- Epictetus: Discourses and Selected Writings
The second book I finished reading in 2025. At first, I was a bit worried because, on /lit/, it has a reputation for being a self-help book for pretentious people. Which, I guess, it kind of is—but I really liked it.
If I were to sum up the book’s message in one sentence, it would be something like this:
‘The only thing you can control is virtue; as such, it is the only true good. Everything else—externals such as death, pain, wife, children, and illness—is indifferent. Therefore, your primary motivation in life should be to cultivate virtues such as courage, knowledge, and honesty. If you lose something external, such as your health, or even in the face of death, you shouldn’t grieve or mourn but rather embrace it as a challenge to improve your virtues.’ - On Self Control
As with impressions generally, if you get an impression of something pleasurable, watch yourself so that you are not carried away by it. Take a minute and let the matter wait on you. Then reflect on both intervals of time: the time you will have to experience the pleasure and the time after its enjoyment that you will beat yourself up over it. Contrast that with how happy and pleased you’ll be if you abstain. If the chance to do the deed presents itself, take extra care that you are not overcome by its seductiveness, pleasure, and allure. Counter temptation by remembering how much better it will be to know that you resisted.
~ Epictetus, Fragments Chapter 34
- On a Peaceful Life
“But I was hoping to lead a peaceful life.”
You’ve often heard—you need to suspend desire completely and train aversion only on things within your power. You should dissociate yourself from everything outside yourself— the body, possessions, reputation, books, applause, as well as office or lack of office. Because a preference for any of them immediately makes you a slave, a subordinate, and prone to disappointment.
Keep Cleanthes’ verse handy:
Lead me, Zeus, lead me, Destiny.Do I have to go to Rome? Then I go to Rome. To Gyara? All right, I go to Gyara instead. To Athens? Then Athens it is. To jail? Well, then I go to jail.
But if you ever think, “When do we get to Athens?” you are already lost. Either you’re going to be depressed when your wish is not realized or foolishly pleased with yourself if it is, overjoyed for the wrong reasons. And next time, if you’re not so lucky, you’ll grow disconsolate when events are not so much to your liking. Give them all up.
“But Athens is lovely.”
It would be lovelier still if you could secure happiness—free of emotion, poised, and dependent on no one except yourself.
“But Rome is all crowds and sycophancy.”
But the reward for enduring inconveniences is peace. So if this is the time for them, why not conquer your aversion? Why endure them like a donkey hit by a stick? […]
There is one road to peace and happiness: renunciation of externals; regard nothing as your own; hand over everything to fortune and the deity.
~ Epictetus, Book IV
- Come Come
Come, come, whoever you are.
Wonderer, worshipper, lover of leaving. It doesn’t matter. Ours is not a caravan of despair. Come, even if you have broken your vow
a thousand times Come, yet again, come, come.
~ Rumi
- Gang Shit
I2P