Epictetus

“ Is this what a man with the milk of human kindness in him would say? It will be a great piece of good luck for a person like you to come through safely, a thing worth lighting lamps to celebrate! Surely you ought to be free from death and free from disease!
It is this conceit of fancying that we know something useful, that, as I have said, we ought to cast aside before we come to philosophy, as we do in the case of geometry and music. ”

“ When you have such a leader as Zeus and identify your wishes and your desires with His, why are you still afraid that you will fail? Give to poverty and to wealth your aversion and your desire: you will fail to get what you wish, and you will fall into what you would avoid. ”

“ For who among us does not have a preconceived idea of each of these terms? Very well, is it fitted into a system and complete? Prove that it is. "How shall I prove it?" Apply it properly to specific facts. To start with, Plato classifies definitions under the preconception "the useful," but you classify them under that of "the useless." Is it, then, possible for both of you to be right? How can that be? Does not one man apply his preconceived idea of "the good" to the fact of wealth, while another does not? ”

“ Give up wanting to keep your husband, and nothing of what you want fails to happen. Give up wanting him to live with you at any cost. Give up wanting to remain in Corinth, and, in a word, give up wanting anything but what God wants. And who will prevent you, who will compel you? No one, any more than anyone prevents or compels Zeus. ”

“ Indeed, to sum up the whole matter, if all of us who have these terms upon our lips possess no mere empty knowledge of each one severally, and do not need to devote any pains to the systematic arrangement of our preconceived ideas, why do we disagree, why fight, why blame one another? ”

“ For, of course, we have a certain preconception of the idea "healthy." But we are unable to apply it. That is why one person says, "Keep abstaining from food," and another, "Give nourishment"; again, one says, "Cut a vein," and another says, "Use the cupping-glass." What is the reason? Is it really anything but the fact that a person is unable properly to apply the preconceived idea of "healthy" to the specific instances?
10So it stands here also, in the affairs of life. Who among us has not upon his lips the words "good" and "evil," "advantageous" and "disadvantageous"? ”

“ And then, when you have told dreams to one another, you go back to the same things again; you have exactly the same desires as before, the same aversions, in the same way you make your choices, your designs, and your purposes, you pray for the same things and are interested in the same things. ”

“ For some of us want to learn what the philosophers are saying, thinking it will be witty and shrewd, others, because they wish to profit thereby. 5But it is absurd to think that when a man wishes to learn one thing he will actually learn something else, or, in short, that a man will make progress in anything without learning it. ”

“ In the second place, you do not even look for anybody to give you advice, but you are annoyed if you are told what I am telling you. Again, you say: "He is an old man without the milk of human kindness in him ”