“What is the first business of one who practices philosophy? To get rid of self-conceit. For it is impossible for anyone to begin to learn that which he thinks he already knows.”

— Epictetus

Book II, ch. 17.
Discourses

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "What is the first business of one who practices philosophy? To get rid of self-conceit. For it is impossible for anyone…" by Epictetus?

Epictetus 175

philosopher from Ancient Greece 50–138

Related quotes

“If a man would pursue Philosophy, his first task is to throw away conceit. For it is impossible for a man to begin to learn what he has a conceit that he already knows.”

Epictetus (50–138) philosopher from Ancient Greece

72
Golden Sayings of Epictetus
Variant: It is impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows.

“It is impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows.”

Epictetus (50–138) philosopher from Ancient Greece

“There is not a man who does not get senile by the time he reaches sixty. And when one thinks that he will not be senile, he is already so.”

Tsunetomo Yamamoto book Hagakure

Hagakure (c. 1716)

“Being asked what learning is the most necessary, he replied, "How to get rid of having anything to unlearn."”

Antisthenes (-444–-365 BC) Greek philosopher

§ 7
From Lives and Opinions of the Eminent Philosophers by Diogenes Laërtius

“Apollonius then asked him [Iarchas] whether they knew themselves also, thinking that he, like the Greeks, would regard self-knowledge as a difficult matter. But the other, contrary to Apollonius' expectations, corrected him and said: "We know everything, just because we begin by knowing ourselves; for no one of us would be admitted to this philosophy unless he first knew himself." And Apollonius remembered what he had heard Phraotes say, and how he who would become a philosopher must examine himself before he undertakes the task; and he therefore acquiesced in this answer, for he was convinced of its truth in his own case also.”

Philostratus book Life of Apollonius of Tyana

Book 3, § 18.
Life of Apollonius of Tyana

“If man puts his honor first in relying upon himself, knowing himself and applying himself, this in self-reliance, self-assertion, and freedom, he then strives to rid himself of the ignorance which makes a strange impenetrable object a barrier and a hindrance to his self-knowledge.”

Max Stirner book The False Principle of our Education

Source: The False Principle of our Education (1842), p. 23

“The first (trapping) thing which occurs to a mystic is that he gains the power of unveiling and miracles. He becomes haughty and self conceited upon this power due to his Nafs. He gets temporary happiness but remains away from the Closeness and Union of Allah. Though it is a virtuous act according to the creature but for The Creator it is a great veil.”

Sultan Bahu (1630–1691) Punjabi poet

Kashf ul Asrar: translated by Ambreen Moghees Sarwari Qadri.
Kashf ul Asrār

“There are moments in life where the question of knowing whether one might think otherwise than one thinks and perceive otherwise than one sees is indispensable if one is to continue to observe or reflect… What is philosophy today… if it does not consist in, instead of legitimizing what we already know, undertaking to know how and how far it might be possible to think otherwise?… The ‘essay’ —which must be understood as a transforming test of oneself in the play of truth and not as a simplifying appropriation of someone else for the purpose of communication—is the living body of philosophy, if, at least, philosophy is today still what it was once, that is to say, an askesis, an exercise of the self, in thought.”

Michel Foucault (1926–1984) French philosopher

Il y a des moments dans la vie où la question de savoir si on peut penser autrement qu’on ne pense et percevoir autrement qu’on ne voit est indispensable pour continuer à regarder ou à réfléchir… Qu’est-ce donc que la philosophie aujourd’hui… si elle ne consiste pas, au lieu de légitimer ce qu’on sait déjà, à entreprendre de savoir comment et jusqu’où il serait possible de penser autrement ?… L’ « essai »—qu’il faut entendre comme épreuve modificatrice de soi-même dans le jeu de la vérité et non comme appropriation simplificatrice d’autrui à des fins de communication—est le corps vivant de la philosophie, si du moins celle-ci est encore maintenant ce qu’elle était autrefois, c’est-à-dire une « ascèse », un exercice de soi, dans la pensée.
Vol. II : L’usage des plaisirs p. 15-16.
History of Sexuality (1976–1984)

“There is no self-knowledge except historical self-knowledge. No one knows what he is if he doesn’t know what his contemporaries are.”

Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel (1772–1829) German poet, critic and scholar

Es giebt keine Selbstkenntniss als die historische. Niemand weiss was er ist, wer nicht weiss was seine Genossen sind.

“Ideas,” Lucinde and the Fragments, P. Firchow, trans. (1991), § 139

“Learn knowledge and science from him who teaches it, even if he doesn't practice what he preaches.”

Muhammad al-Baqir (677–733) fifth of the Twelve Shia Imams

Ibn Shu’ba al-Harrani, Tuhaf al-'Uqul, p. 299

“What is the first business of one who practices philosophy? To get rid of self-conceit. For it is impossible for anyone to begin to learn that which he thinks he already knows.”

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Epictetus 175

Related quotes

Related topics