The Stoics on Forgiving and releasing a grudge
Epictetus — usually gruff, blunt, sarcastic, and unfiltered — wasn’t known for his softness. His teaching style was confrontational on purpose. He pushed people to live with integrity, discipline, and emotional maturity. But in Discourses 1.18, That We Should Not Be Angry With Those That Fall Into Error, you see a different side of him: a Stoic argument for empathy, forgiveness, and letting go of anger without becoming passive or naïve.
This chapter gives a framework for dealing with people who have hurt, betrayed, or disappointed us in ways that still sting. And it does it with a kind of clarity that feels surprisingly modern.
Holding Standards Without Holding a Grudge
Epictetus never suggests lowering your standards for how people should behave. What he does reject is letting someone else’s behavior rob you of your peace. He calls on his students to hold firm boundaries and moral expectations without sinking into bitterness or hostility.
Which raises the real question most people get stuck on:
How do you stay grounded when someone wrongs you?
Epictetus’ Argument, Distilled Into Seven Steps
Epictetus never numbers these ideas, but the logic is tight and sequential. Breaking it down makes the flow clear:
1. People always do what they think is right.
Even people who lie, cheat, betray, manipulate, or act maliciously are acting from a distorted belief about what’s “good.” Their judgment is wrong — but in their own mind, they’re pursuing something they think benefits them.
“They have gone astray in matters of good and evil.”
2. Living without virtue is objectively harmful.
Stoicism separates subjective perception (“I think this is good”) from objective reality (“this way of living destroys you”). A life built on vice isn’t just morally off — it’s painful, chaotic, and empty.
3. Wrongdoers are confused about what actually makes life good.
If someone believes cheating, stealing, or deceiving leads to a meaningful life, they’re not just immoral — they’re fundamentally mistaken.
4. Wrongdoing harms the wrongdoer first.
Epictetus flips the script: the liar, the cheat, the manipulator — they injure themselves before anyone else. They lose the most precious human ability: good judgment.
“The most valuable thing in each man is a right moral choice.”
5. If they’re harming themselves, they deserve pity, not rage.
You don’t have to forgive in the sentimental sense. But empathy becomes easier when you see the self-inflicted nature of their suffering.
6. Ignorance — not malice — sits at the root of most wrongdoing.
People don’t wake up wanting to live badly. They just don’t know how to live well. That ignorance is the punishment.
7. Therefore, the wise response is pity, not vengeance.
Their actions may have hurt you, but their confusion hurts them more — and forever.
Justice vs. Compassion: The Pushback
Epictetus’ students immediately object:
What about punishing criminals? Thieves? Violent people?
His response is harsh and precise:
“Ought not this blind man or that deaf man be put to death?”
He compares moral blindness to physical disability: disabling, unfortunate, worthy of boundaries — but not hatred. The thief, he argues, is already suffering from the worst handicap a person can have: the absence of virtue.
From Victimhood to Clarity
Epictetus challenges the victim mindset: the tendency to center your pain as the only pain in the situation. He doesn’t dismiss the hurt. But he reframes the wrongdoer as someone already carrying a burden far heavier than the harm they caused you.
“They have to live with being themselves.”
That line is the entire Stoic ethic in one sentence.
The Lamp Story: A Small Example With a Big Point
Epictetus tells a simple story: someone stole his iron lamp. He heard a noise, came downstairs, saw the lamp was gone — and shrugged it off.
Not because theft is okay.
Because he understood why the thief took it.
Both he and the thief desired the lamp. The only difference was character:
he chose not to steal; the thief chose otherwise.
The real harm wasn’t losing the lamp — it was desiring it so much that he felt “robbed.” The external loss was trivial. The internal attachment was the actual problem.
What About the Wicked Who Prosper?
The age-old frustration:
What about the people who do wrong and still win?
Epictetus answers this in Fragment 13:
Success doesn’t prove anything.
Money, status, popularity — those are fingernails.
Virtue is eyesight.
If someone has lost virtue, Stoics consider them already punished, regardless of how good their life looks from the outside.
A Stoic Framework for Letting Go
Epictetus isn’t asking you to excuse harm or swallow your boundaries. He’s showing a path out of resentment — a way to stop letting another person’s confusion take up space in your mind.
The steps:
Acknowledge the harm without inflating it
Recognize the other person’s confusion
See that the real injury is theirs, not yours
Maintain boundaries without hatred
Release the grudge because it’s no longer useful
This is forgiveness not as virtue-signaling, but as emotional sovereignty.
A Practice You Can Try
Bring someone to mind who hurt you.
Someone who still lives in your chest or your jaw when you think about them.
Then ask:
What confusion were they acting from?
How has their life been shaped by their own flawed judgment?
Is it possible that they’ve punished themselves more than I ever could?
Do I actually need to stay angry?
You might find — as Epictetus did — that the answer is no.
