The Enchiridion · a short reading
A passage from The Enchiridion. Translated by Thomas Wentworth Higginson.
Greek · Roman-era philosopher · English
English translation prepared automatically for the Brief. Original sources and creator credits remain the reference.
If you wish your children and your wife and your friends to live forever, you are foolish, for you wish things to be in your power which are not so, and what belongs to others to be your own. So likewise, if you wish your servant to be without fault, you are foolish, for you wish vice not to be vice but something else. But if you wish not to be disappointed in your desires, that is in your own power. Exercise, therefore, what is in your power. A man’s master is he who is able to confer or remove whatever that man seeks or shuns. Whoever then would be free, let him wish nothing, let him decline nothing, which depends on others; else he must necessarily be a slave.
The work and its creator
Explore the original at Project Gutenberg ↗
Creator: Epictetus
Nationality / cultural background: Greek · Roman-era philosopher
Work / edition: 1865 translation
Translation: Thomas Wentworth Higginson · English
Historical public-domain text. Selected passage; line-end whitespace normalised. No generated quotation.
In the source: THE ENCHIRIDION; paragraph 33 in the selected body section
Selected for the Brief on 11 Oct 2026. This date records our selection, rather than when the work was created.
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