Discourses by Epictetus (good books to read for beginners txt) 📕

leads to this end: to give up (dismiss) the things which do not depend on the will, to withdraw from them, and to admit that they belong to others? For another man then to have an opinion about you, of what kind is it?⁠—It is a thing independent of the will⁠—Then is it nothing to you?⁠—It is nothing⁠—When then you are still vexed at this and disturbed, do you think that you are convinced about good and evil?

Will you not then, letting others alone, be to yourself both scholar and teacher?⁠—The rest of mankind will look after this, whether it is to their interest to be and to pass their lives in a state contrary to nature: but to me no man is nearer than myself. What then is the meaning of this, that I have listened to the words of the philosophers and I assent to them, but in fact I am no way made easier (more content)? Am I so stupid? And yet in all other things such as I have chosen, I have not been found very stupid; but I learned letters quickly, and to wrestle, and geometry, and to resolve syllogisms. Has not then reason convinced me? and indeed no other things have I from the beginning so approved and chosen (as the things which are rational): and now I read about these things, hear about them, write about them; I have so far discovered no reason stronger than this (living according to nature). In what then am I deficient? Have the contrary opinions not been eradicated from me? Have the notions (opinions) themselves not been exercised nor used to be applied to action, but as armor are laid aside and rusted and cannot fit me? And yet neither in the exercises of the palaestra, nor in writing or reading am I satisfied with learning, but I turn up and down the syllogisms which are proposed, and I make others, and sophistical syllogisms also.723 But the necessary theorems by proceeding from which a man can become free from grief, fear, passions (affects), hindrance, and a free man, these I do not exercise myself in nor do I practice in these the proper practice (study). Then I care about what others will say of me, whether I shall appear to them worth notice, whether I shall appear happy.

Wretched man, will you not see what you are saying about yourself? What do you appear to yourself to be? in your opinions, in your desires, in your aversions from things (ἐν τῷ ἐκκλίνειν), in your movements (purposes, ἐν ὁρμῇ) in your preparation (for anything), in your designs (plans), and in other acts suitable to a man? But do you trouble yourself about this, whether others pity you?⁠—“Yes, but I am pitied not as I ought to be.”⁠—Are you then pained at this? and is he who is pained, an object of pity?⁠—“Yes.”⁠—How then are you pitied not as you ought to be? For by the very act that you feel (suffer) about being pitied, you make yourself deserving of pity. What then says Antisthenes? Have you not heard? “It is a royal thing, O Cyrus, to do right (well) and to be ill spoken of.”724 My head is sound, and all think that I have the headache. What do I care for that? I am free from fever, and people sympathize with me as if I had a fever, (and say), “Poor man, for so long a time you have not ceased to have fever.” I also say with a sorrowful countenance, “In truth it is now a long time that I have been ill.” What will happen then? As God may please: and at the same time I secretly laugh at those who are pitying me. What then hinders the same being done in this case also? I am poor, but I have a right opinion about poverty. Why then do I care if they pity me for my poverty? I am not in power (not a magistrate); but others are: and I have the opinion which I ought to have about having and not having power. Let them look to it who pity me:725 but I am neither hungry nor thirsty nor do I suffer cold; but because they are hungry or thirsty they think that I too am. What then shall I do for them? Shall I go about and proclaim and say, “Be not mistaken, men, I am very well, I do not trouble myself about poverty, nor want of power, nor in a word about anything else than right opinions. These I have free from restraint, I care for nothing at all.”⁠—What foolish talk is this? How do I possess right opinions when I am not content with being what I am, but am uneasy about what I am supposed to be?

But you say, “others will get more and be preferred to me.”⁠—What then is more reasonable than for those who have labored about anything to have more in that thing in which they have labored? They have labored for power, you have labored about opinions; and they have labored for wealth, you for the proper use of appearances. See if they have more than you in this about which you have labored, and which they neglect; if they assent better than you with respect to the natural rules (measures) of things; if they are less disappointed than you in their desires; if they fall less into things which they would avoid than you do; if in their intentions, if in the things which they propose to themselves, if in their purposes, if in their motions towards an object they take a better aim; if they better observe a proper behavior, as men, as sons, as parents, and so on as to the other names by which we express the relations of life. But if they exercise power, and you do