01
Some things are up to you
Cites Epictetus, per a summary
Daily Stoic’s summary gives the book’s first lesson as the split (opinion, desire and impulse are ours) plus the advice to put effort there, credited to Epictetus.
- c. 125 CE
“There are things which are within our power, and there are things which are beyond our power. Within our power are opinion, aim, desire, aversion, and, in one word, whatever affairs are our own. Beyond our power are body, property, reputation, office, and, in one word, whatever are not properly our own affairs.”
Epictetus, Enchiridion. Earliest we can find, about 1,890 years earlier.
- 2017
“Opinion, desire, impulse: all of these are within our control, Epictetus said.”
Secondhand, from Daily Stoic. Massimo Pigliucci, How to Be a Stoic (2017).
This book is still in copyright, so we read an account of it, not the book.