The Golden Sayings of Epictetus: in Contemporary English with Explanatory Notes

by Ben Stanhope

Unlike the vast majority of versions of The Golden Sayings which are public domain reprints over a century old, Stanhope’s edition brings this 2,000 year old trove of aphorisms up-to-date in plain, contemporary English. With its vibrant translation, explanatory notes drawing from leading Epictetus scholars, cryptic illustrations, and introductory material, it’s by far the best and most helpful edition of The Golden Sayings to date. Epictetus was born in the first century and was one of the three great Roman Stoics representative of the ethical-philosophical apex of ancient Roman civilization and characteristic of philosophy during the New Testament period. His extremely practical wisdom is one of the key influences on cognitive-behavioral therapy, was popular on ancient battlefields, with medieval monks, and remains a favorite among modern modern military academies. It teaches us how to find indestructible tranquility amidst any misfortune.

160 pages, Paperback

Published December 16, 2016

Reviews

[JonM · Rating 5 out of 5]

This little booklet of sayings is both astonishingly well crafted and translated, with lots of helpful notes and insights about the context, too. It’s also crammed with down-to-earth wisdom. I want to study more about Epictetus now.
This was easily one of the most enjoyable books I’ve read this year. It’s not very long either. The only reason why I even considered checking it out was because of Stanhope’s other (much larger) book, “(Mis)interpreting Genesis”, which also turned out to be a surprisingly interesting niche of scholarly research.
This book of Golden Sayings, however, contains no hermeneutical polemics like his other book, and is therefore a much easier to enjoy.