Small-minded people habitually reproach others for their own misfortunes. Average people reproach themselves. Those who are dedicated to a life of wi… - Epictetus

Our master is anyone who has the power to implement or prevent the things that we want or don't want. Whoever wants to be free, therefore, should wish for nothing or avoid nothing that is up to other people. Failing that, one is bound to be a slave.

Seeing that our birth involves the blending of these two things — the body, on the one hand, that we share with animals, and, on the other hand, rationality and intelligence, that we share with the gods — most of us incline to this former relationship, wretched and dead though it is, while only a few to the one that is divine and blessed.

For when you have subjected to externals what is your own, then be a slave and do not resist, and do not sometimes choose to be a slave, and sometimes not choose, but with all your mind be one or the other.