EpictetusDawnstone

Epictetus · Discourses 40.1

What is proposed to us. To live with desire and aversion free from restraint. Never to be disappointed in what you seek, nor to fall into what you avoid. All exercise tends toward this.
Epictetus, Discourses and Selected Writings (Discourses 40.1)

What this means

For Epictetus, freedom is not getting everything you want but wanting in a way that cannot be defeated. If you desire only what is actually up to you, you can never be disappointed; if you avoid only what is up to you, you can never be trapped. Everything he taught was practice toward that one skill.

On desire, control, nature.

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Discourses and Selected Writings

Epictetus · trans. Robert Dobbin · Penguin Classics

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