Discourses, Fragments, Handbook

by Epictetus

And so, being attached in this way to any number of things, we’re weighed down by them and dragged down.

What are we to do, then? To make the best of what lies within our power, and deal with everything else as it comes. ‘How does it come, then?’ As God wills.

[21] What, then, should we have at hand to help us in such emergencies? Why, what else than to know what is mine and what isn’t mine, and what is in my power and what isn’t?

I must die; so must I die groaning too? I must be imprisoned; so must I grieve at that too? I must depart into exile; so can anyone prevent me from setting off with a smile, cheerfully and serenely?

This is what it means to train oneself in the matters in which one ought to train oneself, to have rendered one’s desires incapable of being frustrated, and one’s aversions incapable of falling into what they want to avoid. [32] I’m bound to die. If at once, I’ll go to my death; if somewhat later, I’ll eat my meal, since the hour has arrived for me to do so, and then die afterwards. And how? As suits someone who is giving back that which is not his own.

For a rational being, only what is contrary

to nature is unendurable, while anything that is reasonable can be endured. [2] Blows are not by nature unendurable.

In short, if we look with due care, we’ll find that there is nothing by which the rational creature is so distressed as by that which is contrary to reason, and that, conversely, there is nothing to which he is so attracted as that which is reasonable.

Because you regard yourself as being just one thread among all the threads in the tunic. ‘So what follows?’ You should consider how you can be like other people, just as one thread doesn’t want to be marked out from all the other threads. [18] But for my part, I want to be the purple,* the small gleaming band that makes all the rest appear splendid and beautiful.

nor in general do I cease to make any effort in any regard whatever merely because I despair of achieving perfection.

you also have something better in you than that poor flesh. Why do you neglect that, then, and attach yourself to what is mortal?

For if he tries to avoid anything that lies outside the sphere of choice, he knows that he’ll run into some such thing one day, in spite of the aversion that he feels for it, and so be unhappy.

Come now, show me what progress you’re making in this regard. Suppose I were talking with an athlete and said, Show me your shoulders, and he were to reply, ‘Look at my jumping-weights.’* That’s quite enough of you and your weights! What I want to see is what you’ve achieved by use of those jumping-weights.