Epictetus Quote on the Dichotomy: What Is Up to Us

Quote

"Some things are up to us and some are not. Up to us are opinion, impulse, desire, aversion, and, in a word, whatever is our own doing; not up to us are body, property, reputation, office, and, in a word, whatever is not our own doing." — Epictetus, Enchiridion, Chapter 1 (c. 125 CE)

Author

Epictetus (c. 50–135 CE) was a Stoic philosopher born a slave, freed in adulthood, and the teacher of the most influential Stoic school of his age at Nicopolis. His teaching was recorded by his pupil Arrian in the Discourses and distilled into the Enchiridion.

Source

The quotation is the opening of the Enchiridion (the Handbook), compiled by Arrian from Epictetus's teaching around 125 CE. The English translation follows N.P. White's Hackett edition (1983). The passage is the most famous text in the history of Stoicism.

Context

The passage opens the manual of the Stoic life, and its position is the key to its meaning: the distinction between what is up to us and what is not is the foundation on which the entire discipline is built. Everything in the Enchiridion — the discipline of desire, the discipline of action, the discipline of assent — is the working out of this single distinction. Epictetus, who had been a slave, knew from experience that the things the world counts as goods — body, property, reputation, office — are not in our power, and that the person who stakes their happiness on them has staked it on what can be taken away. The passage states the alternative: the things that are up to us — our judgments, our choices, our desires — cannot be taken away, and the person who stakes their happiness on them has made it secure.

Meaning

The quotation states the foundation of Stoic practice with complete precision. Its first clause draws the line: some things are up to us — our opinions, impulses, desires, and aversions, "whatever is our own doing" — and some are not — our bodies, property, reputations, and offices, "whatever is not our own doing." Its second clause, implicit in the first, is the doctrine: the things that are up to us are free by nature — "unhindered, unimpeded" — while the things that are not up to us are "weak, slavish, hindered, and belong to others." The person who cares only for what is up to them cannot be compelled, hindered, or robbed, because there is nothing left for compulsion to seize. The passage is the origin of the dichotomy of control, the most quoted idea of modern Stoicism, and it grounds the whole of the Stoic discipline: the training of desire to want only what is ours, the training of action to do what is right, and the training of assent to judge what is true.

Related Wisdom

The quotation belongs to the Stoic doctrine of the dichotomy of control, the foundation of the whole of Stoic wisdom. Its distinction between what is ours and what is not grounds the practice of acceptance, the discipline of prosoche, and the inner freedom that no fortune can take — the freedom of which the freed slave Epictetus was the greatest teacher.