Epictetus

“ What do you say, philosopher? What is your opinion of piety and sanctity? "If you wish, I shall prove that it is good." By all means, prove it, that our citizens may be converted and may honour the Divine and at last cease to be indifferent about the things that are of supreme importance. ”

“ Learn now how righteousness is nothing, how reverence is folly, how a father is nothing, how a son is nothing." Well done, philosopher! Keep at it; persuade the young men, that we may have more who feel and speak as you do. It is from principles like these that our well-governed states have grown great! ”

“ What do you care how the rest of mankind will think about these matters, or whether their ideas be sound or not? For what have you to do with us? Come, do you interest yourself in sheep because they allow themselves to be shorn by us, and milked, and finally to be butchered and cut up? ”

“ Neither, then, is it possible for a man absolutely to lose the affections of a man, and those who cut off their bodily organs are unable to cut off the really important thing—their sexual desires. 20So with Epicurus: he cut off everything that characterizes a man, the head of a household, a citizen, and a friend, but he did not succeed in cutting off the desires of human beings ”

“ Is there any use in arguing further against any of these persons, or giving them a reason, or listening to one of theirs, or trying to convert them? By Zeus, one might much rather hope to convert a filthy degenerate than men who have become so deaf and blind! ”

“ Against Epicureans and Academics [1]
The propositions which are true and evident must of necessity be employed even by those who contradict them; and one might consider as perhaps the strongest proof of a proposition being evident the fact that even the man who contradicts it finds himself obliged at the same time to employ it. For example, if a man should contradict the proposition that there is a universal statement which is true, it is clear that he must assert the contrary, and say: No universal statement is true. ”

“ A man has received from nature measures and standards for discovering the truth, and then does not go on and take the pains to add to these and to work out additional principles to supply the deficiencies, but does exactly the opposite, endeavouring to take away and destroy whatever faculty he does possess for discovering the truth. ”

“ One ought not to believe a man at all"; or again, someone else, "Learn from me, man, that it is impossible to learn anything; 5it is I who tell you this and I will prove it to you, if you wish," what difference is there between these persons and—whom shall I say?—those who call themselves Academics? "O men," say the Academics, "give your assent to the statement that no man assents to any statement; believe us when we say that no man can believe anybody." ”

“ I greatly fear that a noble-spirited young man may hear these statements and be influenced by them, or, having been influenced already, may lose all the germs of the nobility which he possessed; 35that we may be giving an adulterer grounds for brazening out his acts; that some embezzler of public funds may lay hold of a specious plea based upon these theories; that someone who neglects his own parents may gain additional affrontery from them. ”

“ For what else does this assertion amount to than: If a statement is universal, it is false? Again, if a man comes forward and says, "I would have you know that nothing is knowable, but that everything is uncertain" ”