Epictetus Quote on Others' Opinions: Not Your Concern

Quote

"What is not your own is not your concern: if you think that what others think of you is up to you, you will be their slave, and no one is master of what others think. Release the craving for approval, and you will be free." — Epictetus, Enchiridion, Chapters 1 and 14 (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 gathers the passages on reputation and the opinions of others from the opening chapters of the Enchiridion. Chapter 1 lists reputation among the things not up to us; Chapter 14 counsels the student to live by the standard of correct conduct rather than the approval of others. The translation follows N.P. White's Hackett edition (1983).

Context

The passages belong to the application of the dichotomy of control to the social life. The craving for approval is one of the most powerful and most common of the desires, and the Stoics recognized it as one of the principal sources of slavery: the person who needs the approval of others has given them the keys to their happiness. Epictetus's teaching is the discipline of the craving: reputation is not up to us — we cannot control what others think, and the attempt to do so is the surrender of freedom. The counsel of Chapter 14 — to live "as one who is well watched" — replaces the external watchman of public opinion with the internal standard of conduct: the Stoic lives as if observed, but the observer is their own reason.

Meaning

The quotation states the Stoic discipline of the social self with complete clarity. "What is not your own is not your concern" — the principle of the dichotomy applied to reputation: the opinion of others is not ours, and the concern for it is the misdirection of attention. "If you think that what others think of you is up to you, you will be their slave" — the diagnosis: the craving for approval is a form of slavery, because the approval is in the power of others, and the person who needs it has surrendered the mastery of their own happiness. "Release the craving for approval, and you will be free" — the cure: the release is not the contempt for others but the re-centering of the self: the Stoic's worth is the state of their own soul, and the opinion of others is an indifferent. The quotation is the foundation of the modern Stoic practice of self-worth independent of approval, and it connects to the wider wisdom tradition's teaching on the freedom of the inner life.

Related Wisdom

The quotation belongs to the Stoic doctrine of freedom and the discipline of the dichotomy of control. Its account of the craving for approval as slavery connects to Marcus Aurelius's counsel to disregard the opinions of others and to the wider theme of self-worth in the Stoic wisdom tradition.