Q0026

Epictetus

A verified English rendering from the curated archive.

English

The beginning of philosophy is a consciousness of one's own weakness and inability concerning necessary things.
Thinker Epictetus
School Stoicism
Source Discourses II.11
Theme Philosophy
Another quotation More from this thinker

Source context

This English passage is associated with Discourses II.11, within the tradition of Stoicism. The wording below is a verified rendering prepared for careful reading rather than a claim of unique translation authority.

A short reading

Read in the register of philosophy, the sentence asks the reader to test an assumption rather than to collect a slogan. In Epictetus's wider work, similar claims are usually offered as prompts for judgment: what would have to be true for the sentence to hold, and what would follow if it did?

How to cite this quotation

APA: Epictetus. (n.d.). The beginning of philosophy is a consciousness of one's own weakness and inability concerning necessary things. In Philosophy Blind Box. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0026

MLA: Epictetus. “The beginning of philosophy is a consciousness of….” Philosophy Blind Box, https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0026.

Chicago: Epictetus. “The beginning of philosophy is a consciousness of….” Philosophy Blind Box. Accessed 2026. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0026.

Same thinker

More from Epictetus

  1. Of things, some are in our power, and some are not.
  2. It is not things that disturb people, but their judgments about things.
  3. With whatever delights you, remind yourself of its nature — then if it is lost, you will not be disturbed.
  4. Remember that you are an actor in a play, of such a kind as the playwright may choose.
  5. Do not seek for things to happen as you wish, but wish for things to happen as they do, and you will flow well.

All quotations by Epictetus

Same theme

More on philosophy

  1. It is through wonder that people both now begin and first began to philosophize.
  2. A person's character is their destiny.
  3. What is opposed brings together; from what differs comes the finest harmony.
  4. Death is nothing to us: for what has been dissolved has no sensation, and what has no sensation is nothing to us.
  5. Pleasure is the beginning and end of the happy life — not the pleasures of profligates, but freedom from pain in the body and from disturbance in the soul.

Browse the philosophy theme