quote · Source-linked selection
In the schools of the wrestling master, when a boy falls he is bidden to get up again, and to go on wrestling day by day till he has acquired strength; and we must do the same, and not be like those poor wretches who, after one failure, suffer themselves to be swept along as by a torrent. You need but will, and it is done; but if you relax your efforts, you will be ruined; for ruin and recovery are both from within.
In the schools of the wrestling master, when a boy falls he is bidden to get up again, and to go on wrestling day by day till he has acquired strength; and we must do the same, and not be like those poor wretches who, after one failure, suffer themselves to be swept along as by a torrent. You need but will, and it is done; but if you relax your efforts, you will be ruined; for ruin and recovery are both from within.
Approximate author period: c. 50 AD · classical
Meaning not yet available
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Begin with source-checked readings and explanations ↗Attribution & collection notes
- Author or tradition
- Epictetus
Attribution: attributed - Country attributed
- Not established
A country attribution does not establish the earliest origin. - Historical period
- Approximate author period: c. 50 AD · classical
Approximate author-period anchor from documented birth year 50; activity date not established; Wikidata Q183144, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q183144 (accessed 2026-10-08). Not a quotation composition date.
An author lifetime, approximate period or collection date is not necessarily the date when these words were first written or spoken. - Recorded source
- Pearls of Thought (1881) (1881 AD)
Page 276 · printed citation: Epictetus · subject: Will
A collection's publication date can be later than the words it records.
The voice behind the words.
Listed in the author section of Bartlett’s ninth-edition anthology, in the linked 1905 printing. Dates reflect that historical edition and may differ from modern scholarship.
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