A review by s_books
The Discourses of Epictetus: The Handbook, Fragments by Epictetus

3.0

This book contains the Discourses, Handbook, and Fragments of Epictetus (really things that Epictetus said compiled by his student Arrian) but of the three, even though it takes up most of the book, the Discourses is probably the least useful if you want to get to the heart of Epictetus's thoughts. A lot of the discourses feels repetitive, even though the exact topics aren't repeated while the Handbook covers the same main topics much more quickly and cleanly. Really you could just read the Handbook and the Fragments to get the gist of Epcitetus's philosophy which is mainly that our thoughts and opinions are the only thing we really have control over so they are the only thing we should focus on -- if we do that, nothing in life will be bothersome to us; if you have no wants or desires than you can never be disappointed and even your body is not your own. This is obviously a hard philosophy to follow at any time of history but it seems especially hard as there are more and more people in the world and the world becomes more and more connected...if I keep myself from having any wants whatsoever, am I really engaging in the world? Am I really living? And how does one even make a living and afford the basic necessities of life with no wants whatsoever? Epictetus does not really answer these questions but he does not appear to have really considered them since he was a man of some property (or at least, by how often he talks about dealing with slaves it appears that he had them and thus didn't need to work for his basic necessities) who was exiled from Rome (and thus someone separated from the main concerns of such a life that most people in his day and age would have faced). An interesting philosophy though, since it seems similar to the Buddhist belief of not wanting it might be better to read works regarding that, though that would be approaching the problem from a spiritual and not a philosophical point of view -- the two are not mutually exclusive but can be somewhat different.