Discourses by Epictetus (good books to read for beginners txt) 📕
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Raised a slave in Nero’s court, Epictetus would become one of the most influential philosophers in the Stoic tradition. While exiled in Greece by an emperor who considered philosophers a threat, Epictetus founded a school of philosophy at Nicopolis. His student Arrian of Nicomedia took careful notes of his sometimes cantankerous lectures, the surviving examples of which are now known as the Discourses of Epictetus.
In these discourses, Epictetus explains how to gain peace-of-mind by only willing that which is within the domain of your will. There is no point in getting upset about things that are outside of your control; that only leads to distress. Instead, let such things be however they are, and focus your effort on the things that are in your control: your own attitudes and priorities. This way, you can never be thrown off balance, and tranquility is yours for the taking.
The lessons in the Discourses of Epictetus, along with his Enchiridion, have continued to attract new adherents to Stoic philosophy down to the present day.
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- Author: Epictetus
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Compare book III chapter II at 4; book IV chapter VIII at 20. Marcus Aurelius (Meditations viii 27) writes: “There are three relations [between thee and other things]: the one to the body which surrounds thee; the second to the divine cause from which all things come to all; and the third to those who live with thee.” This is precise, true and practical. Those who object to “the divine cause,” may write in place of it “the nature and constitution of things;” for there is a constitution of things, which the philosopher attempts to discover; and for most practical purposes, it is immaterial whether we say that it is of divine origin or has some other origin, or no origin can be discovered. The fact remains that a constitution of things exists; or, if that expression be not accepted, we may say that we conceive that it exists and we cannot help thinking so. ↩
See book I chapter XIV at 13; book II chapter VIII at 14. Socrates (Xenophon, Memorabilia i 1, 19) said the same. That man should make himself like the Gods is said also by Marcus Aurelius, Meditations x 8.—See Plato, Laws i 4. (John Upton.)
When God is said to provide for all things, this is what the Greeks called πρόνοια, providence (book I chapter XVI, book III chapter XVII). In the second of these passages there is a short answer to some objections made to Providence.
Epictetus could only know or believe what God is by the observation of phenomena; and he could only know what he supposed to be God’s providence by observing his administration of the world and all that happens in it. Among other works of God is man, who possesses certain intellectual powers which enable him to form a judgment of God’s works, and a judgment of man himself. Man has or is supposed to have certain moral sentiments, or a capacity of acquiring them in some way. On the supposition that all man’s powers are the gift of God, man’s power of judging what happens in the world under God’s providence is the gift of God: and if he should not be satisfied with God’s administration, we have the conclusion that man, whose powers are from God, condemns that administration which is also from God. Thus God and man, who is God’s work, are in opposition to one another.
If a man rejects the belief in a deity and in a providence, because of the contradictions and difficulties involved in this belief or supposed to be involved in it, and if he finds the contradictions and difficulties such as he cannot reconcile with his moral sentiments and judgments, he will be consistent in rejecting the notion of a deity and of providence. But he must also consistently admit that his moral sentiments and judgments are his own, and that he cannot say how he acquired them, or how he has any of the corporeal or intellectual powers which he is daily using. By the hypothesis they are not from God. All then that a man can say is that he has such powers. ↩
See book II chapter X, book I chapter XVII at 12, book II chapter XI at 4, etc. Marcus Aurelius, Meditations x 8. ↩
The original is “to add the colophon,” which is a proverbial expresssion and signifies to give the last touch to a thing. ↩
See the fragments of Menander quoted by John Upton. ↩
Sunt in Fortunae qui casibus omnnia ponunt,
Et mundum credunt nullo rectore moveri.
↩
From the fact that man has some intelligence Voltaire concludes that we must admit that there is a greater intelligence. (Letter to Suzanne Necker, vol. 67, ed. Kehl. p. 278.) ↩
The word is ἀποκαρτερεῖν, which Cicero (Tusculan Disputations i 34) renders “perinediam vita discedere.” The words “I have resolved” are in Epictetus, κέκρικα. Pliny (Epistles i 12) says that Corellius Rufus, when he determined to end his great sufferings by starvation made the same answer, κέκρικα, to the physician who offered him food. ↩
The great city is the world. ↩
The meaning is that you cannot lead a fool from his purpose either by words or force. “A wise fool” must mean a fool who thinks himself wise; and such we sometimes see. “Though thou shouldst bray a fool in the mortar among wheat with a pestle, yet will not his foolishness depart from him.” Proverbs 27:22. ↩
Hellebore was a medicine used in madness. Horace says, Satires ii 3, 82:
Danda est ellebori multo pars maxima avaris.
↩
“Epictetus seems in this discussion to be referring to some professor, who had declared that he would not take money from his hearers, and then, indirectly at least had blamed our philosopher for receiving some fee from his hearers.” Johann Schweighäuser ↩
See book II chapter X at 25. ↩
“To answer to things” means to act in a way suitable to circumstances, to be a match for them. So Horace says (Satires ii 7, 85):
Responsare cupidinibus, contemnere honores
Fortis.
↩
Perhaps this was a common puzzle. The man answers right; he cannot say. ↩
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