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

that it is the language of Epicureans and catamites? Next while you are doing what they do and holding their opinions, do you speak to us the words of Zeno and of Socrates? Will you not throw away as far as you can the things belonging to others with which you decorate yourself, though they do not fit you at all? For what else do they desire than to sleep without hindrance and free from compulsion, and when they have risen to yawn at their leisure, and to wash the face, then write and read what they choose, and then talk about some trifling matter being praised by their friends whatever they may say, then to go forth for a walk, and having walked about a little to bathe, and then eat and sleep, such sleep as is the fashion of such men? why need we say how? for one can easily conjecture. Come, do you also tell your own way of passing the time which you desire, you who are an admirer of truth and of Socrates and Diogenes. What do you wish to do in Athens? the same (that others do), or something else? Why then do you call yourself a Stoic? Well, but they who falsely call themselves Roman citizens,575 are severely punished; and should those, who falsely claim so great and reverend a thing and name, get off unpunished? Or is this not possible, but the law divine and strong and inevitable is this, which exacts the severest punishments from those who commit the greatest crimes? For what does this law say? Let him who pretends to things which do not belong to him be a boaster, a vainglorious man:576 let him who disobeys the divine administration be base, and a slave; let him suffer grief, let him be envious, let him pity;577 and in a word let him be unhappy and lament.

“Well then; do you wish me to pay court to a certain person? to go to his doors?”578⁠—If reason requires this to be done for the sake of country, for the sake of kinsmen, for the sake of mankind, why should you not go? You are not ashamed to go to the doors of a shoemaker, when you are in want of shoes, nor to the door of a gardener, when you want lettuces; and are you ashamed to go to the doors of the rich when you want anything?⁠—“Yes, for I have no awe of a shoemaker.”⁠—Don’t feel any awe of the rich.⁠—“Nor will I flatter the gardener.”⁠—And do not flatter the rich.⁠—“How then shall I get what I want?”⁠—Do I say to you, go as if you were certain to get what you want? And do not I only tell you, that you may do what is becoming to yourself? “Why then should I still go?” That you may have gone, that you may have discharged the duty of a citizen, of a brother, of a friend. And further remember that you have gone to the shoemaker, to the seller of vegetables, who have no power in anything great or noble, though he may sell dear. You go to buy lettuces: they cost an obolus (penny), but not a talent. So it is here also. The matter is worth going for to the rich man’s door⁠—Well, I will go⁠—It is worth talking about⁠—Let it be so; I will talk with him⁠—But you must also kiss his hand and flatter him with praise⁠—Away with that, it is a talent’s worth: it is not profitable to me, nor to the state nor to my friends, to have done that which spoils a good citizen and a friend.⁠—“But you will seem not to have been eager about the matter, if you do not succeed.” Have you again forgotten why you went? Know you not that a good man does nothing for the sake of appearance, but for the sake of doing right?⁠—“What advantage is it then to him to have done right?”⁠—And what advantage is it to a man who writes the name of Dion to write it as he ought?⁠—The advantage is to have written it.⁠—“Is there no reward then?”579⁠—Do you seek a reward for a good man greater than doing what is good and just? At Olympia you wish for nothing more, but it seems to you enough to be crowned at the games. Does it seem to you so small and worthless a thing to be good and happy? For these purposes being introduced by the gods into this city (the world), and it being now your duty to undertake the work of a man, do you still want nurses also and a mamma, and do foolish women by their weeping move you and make you effeminate? Will you thus never cease to be a foolish child? Know you not that he who does the acts of a child, the older he is, the more ridiculous he is?

In Athens did you see no one by going to his house?⁠—“I visited any man that I pleased.”⁠—Here also be ready to see, and you will see whom you please: only let it be without meanness, neither with desire nor with aversion, and your affairs will be well managed. But this result does not depend on going nor on standing at the doors, but it depends on what is within, on your opinions. When you have learned not to value things which are external and not dependent on the will, and to consider that not one of them is your own, but that these things only are your own, to exercise the judgment well, to form opinions, to move towards an object, to desire, to turn from a thing, where is there any longer room for flattery, where for meanness? Why do you still long for the quiet there (at Athens), and for the places to which you are accustomed?