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 I chapter XIX at 11. ↩
Elizabeth Carter compares the Epistle to the Romans, 7:21–23. Johann Schweighäuser says, the man either sees that the thing which he is doing is bad or unjust, or for any other reason he does not do the thing willingly; but he is compelled, and allows himself to be carried away by the passion which rules him. The “another” who compels is God, Schweighäuser says, who has made the nature of man such, that he must postpone everything else to that thing in which he places his Good: and he adds, that it is man’s fault if he places his good in that thing in which God has not placed it.
Some persons will not consider this to be satisfactory. The man is “compelled and allows himself to be carried away,” etc. The notion of “compulsion” is inconsistent with the exercise of the will. The man is unlucky. He is like him “who sees,” as the Latin poet says, “the better things and approves of them, but follows the worse.” ↩
See Johann Schweighäuser’s note on this obscure passage. ↩
On “preconceptions,” see book I chapter II. ↩
Xenophon (Memorabilia i 6, 14); but Epictetus does not quote the words, he only gives the meaning. Marcus Aurelius (Meditations viii 43) says, “Different things delight different people. But it is my delight to keep the ruling faculty sound without turning away either from any man or from any of the things which happen to men, but looking at and receiving all with welcome eyes, and using everything according to its value.” ↩
Socrates never professed to teach virtue, but by showing himself to be a virtuous man he expected to make his companions virtuous by imitating his example. (Xenophon, Memorabilia i 2, 3.) ↩
John Upton explains this passage thus: “He who loves knows what it is to endure all things for love. If any man then being captivated with love for a girl would for her sake endure dangers and even death, what would he not endure if he possessed the love of God, the Universal, the chief of beautiful things?” ↩
The Greek is κοίνος νοῦς, the communis sensus of the Romans, and our common sense. Horace (Satires i 3, 65) speaks of a man who “communi sensu plane caret,” one who has not the sense or understanding which is the common property of men. ↩
This was a proverb used by Bion, as Diogenes Laërtius says. The cheese was new and soft, as the ancients used it. ↩
Rufus is mentioned in note 13. ↩
The Greek is διορθωτής. The Latin word is Corrector, which occurs in inscriptions and elsewhere. ↩
The Epicureans are ironically named Philosophers, for most of them were arrogant men. See what is said of them in Cicero’s De Natura Deorum, i 8. Johann Schweighäuser ↩
Maximus was appointed by Trajan to conduct a campaign against the Parthians, in which he lost his life. Dion Cassius, ii 1108, 1126, Hermann Samuel Beimarus.
Cassiope or Cassope is a city in Epirus, near the sea, and between Pandosia and Nicopolis, where Epictetus lived. ↩
ψυχικοῖς is Lord Shaftesbury’s emendation in place of ἀγαθοῖς, and it is accepted by Johann Schweighäuser. ↩
Diogenes Laërtius (Lives x 151), quoted by John Upton. “Injustice,” says Epicurus, “is not an evil in itself, but the evil is in the fear which there is on account of suspicion.” ↩
The manuscripts, with one exception, have δογματίζων τὰ καλὰ, ποιῶν τὰ αἴσχρα, but it was properly corrected by Hieronymus Wolf, as John Upton remarks, who shows from Cicero, De Finibus, ii 25 and 31, that the manuscripts are wrong. In the second passage Cicero says, “nihil in hae praeclara epistola scriptum ab Epicuro congruens et conveniens decretis ejus reperietis. Ita redarguitur ipse a sese, vincunturque scripta ejus probitate ipsius ac moribus.” See book II chapter XVIII. ↩
John Upton compares the passage (line 333) in the Cyclops of Euripides, who speaks like an Epicurean. Not to marry and not to engage public affairs were Epicurean doctrines. See book I chapter XXIII at 3 and 6. ↩
The toreutic art is the art of working in metal, stone, or wood, and of making figures on them in relief or by cutting into the material. ↩
See Johann Schweighäuser’s note. ↩
See Johann Schweighäuser’s note. ↩
A codicillus is a small codex and the original sense of codex is a strong stem or stump. Lastly it was used for a book, and even for a will. Codicilli were small writing-tablets, covered with wax, on which men wrote with a stylus or pointed metal. Lastly, codicillus is a book or writing generally; and a writing or letter by which the emperor conferred any office. Our word codicil has only one sense, which is a small writing added or subjoined to a will or testament; but this sense is also derived from the Roman use of the word. (Digest 29, tit. 7, de jure codicillorum.) ↩
John Upton supposes this to mean, whose bedchamber man are you? and he compares
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