Epictetus

“ Of things some are good, others bad, and yet others indifferent. Now the virtues and everything that shares in them are good, while vices and everything that shares in vice are evil, and what falls in between these, namely, wealth, health, life, death, pleasures, pain, are indifferent. ”

“ Why, then, do you mock your own selves and cheat everybody else? And why do you put on a guise that is not your own and walk about as veritable thieves and robbers who have stolen these designations and properties that in no sense belong to you? ”

“ Is it a vice at all, or anything that shares in vice? What was it, then, that you used to call these things?" "What have I to do with you, fellow? My own evils are enough for me" And in that you are right. For your own evils art enough for you—your baseness, your cowardice, the bragging that you indulged in when you were sitting in the lecture room. Why did you pride yourself upon things that were not your own? Why did you call yourself a Stoic?
20Observe yourselves thus in your actions and you will find out to what sect of the philosophers you belong. ”

“ And what good will it do him? He will be more trifling and tiresome than he is already. You, for example, what have you gained by the reading of it? What judgement have you formed on the subject? Nay, you will tell us of Helen, and Priam, and the island of Calypso [5] which never was and never will be!
And in the field of literary history, indeed, it is of no great consequence that you master the received account without having formed any judgement of your own. But in questions of conduct we suffer from this fault much more than we do in literary matters. "Tell me about things good and evil." ”

“ What is it that is lacking? When I see a craftsman who has material lying ready at hand, I look for the finished product. Here also, then, is the craftsman, and here is the material; what do we yet lack? ”

“ I do not know, and I was not made for this purpose—to test my own external impression upon the subject, to compare the statements of others, and to form a judgement of my own. For this reason I am no better than the grammarian. When asked, "Who was the father of Hector?" he replied, "Priam." "Who were his brothers?" "Alexander and Deïphobus." "And who was their mother?" "Hecuba. This is the account that I have received." "From whom?" ”

“ Everything true as an event in the past is necessary, and (2) An impossible does not follow a possible, and (3) What is not true now and never will be, is nevertheless possible. Diodorus, realizing this contradiction, used the plausibility of the first two propositions to establish the principle, Nothing is possible which is neither true now nor ever will be. But one man will maintain, among the possible combinations of two at a time, the following, namely, (3) Something is possible, which is not true now and never will be, and (2) An impossible does not follow a possible ”