Discourses, That Confidence (courage) is not Inconsistent with Caution

Epictetus — The Slave

Here's the truth that philosophers keep proving over and over: good and bad exist only in how you handle your thoughts and judgments. Things outside your control can't be truly good or bad. So where's the contradiction when philosophers say you should be confident about things you can't control, but cautious about things you can? If being "bad" only happens when you misuse your will, then you only need caution where your will is involved. If things outside your control mean nothing to you, then you can be confident about them. This way, you're both cautious and confident at the same time. In fact, you're confident because you're cautious. When you're careful about the things that can actually harm you, you naturally become confident about everything else.

Epictetus — The Slave Original

for if these things are true, which have been often said and often proved, that the nature of good is in the use of appearances, and the nature of evil likewise, and that things independent of our will do not admit either the nature of evil or of good, what paradox do the philosophers assert if they say that where things are not dependent on the will, there you should employ confidence, but where they are dependent on the will, there you should employ caution? For if the bad consists in the bad exercise of the will, caution ought only to be used where things are dependent on the will. But if things independent of the will and not in our power are nothing to us, with respect to these we must employ confidence; and thus we shall both be cautious and confident, and indeed confident because of our caution. For by employing caution towards things which are really bad, it will result that we shall have confidence with respect to things which are not so.