Epictetus, The Handbook, George Long (Translator), 14

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If you would have your children and your wife and your friends to live for ever, you are silly; for you would have the things which are not in your power to be in your power, and the things which belong to others to be yours. So if you would have your slave to be free from faults, you are a fool; for you would have badness not to be badness, but something else.¹ But if you wish not to fail in your desires, you are able to do that. Practise then this which you are able to do. He is the master of every man who has the power over the things, which another person wishes or does not wish, the power to confer them on him or to take them away. Whoever then wishes to be free, let him neither wish for any thing nor avoid anything which depends on others: if he does not observe this rule, he must be a slave.

The Handbook. Epictetus. George Long (Translator). London. 1890.

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Current edition Perseus

The Encheiridion, or Manual (English) (Epictetus. The Discourses of Epictetus, with the Encheridion and Fragments. Long, George, translator. London: George Bell and Sons, 1887.)

Editions (1)

Ἐγχειρίδιον Perseus (Epictetus. Epicteti dissertationes ab Arriano digestae, editio maior. Schenkl, Heinrich. editor. Leipzig: Teubner, 1916.) — 14 focus

[1] ἐὰν θέλῃς τὰ τέκνα σου καὶ τὴν γυναῖκα καὶ τοὺς φίλους σου πάντοτε ζῆν, ἠλίθιος εἶ· τὰ γὰρ μὴ ἐπὶ σοὶ θέλεις ἐπὶ σοὶ εἶναι καὶ τὰ ἀλλότρια σὰ εἶναι. οὕτω κἂν τὸν παῖδα θέλῃς μὴ ἁμαρτάνειν, μωρὸς εἶ· θέλεις γὰρ τὴν κακίαν μὴ εἶναι κακίαν, ἀλλʼ ἄλλο τι. ἐὰν δὲ θέλῃς ὀρεγόμενος μὴ ἀποτυγχάνειν, τοῦτο δύνασαι. τοῦτο οὖν ἄσκει, ὃ δύνασαι.

[2] κύριος ἑκάστου ἐστὶν ὁ τῶν ὑπʼ ἐκείνου θελομένων ἢ μὴ θελομένων ἔχων τὴν ἐξουσίαν εἰς τὸ περιποιῆσαι ἢ ἀφελέσθαι. ὅστις οὖν ἐλεύθερος εἶναι βούλεται, μήτε θελέτω τι μήτε φευγέτω τι τῶν ἐπʼ ἄλλοις· εἰ δὲ μή, δουλεύειν ἀνάγκη.

Translations (1)

The Enchiridion Perseus (Epictetus. The Works of Epictetus, His Discourses, in Four Books, the Enchiridion, and Fragments. Higginson, Thomas Wentworth, translator. New York: Thomas Nelson and Sons. 1890.) — 14 focus

If you wish your children and your wife and your friends to live forever, you are foolish; for you wish things to be in your power which are not so; and what belongs to others to be your own. So likewise, if you wish your servant to be without fault, you are foolish; for you wish vice not to be vice, but something else. But if you wish not to be disappointed in your desires, that is in your own power. Exercise, therefore, what is in your power. A man’s master is he who is able to confer or remove whatever that man seeks or shuns. Whoever then would be free, let him wish nothing, let him decline nothing, which depends on others; else he must necessarily be a slave.

Notes on the current edition

The Handbook

1. Τέλειν is used here, as it often is among the Stoics, to wish absolutely, to will. When Epictetus says you would have badness not to be badness, he means that badness is in the will of him who has the badness, and as you wish to subject it to your will, you are a fool. It is your business, as far as you can, to improve the slave: you may wish this. It is his business to obey your instruction: this is what he ought to wish to do; but for him to will to do this, that lies in himself, not in you. Schweig.

Epictetus The Handbook 14

George Long (Translator)

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