Epictetus's Handbook

The Enchiridion

by Epictetus (c.55-135). Translated by Elizabeth Carter (1717-1806).

You can access a complete audio book of the Enchiridion here.

Epictetus (Greek: Επίκτητος; c.55–c.135) was a Greek Stoic philosopher. The name given by his parents, if one was given, is not known - the word epiktetos in Greek simply means “acquired.”

Epictetus spent his youth as a slave in Rome to Epaphroditos, a very wealthy freedman of Nero. Even as a slave, Epictetus used his time productively, studying Stoic Philosophy under Musonius Rufus. He was eventually freed and lived a relatively hard life in ill health in Rome.

So far as is known, Epictetus himself wrote nothing. All that we have of his work was transcribed by his pupil Arrian. The main work is The Discourses, four books of which have been preserved (out of an original eight). Arrian also compiled a popular digest, entitled the Enchiridion, or Handbook. In a preface to the Discourses, addressed to Lucius Gellius, Arrian states that “whatever I heard him say I used to write down, word for word, as best I could, endeavouring to preserve it as a memorial, for my own future use, of his way of thinking and the frankness of his speech”.

5. Men are disturbed, not by things, but by the principles and notions which they form concerning things.

7. Consider when, on a voyage, your ship is anchored; if you go on shore to get water you may along the way amuse yourself with picking up a shellish, or an onion. However, your thoughts and continual attention ought to be bent towards the ship, waiting for the captain to call on board; you must then immediately leave all these things, otherwise you will be thrown into the ship, bound neck and feet like a sheep. So it is with life. If, instead of an onion or a shellfish, you are given a wife or child, that is fine. But if the captain calls, you must run to the ship, leaving them, and regarding none of them. But if you are old, never go far from the ship: lest, when you are called, you should be unable to come in time.

27. As a mark is not set up for the sake of missing the aim, so neither does the nature of evil exist in the world.

"I follow cheerfully; and, did I not,
Wicked and wretched, I must follow still
Whoever yields properly to Fate, is deemed
Wise among men, and knows the laws of heaven."
Euripides, Frag. 965