One of the most famous passages in all of classical philosophy comes from the Stoic Handbook of Epictetus: “Men are not disturbed by events but by their opinions about them.” It was quoted by Albert Ellis and Aaron T. Beck, the pioneers of cognitive-behavioral therapy, in order to explain the cognitive model of emotion. This became a slogan, of sorts, taught to many thousands of CBT clients and repeated in countless books on the subject. However, they did not go on to quote the next part of the passage. The complete saying should read as follows:
