A Selection from the Discourses of Epictetus with the Encheiridion

About the book

This selection presents Stoic teaching as a demanding practice rather than a collection of reassuring slogans. Epictetus repeatedly distinguishes what depends upon our own judgments and choices from circumstances we cannot command, then tests the distinction against fear, ambition, anger, attachment, and social obligation. His argumentative voice questions imagined listeners, exposes evasions, and insists that the ability to discuss philosophy is different from living by it. The shorter Encheiridion gathers related principles into a manual whose compressed statements benefit from the fuller exchanges beside them. George Long's translation includes a biographical introduction and selected Discourses, rather than the entire surviving collection. The combination offers both sustained moral examination and brief formulations designed to return to the reader in difficult situations.

• Judgment and choice
• Freedom and discipline
• Philosophy in practice

Why read it

Its questions turn an abstract account of freedom into a close examination of ordinary reactions and priorities.

George Long's English translation of selected Discourses and the Encheiridion