Discourses, On Freedom from Fear

Epictetus — The Slave

But to me, positions and power are just dried figs and nuts. So what happens if you don't get them while Caesar is handing them out? Don't worry about it. If a dried fig falls in your lap, take it and eat it — you can value a fig that much. But should I bend down and shove someone else aside, or let them shove me? Should I flatter the people who got into Caesar's inner circle? No dried fig is worth that trouble. Neither is anything else that isn't truly good — which philosophers have convinced me these things are not.

Epictetus — The Slave Original

but to me these are only dried figs and nuts. What then? If you fail to get them, while Cæsar is scattering them about, do not be troubled; if a dried fig come into your lap, take it and eat it; for so far you may value even a fig. But if I shall stoop down and turn another over, or be turned over by another, and shall flatter those who have got into (Cæsar's) chamber, neither is a dried fig worth the trouble, nor anything else of the things which are not good, which the philosophers have persuaded me not to think good.