Doesn’t it seem to you that acting against one’s will, under protest and compulsion, is tantamount to being a slave? - Epictetus

I am prepared to show you that you have resources and a character naturally strong and resilient; show me in return what grounds you have for being peevish and malcontent.

Don't we recall that no one does injury or benefit to another, but that the cause of each of these things is a judgement.

We must consider what is the time for singing, what the time for play, and in whose presence: what will be unsuited to the occasion; whether our companions are to despise us, or we to despise ourselves: when to jest, and whom to mock at: and on what occasion to be conciliatory and to whom: in a word, how one ought to maintain one's character in society. Wherever you swerve from any of these principles, you suffer loss at once; not loss from without, but issuing from the very act itself.