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“[23] Someone else’s distress isn’t mine; only my own distress is. So I’ll go to any lengths to put an end to mine, because that’s up to me, and as for what isn’t mine, I’ll do what I can to end it, but I won’t go to any lengths, [24] because that would be to fight God—to take up a position against him, to take the opposite side from him over the universe. And the penalty for this hostility toward God, for this disobedience, won’t be paid by my children’s children, but by myself in person, not just by day but at night when I’m jolted awake from my dreams, when I’m troubled in my mind, when I tremble in fear at every message, when my peace of mind depends on letters written by others.”

—Epictetus, Discourses 3.24.23-24 (tr. Waterfield, 2022)