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

and face of a condemned man: what God shall persuade me to approach philosophy if779 it makes men such persons? Far from it; I would not choose to do so, even if I were going to become a wise man. I indeed would rather that a young man, who is making his first movements towards philosophy, should come to me with his hair carefully trimmed than with it dirty and rough, for there is seen in him a certain notion (appearance) of beauty and a desire of (attempt at) that which is becoming; and where he supposes it to be, there also he strives that it shall be. It is only necessary to show him (what it is), and to say: Young man, you seek beauty, and you do well; you must know then that it grows (is produced) in that part of you where you have the rational faculty: seek it there where you have the movements towards and the movements from things, where you have the desires towards, and the aversion from things: for this is what you have in yourself of a superior kind; but the poor body is naturally only earth: why do you labor about it to no purpose? if you shall learn nothing else, you will learn from time that the body is nothing. But if a man comes to me daubed with filth, dirty, with a moustache down to his knees, what can I say to him, by what kind of resemblance can I lead him on? For about what has he busied himself which resembles beauty, that I may be able to change him and say: Beauty is not in this, but in that? Would you have me to tell him, that beauty consists not in being daubed with muck, but that it lies in the rational part? Has he any desire of beauty? has he any form of it in his mind? Go and talk to a hog, and tell him not to roll in the mud.

For this reason the words of Xenocrates touched Polemon also, since he was a lover of beauty, for he entered (the room) having in him certain incitements (ἐναύσματα) to love of beauty, but he looked for it in the wrong place.780 For nature has not made even the animals dirty which live with man. Does a horse ever wallow in the mud, or a well bred dog? But the hog, and the dirty geese, and worms and spiders do, which are banished furthest from human intercourse. Do you then being a man choose to be not as one of the animals which live with man, but rather a worm, or a spider? Will you not wash yourself somewhere some time in such manner as you choose?781 Will you not wash off the dirt from your body? Will you not come clean that those with whom you keep company may have pleasure in being with you? But do you go with us even into the temples in such a state, where it is not permitted to spit or blow the nose, being a heap of spittle and of snot?

What then? does any man (that is, do I) require you to ornament yourself? Far from it; except to ornament that which we really are by nature: the rational faculty, the opinions, the actions; but as to the body only so far as purity, only so far as not to give offense. But if you are told that you ought not to wear garments dyed with purple, go and daub your cloak with muck or tear it.782 “But how shall I have a neat cloak?” Man, you have water; wash it. Here is a youth worthy of being loved,783 here is an old man worthy of loving and being loved in return, a fit person for a man to entrust to him a son’s instruction, to whom daughters and young men shall come, if opportunity shall so happen, that the teacher shall deliver his lessons to them on a dunghill.784 Let this not be so: every deviation comes from something which is in man’s nature; but this (deviation) is near being something not in man’s nature.

XII On Attention

When you have remitted your attention for a short time, do not imagine this: that you will recover it when you choose. But let this thought be present to you: that in consequence of the fault committed today your affairs must be in a worse condition for all that follows. For first, and what causes most trouble, a habit of not attending is formed in you; then a habit of deferring your attention. And continually from time to time you drive away, by deferring it, the happiness of life, proper behavior, the being and living conformably to nature.785 If then the procrastination of attention is profitable, the complete omission of attention is more profitable; but if it is not profitable, why do you not maintain your attention constant?⁠—“Today I choose to play.”⁠—Well then, ought you not to play with attention?⁠—“I choose to sing.”⁠—What then hinders you from doing so with attention? Is there any part of life excepted, to which attention does not extend? For will you do it (anything in life) worse by using attention, and better by not attending at all? And what else of the things in life is done better by those who do not use attention? Does he who works in wood work better by not attending to it? Does the captain of a ship manage it better by not attending? and is any of the smaller acts done better by inattention? Do you not see that when you have let your mind loose, it is no longer in your power to recall it, either to propriety, or to modesty, or to moderation: but you do everything that comes into