Discourses and Selected Writings (Classics)

by Epictetus

And yet, while there is only the one thing we can care for and devote ourselves to, we choose instead to care about and attach ourselves to a score of others: to our bodies, to our property, to our family, friends and slaves. [15] And, being attached to many things, we are weighed down and dragged along with them.

I must die. But must I die bawling?

In short, we do not abandon any discipline for despair of ever being the best in it.

For what else are tragedies but the ordeals of people who have come to value externals, tricked out in tragic verse?

You should thank the gods for making you strong enough to survive what you

cannot control, and only responsible for what you can. [33] The gods have released you from accountability for your parents, your siblings, your body, your possessions – for death and for life itself. [34] They made you responsible only for what is in your power – the proper use of impressions. [35] So why take on the burden of matters which you cannot answer for? You are only making unnecessary problems for yourself.

‘Nothing important comes into being overnight; even grapes or figs need time to ripen. If you say that you want a fig now, I will tell you to be patient.

So if the fruit of a fig tree is not brought to maturity instantly or in an hour, how do you expect the human mind to come to fruition, so quickly and easily?

Who are you to use those common curses, like ‘These damned fools,’ etc.? [11] Let them be. Since when are you so intelligent as to go around correcting other people’s mistakes?

Realize that the thief and the adulterer cannot touch what’s yours, only what is common property everywhere and not under your control.

A man only loses what he has.

Walk upright and free, trusting in the strength of your moral convictions, not the strength of your body, like an athlete. You weren’t meant to be invincible by brute force, like a pack animal. [21] You are invincible if nothing outside the will can disconcert you.

The fact is, everyone looks after themselves; if they curry favour with you it’s as if they’re currying their horse. Who is there who respects you as a human being?

When someone is properly grounded in life, they shouldn’t have to look outside themselves for approval.

Aren’t they the same people you are in the habit of calling crazy? And is this your life ambition, then – to win the approval of lunatics?

The true man is revealed in difficult times. So when trouble comes, think of yourself as a wrestler whom God, like a trainer, has paired with a tough young buck. [2] For what purpose? To turn you into Olympic-class material.

Only rest easy there and snore away, because, remember, tragedies take place among the rich – among kings, and potentates.

It is for you to arrange your priorities; but whatever you decide to do, don’t do it resentfully, as if you were being imposed on. And don’t believe your situation is genuinely bad – no one can make you do that.

Is there smoke in the house? If it’s not suffocating, I will stay indoors; if it proves too much, I’ll leave. Always remember – the door is open.

When did anger, however, ever teach someone to play music or pilot a ship? Do you imagine that your anger is going to help teach me the far more complex business of life?”

But in the affairs of life, no one offers himself to be examined, and whoever presumes to examine us we resent.

No, I cannot escape death, [10] but at least I can escape the fear of it – or do I have to die moaning and groaning too?

Passions stem from frustrated desire;

Not at all. It was that he gave in to anger, that he whined about losing a mere woman and lost sight of the fact that he was there not for romance but for war.

As for you, if you can’t change a person’s mind, realize that he is no more than a child – and clap hands with him. And if you can’t bring yourself to do that, then just keep quiet.

‘These are not the circumstances that I want.’ Is it up to you to choose them? You have been given that particular body, these particular parents and brothers, this particular social position and place to live.

In the event that you are haled before someone wielding the reigns of power, remember that there is somebody else looking down from above, and you have to answer first to him.

‘Be confident in everything outside the will, and cautious in everything under the will’s control.’

To be deceived or rash, to act shamelessly or with unbridled lust – none of this matters to us as long

The door needs to stay open whatever the circumstances, with the result that our problems disappear.

But what master, I wonder, do you yourself serve? Money? Women? Boys? The emperor or one of his subordinates? It has to be one of them, or you wouldn’t fret about such things.

Your duty is to prepare for death and imprisonment, torture and exile – [39] and all such evils – with confidence, because you have faith in the one who has called on you to face them, having judged you worthy of the role. When you take on the role, you will show the superiority of reason and the mind over forces unconnected with the will.

If you want to keep your character in line with nature, you have every hope of success, all the means you need, and not a worry in the world. [3] Because if you want to keep what is yours by right and is by nature free – and these are the only things you want – you have nothing to worry about. No one else controls them or can take them away from you.

If you want to be a man of honour and a man of your word, who is going to stop you?

Whenever externals are more important to you than your own integrity, then be prepared to serve them the remainder of your life.

Don’t hedge and agree to be their slave, then change your mind later; [13] commit to one or the other position at once and without

But then the boat actually begins to sink. What are my options? I do the only thing I am in a position to do, drown – but fearlessly, without bawling or crying out to God, because I know that what is born must also die.

But you did not get what you wanted – because of course that was up to him, not you. So don’t take responsibility for it.

‘I had no one more dependable than you; just see that he keeps the qualities he was born with: integrity, honour, dignity, patience, calmness and poise.’

‘Why is this person so serious and self-important?’ If it seems like pretension, it’s only because I don’t have complete confidence in the principles that I’ve learned and espouse. I still fear for my own frailty.

Because he not only wants to perform well, he wants to be well received – and the latter lies outside his control.

And yet I won’t have done you any harm – any more than a mirror is to blame when it shows a plain person what they look like; or a doctor is mean if he tells a patient, ‘Look, you may think this is insignificant, but you’re really sick; no food for you today, only water.’ No one thinks, ‘How rude!’ [22] But say to someone, ‘Your desires are unhealthy, your powers of aversion are weak, your plans are incoherent, your impulses are at odds with nature and your system of values is false and confused,’ – and off they go alleging slander.

‘But we must stick with a decision.’ ‘For heaven’s sake, man, that rule only applies to sound decisions.

No one ever consults a seer, or spends the night in a temple, out of concern for the means, rather than the ends, of their actions.

Every day you should put the ideas in action that protect against attachment to externals such as individual people,

Make use of what material advantages you have, don’t regret the ones you were not allowed. If any of them are recalled, let go of them willingly, grateful for the time you had to enjoy them – unless you want to be like a child crying for her nurse or mother.

You cannot imagine either of them reduced to tears or tantrums because they weren’t going to see this man, or that woman, or because they had to be in Susa, say, or Ecbatana, rather than Athens or Corinth.

‘But by leaving them I make them unhappy.’ You think you are the cause of their unhappiness? No; the cause of their disturbance is the same as yours: judgements. Overhaul your judgements and, if they’re smart, they will overhaul theirs. Otherwise, their unhappiness will be of their own making.

Cast out of your mind – not Procrustes or Sciron46 – but sorrow, fear, lust, envy, spite, greed, petulance and over-indulgence.

Don’t let the force of the impression when first it hits you knock you off your feet; just say to it, ‘Hold on a moment; let me see who you are and what you represent. Let me put you to the test.’ Next, don’t let it pull you in by picturing to yourself the pleasures that await you. [25] Otherwise it will lead you by the nose wherever it wants. Oppose it with some good and honourable thought, and put the dirty one to rout.