Browse 9 quotations connecting Epictetus with Letting Go, with meanings, source notes and related themes.
Each quotation is included because its central idea connects with this theme, not simply because one matching word appears in the sentence.
Sources represented here include Enchiridion, The Golden Sayings of Epictetus. Keeping the work and source note beside each quotation makes differences in setting, speaker and emphasis easier to see.
Sources represented here include Enchiridion, The Golden Sayings of Epictetus.
“Remember that thou art an actor in a play.”
Life is pictured as a role with conditions we did not choose, while the quality of our performance remains our responsibility.
Source note: Enchiridion 17; the longer passage compares human life with playing the role assigned in a drama.
“Some things are in our control and others not.”
The opening distinction of the Enchiridion asks people to separate what depends on their own judgment and action from what does not.
Source note: Classical work; English wording varies by translation.
“Wish the things which happen to be as they are.”
The advice is not passivity; it is a call to stop fighting reality before deciding how to respond to it.
Source note: A concise clause from Enchiridion 8, where Epictetus contrasts demanding preferred outcomes with accepting what occurs.
“Remember that you must behave in life as at a dinner party.”
The dinner-party image recommends waiting for what comes in proper order instead of grabbing anxiously, turning restraint into a model for daily conduct.
Source note: Enchiridion, chapter 15; the following sentences explain waiting until things come round to you.
“Seek not that the things which happen should happen as you wish.”
Peace becomes more possible when desire stops demanding that reality conform perfectly to preference before a useful response can begin.
Source note: Enchiridion, section VIII, George Long translation; the following clause advises wishing events to be as they are.
“Men are disturbed not by the things which happen, but by the opinions about the things.”
Epictetus separates an event from the judgment placed on it, making interpretation a practical point of leverage.
Source note: Enchiridion 5 in George Long’s translation; the passage distinguishes events from the opinions that disturb us.
“Demand not that events should happen as you wish; but wish them to happen as they do happen, and you will go on well.”
Peace is sought by aligning desire with reality rather than requiring reality to obey preference, a central Stoic distinction between response and circumstance.
Source note: Enchiridion, section 8; Epictetus applies Stoic acceptance to events outside personal control.
“True instruction is this:—to learn to wish that each thing should come to pass as it does.”
Stoic instruction begins by reducing the conflict between reality and demand, leaving judgment and action to work with what actually occurs.
Source note: The Golden Sayings of Epictetus, saying XXVI, Hastings Crossley translation.
“Have this thought ever present with thee, when thou losest any outward thing, what thou gainest in its stead.”
Loss is not automatically the whole story; the instruction asks what freedom, clarity, experience, or other value may accompany what has been given up.
Source note: The Golden Sayings of Epictetus, saying XXVII, Hastings Crossley translation.