The Enchiridion

The Enchiridion (Greek for Handbook) is the distilled essence of Epictetus's Stoicism — fifty-three brief chapters compiled by his student Arrian as a portable manual for daily practice. It is the shortest and most condensed Stoic text in the canon.

For two thousand years it has functioned as the pocket Stoic — read by emperors, soldiers, prisoners, and students of philosophy alike. Its opening distinction (what is in our power and what is not) is the seed of every Stoic exercise that follows, and remains the simplest, sharpest formulation Stoicism has produced.