Epictetus Quotes
Is freedom anything else than the power of living as we choose? Nothing else. Tell me then, you men, do you wish to live in error? We do not. No one who lives in error is free. Do you wish to live in fear? Do you wish to live in sorrow? Do you wish to live in tension? By no means. No one who is in a state of fear or sorrow or tension is free, but whoever is delivered from sorrows or fears or anxieties, he is at the same time also delivered from servitude.
Epictetus. The Discourses of Epictetus, with the Encheiridion and Fragments. Translated by George Long, George Bell and Sons, 1877, p. 306.
The actual phrase was first penned in 1917 by Harry Weinberger.
This was well before Emancipation was adopted by President Lincoln. Blair a Virginian who was in favor of freeing all slaves and relocating them back in Africa and advised Lincoln of such. He was the first Virginian to actually free his slaves. See {594983} .
Epictetus (/ˌɛpɪkˈtiːtəs/; Greek: Ἐπίκτητος, Epíktētos; c. 50 – c. 135 AD) was a Greek Stoic philosopher. He was born a slave at Hierapolis, Phrygia (present day Pamukkale, Turkey) and lived in Rome until his banishment, when he went to Nicopolis in northwestern Greece for the rest of his life. His teachings were written down and published by his pupil Arrian in his Discourses and Enchiridion.
