episodes on YouTube, see here.

source

“Paper is to write things down that we need to remember. Our brains are used to think.”*…

Henrik Karlsson argues that it can be more symbiotic than that…

Every few months I will read a tweet, or have a conversation, that makes me feel this is important, I must remember this. Often, these epiphanies are accompanied by a sense that I actually know this already, it had just somehow slipped my mind.

And for a few days, I do remember: my life shimmers with a new intensity, and I live the truth of what I grasped. But then, inevitably, the conveyor belt of things to pay attention to keeps churning, and my mind gets filled with small problems I need to solve, or new epiphanies or random noise, like news, and the shining fades from my eyes—I regress to being the same person as ever.

The Latin word for the tendency to lose track of what matters in the cacophony of things that attract our attention is stultitia. “Stultitia,” writes Michel Foucault in “Self-writing,”

is defined by mental agitation, distraction, change of opinions and wishes, and consequently weakness in the face of all the events that may occur; it is also characterized by the fact that it turns the mind toward the future, makes it interested in novel ideas, and prevents it from providing a fixed point for itself in the possession of acquired truth.

You can’t just read a blog post about high agency, get filled with a sense of possibility, and become, from then on, an agentic person. As John Gray puts it in his monograph on J.S. Mill, our character is “a cluster of habitual willings.” For changes to our behavior to become permanent, we must become different people.

In the same way that it is not enough to make a resolution that you will learn the piano, it is not enough to realize that when the kids act out, you shouldn’t lose your temper but slow down, listen, and regulate their nervous systems with the help of yours. Imagine how good a person I would be if having insights were enough! But reacting to the frustrations of your children with calm and curiosity is a skill as much as playing the piano is—and as with the piano, the act of learning it requires rewiring your nervous system through sustained attention and practice. Realizing the value of acting in a certain way might give you a temporary motivation to do it. But in order to actually live in accordance with what you believe in long-term, you must make it a habit.

And this is much harder than making a habit out of playing the piano. When you’re trying to make something like piano practice a habit, the standard advice is to chain it onto some already existing habit—to practice immediately after you brush your teeth in the morning, for example, or after you change out of your work clothes in the afternoon. Chaining the new habit to an already existing one provides a predictable trigger that helps remind you to practice. But the habits that make up our characters often do not follow a predictable schedule like this. I never know, for instance, when our children will act out (except that it will usually be when I’m least capable of handling it with grace—whenever both they and I are unusually hungry and tired). The conflicts seem to come out of nowhere, so I have to, somehow, always be ready to act in the proper way. I need to have the right reaction “ready at hand” (procheiron), as the Greek-philosopher-Roman-slave Epictetus put it. If Johanna and I talked about how we want to deal with the kids’ conflicts the night before, I will nearly always handle the situation well. The problem is to keep it top of mind.

During the first two centuries of the Roman Empire, there spread a practice known as hypomnēmata, a type of notetaking system, used as a tool for meditation, in which the writer would store quotes from books they had read. Each day, often in the morning, the notetaker would open their notebook and look for a passage relevant to something they were struggling with, and then they would meditate on that—unpacking it, making the idea top of mind, ensuring it was alive in them. If they needed courage, for instance, they could meditate on an anecdote that made it real for them what it meant to act bravely. The idea was that over time, the insights they gathered by reading would be transformed into character, something deeply ingrained in their way of thinking and seeing and acting.

This was, as I understand it, an exercise designed to combat the problem I outlined above. Meditating on what matters is a simple habit, which you can chain onto your morning routine, but it reinforces the habits you can’t plan, the habits that make up your character. It was, in the words of the French classicist Pierre Hadot, a spiritual exercise—an exercise because it required work and discipline, spiritual because it engaged the whole person, not just their intellect, but their emotions and their moral character. It was an attempt to treat the formation of character as a skilled practice, as something you can deliberately train and improve through targeted exercises…

…

… I have often noticed that my experience of reality improves if I write and think about something.

But it strikes me now that the practice Foucault wrote about was probably more transformative than what I’ve ended up doing. Essay writing is incredibly time-consuming, and a lot of that time is spent on things that aren’t self-transforming: I spend less time reshaping my mind than I spend solving literary-technical problems that help me write more functional and beautiful essays, for the joy of the craft and for the benefit of readers. Another limitation of my practice is that when an essay is done, I move on. The ideas—though they have been much deepened and more firmly lodged in my mind—fall out of attention and start to fade.

There is an element of self-deception involved here. I like to write essays, so it is comforting to think of it as a powerful practice, something that helps me live more fully and grow as a person. But if I look at it soberly, it is clear to me that essay writing is not a practice that is ideal for the purpose of ethopoiesis.6 It is common to think that what we do achieves what we want it to achieve, even if there is no evidence for it. There are many practices that promise to transform and improve us—therapy, meditation, psychedelics—, but that branding doesn’t mean that they actually do much for us: it is common to see people use these techniques for years without any obvious progress on their problems. If you want to achieve a particular outcome, it is important to start from that goal and evaluate which practices actually help you.

The most important ideas we need to return to weekly, even daily. Essay-writing, then, is not a functional substitute for having a practice that keeps the important truths top of mind, day after day. But it did help me reach that conclusion…

On a particular kind of commonplace book and staying centered: “How not to forget what matters,” from @henrikkarlsson.bsky.social.

* Abert Einstein

###

As we contemplate contemplation, we might that it was on this date in 1949 that the first science fiction series debuted on American television, the DuMont Network’s Captain Video and His Video Rangers.  Written by such luminaries as Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, James Blish, and Jack Vance, it was– even in its time, when early television productions often were thrown-together affairs– considered crude, owing much to the fact that the daily show was done live on a meager budget.  Indeed, the actors were paid so little they actually made more money from appearing in character at supermarket openings, county fairs, and the like than they did from their salaries.

Still, it ran for a total of 1,537 episodes, and quickly spawned competitive sci-fi offerings like Tom Corbet, Space Cadet and Space Patrol.

For episodes on YouTube, see here.

source

Epictetus on Love and Loss: The Stoic Strategy for Surviving Heartbreak

https://fed.brid.gy/r/https://www.themarginalian.org/2026/06/24/epictetus-love-loss/

Epictetus on Love and Loss: The Stoic Strategy for Surviving Heartbreak

https://web.brid.gy/r/https://www.themarginalian.org/2026/06/24/epictetus-love-loss/

Epictetus had one rule for happiness: stop worrying about what you can't control. Simple. Powerful. Life-changing.
#quotes #Epictetus #StoicPhilosophy #HappinessQuote #QuoteOnWorry #PeaceOfMind #Stoicism
https://quotes.thisgrandpablogs.com/quote-on-worry-epictetus/

Epictetus teaches that peace is a decision, not a gift. The power of our will makes it real.
#Epictetus #Stoicism #Mindfulness #InnerPeace #Quotes
https://quotes.thisgrandpablogs.com/power-of-our-will/

Epictetus teaches that peace is a decision, not a gift. The power of our will makes it real.
#Epictetus #Stoicism #Mindfulness #InnerPeace #Quotes
https://quotes.thisgrandpablogs.com/power-of-our-will/

When you listen more, you hear truth. When you speak less, you find peace.
#ListenMoreSpeakLess #Epictetus #StoicPhilosophy #LifeWisdom #Quotes
https://quotes.thisgrandpablogs.com/listen-more-speak-less/

When you listen more, you hear truth. When you speak less, you find peace.
#ListenMoreSpeakLess #Epictetus #StoicPhilosophy #LifeWisdom #Quotes
https://quotes.thisgrandpablogs.com/listen-more-speak-less/

When you listen more, you hear truth. When you speak less, you find peace.
#ListenMoreSpeakLess #Epictetus #StoicPhilosophy #LifeWisdom #Quotes
https://quotes.thisgrandpablogs.com/listen-more-speak-less/

When you listen more, you hear truth. When you speak less, you find peace.
#ListenMoreSpeakLess #Epictetus #StoicPhilosophy #LifeWisdom #Quotes
https://quotes.thisgrandpablogs.com/listen-more-speak-less/

The Stoic Paradox: Epictetus and the Revaluation of Servitude

Learn how Epictetus, born a slave, taught that true freedom comes from the mind, not external conditions.

#Epictetus, #Stoicism, #AncientRome, #InnerFreedom, #Philosophy

https://newsletter.tf/epictetus-slave-teacher-inner-freedom-rome/

The Stoic Paradox: Epictetus and the Revaluation of Servitude

Learn how Epictetus, born a slave, taught that true freedom comes from the mind, not external conditions.

#Epictetus, #Stoicism, #AncientRome, #InnerFreedom, #Philosophy

https://newsletter.tf/epictetus-slave-teacher-inner-freedom-rome/

Epictetus, born a slave in ancient Rome, taught that the mind is the only thing we truly control. His philosophy still helps people today understand freedom.

#Epictetus, #Stoicism, #AncientRome, #InnerFreedom, #Philosophy
https://newsletter.tf/epictetus-slave-teacher-inner-freedom-rome/

Epictetus, born a slave in ancient Rome, taught that the mind is the only thing we truly control. His philosophy still helps people today understand freedom.

#Epictetus, #Stoicism, #AncientRome, #InnerFreedom, #Philosophy
https://newsletter.tf/epictetus-slave-teacher-inner-freedom-rome/

soft life. quiet mind. 🌿 worry only what your will can hold. let the rest go like leaves in wind. 🍂 — Epictetus knew.
#StoicQuotes #QuietMind #Epictetus #PeaceOverWorry #AestheticQuotes #SoftLife #InnerCalm #DailyWisdom #MindfulLiving #StoicPhilosophy

Remember that you ought to behave in life as you would at a banquet. As something is being passed around it comes to you; stretch out your hand, take a portion of it politely. It passes on; do not detain it. Or it has not come to you yet; do not project your desire to meet it, but wait until it comes in front of you. So act toward children, so toward a wife, so toward office, so toward wealth.

— Epictetus

#Stoic #Stoicism #Epictetus

Let go of what you can’t control. The power of our will is where true freedom lives.
#Quotes #Stoicism #Epictetus #SelfControl #EmotionalResilience
https://quotes.thisgrandpablogs.com/power-of-our-will/

Epictetus reminds us: Gratitude, not grief, leads to peace. Rejoice in what you have.
#Quotes #Wisdom #Epictetus #Gratitude #Happiness
https://quotes.thisgrandpablogs.com/rejoice-in-what-you-have/

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. Where then do I look for good and evil? Not to uncontrollable externals, but within myself to the choices that are my own…

— Epictetus

#Stoic #Stoicism #Epictetus

Listening over speaking builds stronger ties and calmer minds. Epictetus proved that long ago.
#Quotes #ListenMoreSpeakLess #Epictetus #Mindfulness #CommunicationSkills
https://quotes.thisgrandpablogs.com/listen-more-speak-less/

Do #Stoic teachers like #MarcusAurelius, #Seneca and #Epictetus inform your #ClimateAction? Do you hold yourself to moral teachings beyond just doing what is legal?
https://co2mmit.substack.com/p/climate-action-stoic-twist

Any person capable of angering you becomes your master; he can anger you only when you permit yourself to be disturbed by him.

— Epictetus

#Stoic #Stoicism #Epictetus

Don’t explain your philosophy. Embody it.

— Epictetus

#Stoic #Stoicism #Epictetus

4 Things Strong Men Never Do #stoicism #ancientphilosophy #epictetus #mo... https://youtu.be/BRjLiix8vi0?si=eGGP7eTulqJ3NzDK via @YouTube

Challenges reveal who you are. The tougher the storm, the stronger you prove yourself. Epictetus knew what's up. 💯⛈️
#Quotes #Epictetus #Motivation #OvercomeChallenges

Happiness starts with choice, not chance. The power of our will shapes every moment we live.
#Quotes #Epictetus #StoicLife #Happiness #PeaceOfMind
https://quotes.thisgrandpablogs.com/power-of-our-will/

He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has.

— Epictetus

#Stoic #Stoicism #Epictetus

If evil be spoken of you and it be true, correct yourself, if it be a lie, laugh at it.

— Epictetus

#Stoic #Stoicism #Epictetus

Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants.

— Epictetus

#Stoic #Stoicism #Epictetus

To live well, rejoice in what you have. Epictetus points us to gratitude and peace.
#Stoicism #Quotes #Epictetus #GratitudePractice #quotes
https://quotes.thisgrandpablogs.com/rejoice-in-what-you-have/

Choose today

In recent years I’ve been choosing a touch phrase. The phrases are reminders, intended to cue up a larger train of thought.

For 2023 the phrase is “Choose today”. It is inspired by two different quotes, both having withstood the test of time:

Stick to what’s in front of you—idea, action, utterance. This is what you deserve. You could be good today. But instead you choose tomorrow.

~ Marcus Aurelius

slip:4a488.

…and one of my daily reflection prompts from Epictetus:

So is it possible to be altogether faultless? No, that is impractical; but it is possible to strive continuously not to commit faults. For we shall have cause to be satisfied if, by never relaxing our attention, we shall escape at least a few faults. But as it is, when you say, “I will begin to pay attention tomorrow,” you should know that what you are really saying is this: “I will be shameless, inopportune, abject today; it will be in the power of others to cause me distress; I will get angry, I will be envious today.” See how many evils you are permitting yourself. But if it is well for you to pay attention tomorrow, how much better would it be today? If it is to your advantage tomorrow, it is much more so today, so that you may be able to do the same again tomorrow, and not put it off once more, to the day after tomorrow.

~ Epictetus, 4.12.19-21

Indeed. If it is to my advantage tomorrow, it is much more so today.

ɕ

Everything has two handles

Everything has two handles, by one of which it may be carried, and by the other not. If your brother wrongs you, do not take it by this handle, that he is wronging you (for this is the handle that it cannot be carried by), but by the other, that he is your brother, that he was brought up with you, and then you will be taking it by the handle by which it ought to be carried.

~ Epictetus

slip:4a914.

Fruit of these teachings

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 that only the free can be educated, but rather the lovers of wisdom who say that only the educated are free.

~ Epictetus

slip:4a591.

Subservient to others

Remember that it is not oly a desire for riches and power that makes you abject and subservient to others, but also a desire for quiet and leisure, and travel and learning. For the value you place on an external object, whatever it may be, makes you subservient to another.

~ Epictetus

slip:4a379.

Facing two ways

Choose, then, which you prefer, to be loved as you used to be by those who loved you formerly by remaining like your former self, or to be better and not meet with that same affection. For if this latter course is preferable, direct yourself at once to that, and do not let the other considerations draw you away from it; for no one can make progress while facing two ways.

~ Epictetus

slip:4a385.

Not in our power

And who can never be hindered? The man who sets his desire on nothing that is not his own. And what are those things that are not our own? Those that are not in our power, either to have or not to have, or to have them of a particular nature, or under specific conditions. Our body, therefore, is not our own, its parts are not our own, and our property is not our own. So if you become attached to any of these as your own, you will be punished, as he deserves to be who sets his desire on what is not his own.

~ Epictetus

slip:4a205.

True freedom

And say while you are training yourself day after day, as you do here, not that you are pursuing philosophy (to claim that title would surely be pretentious), but that you are providing for your emancipation. For this is true freedom.

~ Epictetus

slip:4a210.

When thus prepared

And when you are thus prepared and thus trained to distinguish what is not your own from your own, what is subject to hindrance from what is not, to regard the latter as your concern and the form as not, and carefully keep your desire directed toward the latter, and your aversion directed towards the former, will there any longer be anyone for you to fear?

~ Epictetus

slip:4a215.

Great and noble and valuable

Further, then, answer me this: Do you think freedom to be something great and noble and valuable? — “How should I not?” Is it possible, then, that he who acquires anything so great and valuable and noble should be mean-spirited?

~ Epictetus

slip:4a220.

The source of all human evils

Why, do you not reflect, then, that the source of all human evils, and of mean-spiritedness and cowardice, is not death, but rather the fear of death? Discipline yourself, therefore, against this. To this let all your discourses, readings, exercises, tend. And then you will know that in this way alone are men made free.

~ Epictetus

slip:4a230.

What did he trust in?

When Odysseus was shipwrecked and cast ashore … what did he trust in? Not in reputation, or riches, or office, but in his own strength, that is to say, in his judgements about what things are in our power and what are not. For these judgements alone are what make us free, make us immune from hinderance, raise the head of the humiliated, and make them look into the faces of the rich with unaverted eyes, and into the faces of tyrants.

~ Epictetus

slip:4a235.

Shaken from what?

Ought you not first to have acquired something by the use of reason, and then to have made that secure? But you are studying to be able to prove things in argument. Prove what, though? You are studying so as not to be shaken by fallacious arguments. Shaken from what? Show me first what you are watching over, what you are measuring, or what you are weighing; and then, accordingly, show me your balance.

~ Epictetus

slip:4a240.

Unchangeable

As if all was safe and well with you, you have dwelt upon the final area of study, which has to do with unchangeability, so that you can make yourself unchangeable—in what? Your cowardice, means-spiritedness, admiration for the rich, your failure to achieve what you desire, and your lack of success in avoiding what you want to avoid. These are the things that you have been laboring to secure.

~ Epictetus

slip:4a245.