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The Shocking Stoic Quote From Epictetus That Will Piss You Off but Transform Your Outlook on Life
“Some sentences made me want to throw the book against the wall.”
Published in
5 min readMar 16, 2025
If Stoicism were a religion, Epictetus would be its messiah.
Born in adverse circumstances…
- His parents, presumably, sold him into slavery soon after he came into the world.
- His master, Epaphroditus, mistreated him by beating his legs as if he were an animal, until he was disabled for life.
- Despite being treated worse than a dog, Epictetus found a guide to live in Stoicism.
- He was a disciple of the great teacher Musonius Rufus, and after gaining his freedom, he became an oral teacher, following the tradition of Socrates.
- He never wrote his teachings, but one of his students, Flavius Arrianus, took notes of his lessons and shared them with the world.
Those lessons, which have survived to this day, reflect the hard life Epictetus endured. However, far from falling into bitterness, he teaches us how to achieve happiness and live in freedom in a practical and not at all naive way.
