https://bookstoic.com/authors/epictetus/Recent content in Epictetus on BookStoicHugoenSat, 05 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0100https://bookstoic.com/books/enchiridion/Sat, 05 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0100https://bookstoic.com/books/enchiridion/<blockquote> <p>Some things are within our power, while others are not. Within our power are opinion, motivation, desire, aversion, and, in a word, whatever is of our own doing; not within our power are our body, our property, reputation, office, and, in a word, whatever is not of our own doing.</p> <p><cite>Epictetus, <em>Enchiridion</em>, 1, after Elizabeth Carter</cite></p> </blockquote> <h2 id="what-it-is">What it is</h2> <p>Epictetus was a freed slave who taught philosophy at Nicopolis in Greece around the year 100. He wrote nothing. His student Arrian took down the lectures, publishing them as the <em>Discourses</em>, and then boiled them down into this handbook. It is fifty three numbered paragraphs, most of them a few sentences long, and the first one contains the rest.</p>https://bookstoic.com/books/discourses/Sat, 05 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0100https://bookstoic.com/books/discourses/<blockquote> <p>What, then, is to be done? To make the best of what is in our power, and take the rest as it naturally happens.</p> <p><cite>Epictetus, <em>Discourses</em>, I.1, after Elizabeth Carter</cite></p> </blockquote> <h2 id="what-it-is">What it is</h2> <p>The classroom of Epictetus as one student heard it. Where the <a href="https://bookstoic.com/books/enchiridion/">Enchiridion</a> gives the conclusions, the Discourses give the arguments, the examples, the interruptions and the jokes. They are the closest thing we have to hearing a Stoic teach.</p>