Discourses and Selected Writings (Classics)

by Epictetus

Whether human affairs are directed by Fate’s unalterable necessity, or by chance, is a question. The wisest of philosophers disagree on this point. [Epicureans] insist that heaven is unconcerned with our birth and death – is unconcerned, in fact, with human beings generally – with the result that good people often suffer while wicked people thrive. [The Stoics] disagree, maintaining that although things happen according to fate, this depends not on the movement of the planets but on the principles and logic of natural causality. This school concedes to us the freedom to choose our own lives. Once the choice is made, however, the Stoics warn that the subsequent sequence of events cannot be altered. With regard to practical matters they maintain that popular ideas of good and bad are wrong: many people who appear to be in dire circumstances are actually happy provided they deal with their situation bravely; others, regardless of how many possessions they have, are miserable, because they do not know how to use the gifts of fortune wisely.1

[14] 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? I must be put in chains – but moaning and groaning too? I must be exiled; but is there anything to keep me from going with a smile, calm and self-composed?

‘I have to die. If it is now, well then I die now; if later, then now I will take my lunch, since the hour for lunch has arrived – and dying I will tend to later.’

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

A student should practise how to expunge from his life sighs and sorrow, grief and disappointment, exclamations like ‘poor me’ and ‘alas’;

If a man objects to truths that are all too evident, it is no easy task finding arguments that will change his mind. [2] This is proof neither of his own strength nor of his teacher’s weakness. When someone caught in an argument hardens to stone, there is just no more reasoning with them.

When you are by yourself you should call it peace and liberty, and consider yourself the gods’ equal. When you’re with a large group you shouldn’t say you’re in a mob or crowd, but a guest at a feast or festival – and in that spirit learn to enjoy it.

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.

We are responsible for some things, while there are others for which we cannot be held responsible. The former include our judgement, our impulse, our desire, aversion and our mental faculties in general; the latter include the body, material possessions, our reputation, status – in a word, anything not in our power to control. [2] The former are naturally free, unconstrained and unimpeded, while the latter are frail, inferior, subject to restraint – and none of our affair.

It is not events that disturb people, it is their judgements concerning them.

Don’t hope that events will turn out the way you want, welcome events in whichever way they happen: this is the path to peace.