Quote checked against the text
“First say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to do.” — attributed to Epictetus
Not found. The sentence was searched in Carter 1758 (Enchiridion, 52 chapters) and Long 1877 (a selection of the Discourses, without book or chapter numbers, plus the Enchiridion) and did not appear; the search and its result are below.
Not found in our editions, which is not the same as not his. “First say to yourself” and “then do what you have to do” return no hit in Carter’s 1758 Enchiridion, complete in fifty-two chapters, nor in George Long’s 1877 selection of the Discourses. The list of circulating quotes carries the sentence under Epictetus’s name, in Long’s own cadence.
The limit is on our side. Modern collections place the sentence at the opening of Discourses III, 23, and Long’s 1877 volume is a selection printed without book or chapter numbers; the chapter it would sit in is not among the pieces he kept. The French side does not help: Courdaveaux’s 1862 edition covers nine chapters of the Discourses, and III, 23 is not one of them.
So the verdict stays at not found: we cannot show the line, and we do not claim it is absent from the Discourses. What the Enchiridion does say, in a neighbouring key, is checked at “Don’t explain your philosophy. Embody it.”: act conformably to your theorems rather than talk about them.
What we searched
Each fragment is searched, normalized, in every file of the editions below. The block is the search and its result, replayed at each build.
The wording was searched in Carter 1758 (Enchiridion, 52 chapters) and Long 1877 (a selection of the Discourses, without book or chapter numbers, plus the Enchiridion).
$ node tools/seo/grep-quote.mjs --lang en --author epictete "first say to yourself" "then do what you have to do" Elizabeth Carter, 1758 — Enchiridion · 52 chapters (Carter’s numbering) (1 file) "first say to yourself" 0 hits "then do what you have to do" 0 hits George Long, 1877 — Discourses (selection) and Enchiridion · a selection of the Discourses, without book or chapter numbers, plus the Enchiridion (1 file) "first say to yourself" 0 hits "then do what you have to do" 0 hits $ node tools/seo/grep-quote.mjs --lang fr --author epictete "dis-toi d’abord" "ce que tu veux être" "ce que tu as à faire" Jean-Marie Guyau, 1875 — Manuel · 53 chapters (modern numbering) (1 file) "dis-toi d’abord" 0 hits "ce que tu veux être" 0 hits "ce que tu as à faire" 0 hits Victor Courdaveaux, 1862 — Entretiens · 9 chapters of the Discourses (I, 1 · I, 15 · I, 18 · I, 24 · I, 25 · II, 13 · II, 18 · III, 16 · III, 24) (9 files) "dis-toi d’abord" 0 hits "ce que tu veux être" 0 hits "ce que tu as à faire" 0 hits
This sentence appears 3 times in the list of circulating quotes we collected on 2026-08-09.
What the text says
There is no passage to quote: the wording is in none of the editions searched above.
How to cite
This sentence has no canonical reference: it is not in the editions we hold. Quoting it with a book and chapter would be a false reference.
Other sentences checked
All sentences attributed to EpictetusAll quote checks
Every passage in Stoïque carries its reference. The 39 passages of Epictetus are in Stoic+, each with its locator.