Epictetus · c. 50 – c. 135 CE
Fragments 42 — Epictetus
Translation by George Long (1877)
Epictetus, Fragments 42
What you avoid suffering, do not attempt to make others suffer. You avoid slavery: take care that others are not your slaves. For if you endure to have a slave, you appear to be a slave yourself first. For vice has no community with virtue, nor freedom with slavery.
Cite this passage
Epictetus, Fragments 42, tr. George Long (1877)
https://whatwouldstoicsdo.com/passage/epictetus-fragments/42
Epictetus, Enchiridion and Fragments, tr. George Long (1877). Text: Standard Ebooks (CC0). Sources and licences
In plain English
AI-written notesDo not inflict on others what you try to avoid yourself. You refuse to be a slave, so make sure you do not enslave anyone, because a person who tolerates owning a slave is already enslaved in character. Vice and virtue cannot share a home, and neither can freedom and slavery.
Older wording
- “vice”
- — moral wrongdoing or bad character
Themes and situations
- Freedom
- Justice and fairness
- Kindness and forgiveness
- Virtue and character
Quote cards
The opening line of this passage as an image, with its citation — for sharing or keeping.