Epictetus said in one fragment, “No Man is free who is not master of himself.” A true Stoic sage, Epictetus urges us
all to take control of who we are, whom we want to be, and what we want to do. What higher authority is there, he asks, that is more superior than the self? Therefore, we need not a master above us, as though we need someone to tell us what to do and how to live, but a master within us, to guide us. Freedom, or liberation, occurs not under the shackles of another, nor by the words and opinions of others, but from us—should we decide to take on our own mastery. Epictetus is
saying, then, that to be liberated from obedience, we must take our own reigns and free ourselves, both from the chains of others and of ourselves.
