Discourses, Fragments, Handbook

by Epictetus

Epictetus’ work is in some ways the most important. Epictetus, unlike the other two thinkers, was a formal Stoic teacher and one of the best known of his age.

A recurrent theme of Epictetus’ teachings is that studying philosophy is not just a matter of interpreting texts or developing facility in intellectual activities, notably logical reasoning. It is a matter of learning to give an overall shape and purpose to your life and of using your understanding to inform all aspects of your actions, attitudes, and relationships.

All three subjects are also important in other writings on Stoic ethics, though Epictetus’ treatment sometimes has distinctive emphases. One is our capacity for rational agency, and a second our capacity for ethical (especially social) development; a third is the idea that these capacities form key distinctive features of human nature within the framework of a divinely shaped universe.

But the Stoics make this claim in a particularly strong form, which is linked with their view that happiness is constituted by virtue; more precisely, that virtue is both necessary and sufficient for happiness.

He also stresses—very often—a related theme, that logic should not be pursued solely for its own sake, as an intellectual pastime, but as something that should promote our ethical development.

and to Epictetus it will not matter in the slightest if anyone views his discourses with disdain, because even when he was speaking, he plainly had no other aim than to move the minds of those who were listening towards what is best.

The faculty that takes both itself and everything else as an object of study. And what is that? The faculty of reason.

we have it in our power to apply ourselves to one thing alone, and devote ourselves to that, we choose instead to apply ourselves to many things, and attach ourselves to many, to our body, and our possessions, and our brother, and friend, and child, and slave. [15] And so, being attached in this way to any number of things, we’re weighed down by them and dragged down.

To make the best of what lies within our power, and deal with everything else as it comes.

For a rational being, only what is contrary to nature is unendurable, while anything that is reasonable can be endured.

What a sentence

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,

for different people sell themselves at different prices.

when someone who has been driven into a corner turns to stone, how can one hope to deal with him any further through argument?

From everything that comes about in the universe one may easily find cause to praise providence* if one possesses these two qualities, the capacity to view each particular event in relation to the whole, and a sense of gratitude.

Now it ended with contemplation, and understanding, and a way of life that is in harmony with nature. [22] Take care, then, that you don’t die without having contemplated these realities.

Will you never come to recognize, then, who you are and what you were born for, or what is the nature of this spectacle to which you have been admitted?

If only I have greatness of soul, what reason is left for me to be worried about anything that may come to pass? What can disconcert or trouble me, or seem in any way distressing?

The fact is that, as a general rule, every capacity that is acquired by uneducated people of weak character tends to be dangerous for them, in so far as it makes them conceited and presumptuous in that regard.

For how on earth can one persuade a young man who excels in these studies that he should not become an appendage to them, but rather make them an appendage to himself?

‘And how am I to feed myself’, someone asks, ‘if I have nothing?’ And how do slaves do so, how do runaways; what do they rely on when they flee from their masters? On their fields, their servants, their silverware? No, on nothing but themselves, and yet all the same they don’t fail to find food for themselves.

Down here thieves and brigands, and law-courts, and those who are known as tyrants, imagine that they hold some power over us because of our poor body and its possessions. Allow us to show them that they don’t really hold power over anyone.’

As for us, however, we think of ourselves as being mere bodies, entrails and sexual organs, because we give way to our fears and desires; and we flatter those who might be able to help us in this regard, while fearing those same people.

For it is indeed pointless and foolish to seek to get from another what one can get from oneself.

If he amounted to anything more, he would realize that no one suffers misfortune because of the actions of another.

In a word, it is neither death, nor exile, nor distress, nor anything else of that kind, that causes us to do something or not to do it, but rather our judgements and opinions.

For freedom and madness are hardly compatible with one another.

Don’t you know that freedom is a precious and admirable thing?

accept everything with contentment.

the art of living has each individual’s own life as its material.

If you wish it, you are free; if you wish it, you’ll find fault with no one, you’ll cast blame on no one, and everything that comes about will do so in accordance with your own will and that of God.’

He who is discontented with what he has, and with what has been granted to him by fortune, is one who is ignorant of the art of living, but he who bears that in a noble spirit, and makes reasonable use of all that comes from it, deserves to be regarded as a good man.

Some things are within our power, while others are not. Within our power are opinion, motivation, desire, aversion, and, in a word, whatever is of our own doing; not within our power are our body, our property, reputation, office, and, in a word, whatever is not of our own doing.

you’ll have a troubled mind, and you’ll find fault with both gods and human beings;

Don’t seek that all that comes about should come about as you wish, but wish that everything that comes about should come about just as it does, and then you’ll have a calm and happy life.

Remember that you should behave in life as you do at a banquet. Something is being passed around and arrives in front of you: reach out your hand and take your share politely. It passes: don’t try to hold it back. It has yet to reach you: don’t project your desire towards it, but wait until it arrives in front of you.

Avoid parties that are hosted by outsiders and people who have no knowledge of philosophy, but if you do have occasion to attend them, take great care that you don’t fall back into a layman’s state of mind. For you should be clear that if your companion is polluted, anyone who rubs up against him is bound to become polluted too, even if he himself happens to be clean.

In things relating to the body, take only as much as your bare need requires, with regard to food, for instance, or drink, clothes, housing, or

exclude everything that is for sh...

As regards sexual relations, keep yourself pure, so far as you can, until you marry; but if you do indulge, confine yourself to what is lawful. Don’t make yourself tiresome, however, to those who indulge, or be over-critical, and don’t const...

‘Ah yes, he was plainly unaware of all my other faults, or else those wouldn’t have been the only ones that he mentioned.’