Make the best use of what is in your power, and take the rest as it happens.
Epictetus (c. 50–135) was born a slave in Phrygia and spent part of his life enslaved in Rome before being freed and founding his own school of philosophy. He wrote nothing down; what survives was recorded by his student Arrian. His teaching reduces to one distinction — between what is in our power and what is not.
About this theme: Resilience
Resilience has travelled a long way in twenty years, from a term in psychology to a word on posters. It originally described something measurable: a system's capacity to return to equilibrium after a shock. Applied to people it never meant being unaffected — it meant recovering, and that distinction is the first casualty of popular use.
More by Epictetus
- It's not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters.
- Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants.
- First say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to do.
- No man is free who is not master of himself.
- He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has.
More on Resilience
- Anyone can hold the helm when the sea is calm.— Publilius Syrus
- The gem cannot be polished without friction, nor man perfected without trials.— Confucius
- Dripping water hollows out stone, not through force but through persistence.— Ovid
- I am not afraid of storms, for I am learning how to sail my ship.— Louisa May Alcott
- Obstacles cannot crush me; every obstacle yields to stern resolve.— Leonardo da Vinci