Epictetus

“ Men find all their difficulties in externals, their perplexities in externals. "What shall I do? How is it to take place? How is it to turn out? I am afraid that this will befall me, or that." All these are the expressions of men who concern themselves with the things that lie outside the sphere of the moral purpose. For who says, "How am I to avoid giving assent to the false? How am I to refuse to swerve aside from the true?"? If a man is so gifted by nature as to be in great anxiety about these things, I shall remind him, "Why are you in great anxiety? ”

“ If a great boar appears, the struggle in which you are to engage will be greater; if evil men appear, you will clear the world of evil men.— But if I die in so doing?—You will die as a good man, bringing to fulfilment a noble action. ”

“ What do you men think? Did not Homer compose this in order for us to see that there is nothing to prevent the persons of highest birth, of greatest strength, of most handsome appearance, from being most miserable and wretched, when they do not hold the right kind of judgements? ”

“ For calm, then, for peace of mind, for sleeping when you are asleep, and being awake when you are awake, for fearing nothing, for being in great anxiety about nothing, are you unwilling to spend anything, to make any exertion? ”

“ But if you wish for any one of the things that are not your own, what is your own is lost. This is the nature of the matter: Nothing is done except for a price. 20And why be surprised? If you wish to be consul you must keep vigils, run around, kiss men's hands, rot away at other men's doors, say and do many slavish things, send presents to many persons, and guest-gifts to some people every day. ”

“ No one can prevent you, can he?—No one.—Therefore, say no longer to me, "How is it to take place?"' Because, whatever takes place, you will turn it to good purpose, and the outcome will be a blessing for you. ”

“ Why, since you have to die in any event, you must be found doing something or other—farming, or digging, or engaged in commerce, or holding a consulship, or suffering with dyspepsia or dysentery. What is it, then, you wish to be doing when death finds you? ”

“ I for my part should wish it to be some work that befits a man, something beneficent, that promotes the common welfare, or is noble. But if I cannot be found doing such great things as these, I should like at least to be engaged upon that which is free from hindrance, that which is given me to to do, and that is, correcting myself, as I strive to perfect the faculty which deals with the external impressions, labouring to achieve calm, while yet giving to each of my human relationships its due ”

“ Again, if a man is in great anxiety about desire, for fear lest it become incomplete and miss its mark, 5or about aversion, for fear lest it fall into what it would avoid, I shall first give him a kiss of congratulation, because he has got rid of what the rest of mankind are excited about, and their fears, and has turned his serious thought to his own true business in the realm where he himself is. ”

“ I. 25, 18 and 20. ↑ Homer, Iliad, XXIV. 5, referring to Achilles on his bed when mourning for Patroclus. ↑ Patroclus and Antilochus were well-known friends of Achilles, but "Menelaus" (the reading of S) must be wrong, partly because he was not in any way a special friend, and particularly because he was not killed, as the context requires. Some other friend of the hero, who was killed, must be supplied, and that can hardly be anyone but Protesilaus, who was one of his playmates under the tutelage of Cheiron. ”