“In every affair consider what precedes and what follows, and then undertake it.”

— Epictetus

That Everything is to be undertaken with Circumspection, Chap. xv.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Aug. 12, 2022. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "In every affair consider what precedes and what follows, and then undertake it." by Epictetus?

Epictetus 175

philosopher from Ancient Greece 50–138

Related quotes

“An unconditional right to say what one pleases about public affairs is what I consider to be the minimum guarantee of the First Amendment.”

Hugo Black (1886–1971) U.S. Supreme Court justice

Concurring in New York Times Co. v. United States, 403 U.S. 713 (1971).

“[Of a wedding:] And so, standing before the aforesaid officiator, the two swore that at every other time of their lives till death took them, they would assuredly believe, feel, and desire precisely as they had believed, felt, and desired during the few preceding weeks. What was as remarkable as the undertaking itself was the fact that nobody seemed at all surprised at what they swore.”

Thomas Hardy book Jude the Obscure

Pt. I, ch. IX
Jude the Obscure (1895)

“What is today supported by precedents will hereafter become a precedent.”

Tacitus book Annals

Book XI, 24
Annals (117)

“What I really need is to get clear about what I must do, not what I must know, except insofar as knowledge must precede every act.”

Sören Kierkegaard (1813–1855) Danish philosopher and theologian, founder of Existentialism

Journal entry, Gilleleie (1 August 1835) Journals 1A; this is considered to be one of the earliest statements of existentialist thought.
Variant translation: My focus should be on what I do in life, not knowing everything, excluding knowledge on what you do. The is key to find a purpose, whatever it truly is that God wills me to do; it's crucial to find a truth which is true to me, to find the idea which I am willing to live and die for.
Later variant: What I really lack is to be clear in my mind what I am to do, not what I am to know, except in so far as a certain knowledge must precede every action. The thing is to understand myself, to see what God really wishes me to do: the thing is to find a truth which is true for me, to find the idea for which I can live and die. … I certainly do not deny that I still recognize an imperative of knowledge and that through it one can work upon men, but it must be taken up into my life, and that is what I now recognize as the most important thing.
Later expression of such thoughts in a letter to Peter Wilhelm Lund (31 August 1835)
Variant translation: I must find a truth that is true for me.
1830s, The Journals of Søren Kierkegaard, 1830s
Context: What I really need is to get clear about what I must do, not what I must know, except insofar as knowledge must precede every act. What matters is to find a purpose, to see what it really is that God wills that I shall do; the crucial thing is to find a truth which is truth for me, to find the idea for which I am willing to live and die.

“I have throughout introduced the Integral Calculus in connexion with the Differential Calculus. …Is it always proper to learn every branch of a direct subject before anything connected with the inverse relation is considered? If so why are not multiplication and involution in arithmetic made to follow addition and precede subtraction?”

Augustus De Morgan (1806–1871) British mathematician, philosopher and university teacher (1806-1871)

The portion of the Integral Calculus, which properly belongs to any given portion of the Differential Calculus increases its power a hundred-fold...
The Differential and Integral Calculus (1836)

“Every really able man, in whatever direction he work,—a man of large affairs, an inventor, a statesman, an orator, a poet, a painter,—if you talk sincerely with him, considers his work, however much admired, as far short of what it should be.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

Immortality
1870s, Society and Solitude (1870), Books, Letters and Social Aims http://www.rwe.org/comm/index.php?option=com_content&task=category&sectionid=5&id=74&Itemid=149 (1876)