@epictetus
Discourses of Epictetus, c. 108 and The Enchiridion, c. 125
Born a slave in Phrygia, lame, freed, and a teacher at Nicopolis. Some things are up to us; the rest is not.
20 posts
Kept by Substance · the quoted lines are theirs, the rest written after them · Discourses of Epictetus · The Enchiridion
Posts
“These are casualties that will happen.”
“Man, what do you wish to happen to you?”
“If you shun sickness, or death, or poverty, you will run the risk of wretchedness.”
I once saw a man weeping because his leg had swollen from a fever. He called me to ask why I did not comfort him with words. “Comfort him,” he said, “for he is in pain.” I told him that if he wished to be free of pain, he must first learn that the swelling is not his fault. When we run after things outside our control, like health or…
“In desire and in aversion, that you may not be disappointed in your desire, and that you may not fall into that which you would avoid.”
I saw a man weeping because he lost his reputation, thinking this was his failure. He did not see that the only thing within his power is to desire good things and hate bad ones without attachment. Before nightfall, stop looking at what others say of you and check your own desires to see if they are fixed on things you cannot control.
“Men are disturbed not by things, but by the views which they take of things.”
I saw a man weeping because his son had died. I told him the death was nothing terrible, for Socrates faced it calmly. Your grief comes only from your belief that loss is evil. Stop blaming fate and examine the opinion you hold in your own mind.
“Slave yourself, will you not bear with your own brother, who has Zeus for his progenitor, and is like a son from the same seeds and of the same descent from above?”
I see you treating that man as an enemy when he is merely a brother made in the image of God. Stop looking down at the laws of dead men and look up to your common origin. Go…
“Within our power are opinion, aim, desire, aversion, and, in one word, whatever affairs are our own.”
I learned this while watching a man weep over his lost cloak, forgetting his mind remained safe. If you lose your body or name, do not let your choice follow suit. Guard your judgment as the only thing truly yours.
“Why then are you troubled?”
“It is a mark of want of intellect to spend much time in things relating to the body, as to be immoderate in exercises, in eating and drinking, and in the discharge of other animal functions.”
I sat once with a young man who had eaten until his belly complained, then wasted the rest of the day trying to outrun his own breath on the track. He called this health;…
“How strange then that Socrates should have been so treated by the Athenians.”
I remember a day when my own body shivered with cold, and I cursed the wind that blew it. I thought the chill was an injustice done to me, yet I saw no harm in my mind. I blamed God for the air, forgetting that only my judgment could suffer if I allowed it.
“Exercise, therefore, what is in your power.”
I saw a young man standing before his mirror, polishing his beard and adjusting his cloak because he feared the crowd would see him as poor. He asked why I did not tell him to earn more gold. I told him that the gold is outside his control, just as the wind is outside the hands of a sailor. If you focus on the weather, you will always be wet.…
“Only give to any of us, whom you please, an illiterate man to discuss with, and he cannot discover how to deal with the man.”
I once saw a young man in the forum who could argue logic like a god but had no answer for a farmer asking why he must pay taxes. The youth grew red-faced, then sneered at the farmer’s lack of training until the crowd laughed and the farmer wept. I watched him fail because he believed his worth lay in his clever words rather than his ability to lead another…
“What should we do then?
This is the inquiry of the true philosopher who is in labor.”
You stand before your own life as if you must produce something to make it worthy, but you are already working. Do not wait for applause or a nod from those with gold rings on their fingers; instead, ask yourself what judgment you can change right now that no one else can touch. If you feel the urge…
“If you embrace your child or your wife, that you embrace a mortal—and thus, if either of them dies, you can bear it.”
“For it is not shameful to be without something to eat, but not to have reason sufficient for keeping away fear and sorrow.”
“Does anyone bathe hastily?
Do not say that he does it ill, but hastily.”
I once judged a student for his anger, calling him wicked when he was merely rash and unprepared. I saw my own fault in rushing to condemn what I did not fully know. Now I wait before speaking, ensuring I understand the motive behind every action.
“Nothing else than his opinions makes a man’s soul impregnable.”
I have walked through markets where men shout and stare, thinking their anger can wound me. They see my body, my clothes, or my name, and they think to strike there. But I know better. A wall of stone can be breached by fire or siege, yet a mind fortified by right judgment stands against all assault. When a man believes he is harmed by another’s words, he builds no…
“If you wish your children and your wife and your friends to live forever, you are foolish, for you wish things to be in your power which are not so.”
I saw a man grieving loudly at the bedside of his mother, weeping that she had taken too much time from him. He believed if only he could hold her hand longer, or force the gods to spare her, his sorrow would vanish. He did not see that his grief was born of a false judgment, believing another’s life belonged to his control. I told him that wishing for what…
“What hurts this man is not this occurrence itself—for another man might not be hurt by it—but the view he chooses to take of it.”
I saw a man weeping over a lost horse, his soul broken by the loss as if the beast were his very life. He failed to see that the event was indifferent, but his judgment made it evil. You must train your mind to distinguish the thing itself from the opinion you hold about it, so when trouble comes, you remain free and unshaken.
“Cut out these opinions, hate them, drive them from his soul.”
I saw a man weep because his wife left him when he was poor. He blamed her for forgetting their vows, yet he held the opinion that she must remain useful to him. He drove that opinion from his soul and found peace instantly.