Enchiridion & The Discourses of Epictetus: Including the Fragments

by Epictetus

What, then, ought a man to say to himself at each hardship that befalls him? "It was for this that I kept training, it was to meet this that I used to practise." God says to you, "Give Me proof, whether you have striven lawfully,4 eaten what is prescribed,5 taken exercise, heeded your trainer." After that, do you flinch when the time for action arrives? Now it is time for your fever, let it come upon you in the right way; for thirst, bear your thirst in the right way; to go hungry, bear hunger in the right way. It is not in your power, you say? Who is there to prevent you? Nay, your physician will prevent you from drinking, but he cannot prevent you from thirsting in the right way; and he will prevent you from eating, but he cannot prevent you from bearing hunger in the right way.

We ought not to lead events, but to follow them. "My brother ought not to have treated me so." No; but it is for him to look to that. As for me, no matter how he behaves, I shall observe all my relations to him as I ought. For this is my part, the other does not belong to me; in this nobody can hinder me, the other is subject to hindrance.

The man who consorts frequently with one person or another either for conversation, or for banquets, or for social purposes in general, is compelled either to become like them himself, or else to bring them over to his own style of living; for if you put by the side of a live coal one that has gone out, either the dead coal will put the live one out, or the latter will kindle the former. Since the risk, then, is so great, we ought to enter cautiously into such social intercourse with the laymen, remembering that it is impossible for the man who brushes up against the person who is covered with soot to keep from getting some soot on himself. For what are you going to do if he talks about gladiators, or horses, or athletes, or, worse still, about people: "So-and-so is bad, So-and-so is good; this was well done, this ill"; or again, if he scoffs, or jeers, or shows an ugly disposition?

Therefore, until these fine ideas of yours are firmly fixed within you, and you have acquired some power which will guarantee you security, my advice to you is to be cautious about joining issue with the laymen; otherwise whatever you write down in the lecture-room will melt away by day like wax in the sun.1 10Retire, then, to some spot or other far away from the sun, so long as the ideas which you have are waxen. It is for this reason that the philosophers advise us to leave even our own countries, because old habits distract us and do not allow a beginning to be made of another custom, and we cannot bear to have men meet us and say, "Look, So-and-so is philosophizing, although he is this sort of a person or that." Thus also physicians send away to a different region and a different climate those who are suffering from chronic disorders, and that is well. Do you also introduce different habits; fix your ideas, exercise yourselves in them. But no, you go from the class-room to a show, a gladiatorial combat, a gymnasium-colonnade,2 a circus; and then you come back here from these places, and you go back there again from here, and remain the same persons all the time.3 15And so you acquire no fine habit; you pay no regard or attention to your own self; you do not observe: "How do I deal with the external impressions which befall me? In accordance with nature, or contrary to it? How shall I respond to these impressions? As I should, or as I should not? Do I declare to the thi...

Rufus used to say, "If you have nothing better to do than to praise me, then I am speaking to no purpose."13 Wherefore he spoke in such a way that each of us as we sat there fancied someone had gone to Rufus and told him of our faults; so effective was his grasp of what men actually do, so vividly did he set before each man's eyes his particular weaknesses.

30Men, the lecture-room of the philosopher is a hospital;14 you ought not to walk out of it in pleasure, but in pain. For you are not well when you come;

25Someone has arrived from Rome. "If only there is no bad news!" But how can anything bad for you happen in a place, if you are not there? Someone arrives from Greece. "If only there is no bad news!" In this way for you every place can cause misfortune. Isn't it enough for you to be miserable where you are? Must you needs be miserable even beyond the seas, and by letter?

—Shall I, then, be no more?—No, you will not be, but something else will be, something different from that of which the universe now has need.16 And this is but reasonable, for you came into being, not when you wanted, but when the universe had need of you.

Yes, but I want my little children and my wife to be with me.—Are they yours? Do they not belong to Him who gave them? To Him who made your Will you not, therefore, give up what is not your own? Will you not yield to your superior?—Why, then, did He bring me into the world on these conditions?—And if they do27 not suit you, leave; God has no need of a fault-finding spectator. He needs those who join in the holiday and the dance, that they may applaud rather, and glorify, and sing hymns of praise about the festival.

But if the right kind of moral purpose and that alone is good, and if the wrong kind of moral purpose and that alone is bad, where is there any longer room for contention, where for reviling? About what? About the things that mean nothing to us? Against whom? Against the ignorant, against the unfortunate, against those who have been deceived in the most important values?

Since, therefore, there is so great a difference between the things which men desire, their deeds, and their prayers, do you still wish to be on an equal footing with them in matters to which you have not devoted yourself, but they have? And after all that, are you surprised if they pity you, and are you indignant? But they are not indignant if you pity them. And why? Because they are convinced that they are getting good things, while you are not so convinced in your own case. That is why you are not satisfied with what you have, but reach out for what they have. Because, if you had been truly convinced that, in the case of the things which are good, you are the one who is attaining them, while they have gone astray, you would not even have taken account of what they say about you.

Who is there, then, that I can any longer be afraid of? Shall I be afraid of the chamberlains? For fear they do what? Lock the door in my face? If they find me wanting to enter, let them lock the door in my face!—Why, then, do you go to the gate of the palace?—Because I think it fitting for me to join in the game while the game lasts.20—How, then, is it that you are not locked out?3—Because, if anyone will not receive me, I do not care to go in, but always I wish rather the thing which takes place. For I regard God's will as better than my will.

only the act which proceeds from correct judgements is well done, and that which proceeds from bad judgements is badly done. Yet until you learn the judgement from which a man performs each separate act, neither praise his action nor blame it. But a judgement is not readily determined by externals.

See how I eat, how drink, how sleep, how endure, how refrain, how help, how employ desire and how aversion, how I observe my relationships, whether they be natural or acquired, without confusion and without hindrance; judge me on the basis of all this, if you know how. But if you are so deaf and blind as not to regard even Hephaestus as a good smith unless you see the felt cap resting on his head, what harm can come from passing unrecognized by a judge so foolish?

Therefore you used to sleep as a man, to go forth as a man, to wear the clothes of a man, to utter the discourse that was suitable for a good man; and after all that do you still say, "I have lost nothing"? And is it nothing but small change that men lose in this way? Is not self-respect lost, is not decency lost? Or is it impossible that the loss of these things counts for anything? 10To you, indeed, the loss of none of these things, perhaps, seems any longer serious; but there once was a time when you thought it the only serious loss and harm, when you were in great anxiety lest anyone should dislodge you from these good words and deeds. Behold, you have been dislodged, though by no one else but yourself. Fight against yourself, vindicate yourself for decency, for respect, for freedom. If anyone ever told you about me that someone was forcing me to commit adultery, to wear clothes like yours, or to perfume myself, would you not have gone and murdered the man who was so maltreating me? And now, therefore, are you not willing to come to your own rescue? Yet how much easier is the work of rescue in the latter case! It is not necessary to kill somebody, put him in bonds, or assault him; you do not have to come out into the market-place, but only to talk to yourself, the man most likely to be persuaded, to whom no one is more persuasive than yourself.

learn how the gymnastic trainer of boys acts. The boy he is training is thrown; "get up," he says, "and wrestle again, till you get strong." React in some such way yourself, for I would have you know that there is nothing more easily prevailed upon than a human soul. You have but to will a thing and it has happened, the reform has been made; as, on the other hand, you have but to drop into a doze and all is lost. For it is within you that both destruction and deliverance lie.—But what good do I get after all that?—And what greater good than this are you looking for? Instead of shameless, you will be self-respecting; instead of faithless, faithful; instead of dissolute, self-controlled. If you are looking for anything else greater than these things, go ahead and do what you are doing; not even a god can any longer save you.

Men find all their difficulties in externals, their perplexities in externals. "What shall I do? How is it to take place? How is it to turn out? I am afraid that this will befall me, or that." All these are the expressions of men who concern themselves with the things that lie outside the sphere of the moral purpose. For who says, "How am I to avoid giving assent to the false? How am I to refuse to swerve aside from the true?"? If a man is so gifted by nature as to be in great anxiety about these things, I shall remind him, "Why are you in great anxiety? It is under your own control; rest secure. Do not be in a hurry to give your assent before applying the rule of nature." Again, if a man is in great anxiety about desire, for fear lest it become incomplete and miss its mark, 5or about aversion, for fear lest it fall into what it would avoid, I shall first give him a kiss of congratulation, because he has got rid of what the rest of mankind are excited about, and their fears, and has turned his serious thought to his own true business in the realm where he himself is. And after that I shall say to him, "If you do not wish to desire without failing to get, or to avoid without falling into the object of your aversion, desire none of those things which are not your own, and avoid none of those things which are not under your control. If not, you are of necessity bound to fail in achieving your desires, and to fall into what you would avoid." Where is there any difficulty in th...

Are you permitted, then, to make a natural use of every outcome? No one can prevent you, can he?—No one.—Therefore, say no longer to me, "How is it to take place?"' Because, whatever takes place, you will turn it to good purpose, and the outcome will be a blessing for you. 10Or what would Heracles have been had he said "How am I to prevent a great lion from appearing, or a great boar, or savage men?"? And what do you care for that? If a great boar appears, the struggle in which you are to engage will be greater; if evil men appear, you will clear the world of evil men.— But if I die in so doing?—You will die as a good man, bringing to fulfilment a noble action. Why, since you have to die in any event, you must be found doing something or other—farming, or digging, or engaged in commerce, or holding a consulship, or suffering with dyspepsia or dysentery. What is it, then, you wish to be doing when death finds you? I for my part should wish it to be some work that befits a man, something beneficent, that promotes the common welfare, or is noble.

For a man ought not to drive away the multitude from philosophy, even by the appearance of his body, but as in everything else, so also on the side of the body, he ought to show himself cheerful and free from perturbation. "See, O men, that I have nothing, and need nothing. See how, although I am without a house, and without a city, and an exile, if it so chance, and without a hearth, I still live a life more tranquil and serene than that of all the noble and the rich. Yes, and you see that even my paltry body is not disfigured by my hard way of living." But if I am told this by a person who has the bearing and face of a condemned man, what one of all the gods shall persuade me to approach philosophy, if she makes people like that? Far be it from me! I shouldn't be willing to do so, not even if it would make me a wise man.

Why, look you, nature has not made dirty even the animals which associate with man. A horse doesn't roll around in the mud, does he? or a highly bred dog? No, but the hog, and the miserable rotten geese, and worms, and spiders, the creatures farthest removed from association with human beings. Do you, then, who are a human being, wish to be not even an animal of the kind that associates with men, but rather a worm, or a spider?15 Will you not take a bath somewhere, some time, in any form you please? Will you not wash yourself? If you don't care to bathe in hot water, then use cold. Will you not come to us clean, that your companions may be glad? What, and do you in such a state go with us even into the temples, where it is forbidden by custom to spit or blow the nose, yourself being nothing but a mass of spit and drivel?

When you relax your attention for a little while, do not imagine that whenever you choose you will recover it, but bear this in mind, that because of the mistake which you have made to-day, your condition must necessarily be worse as regards everything else. For, to begin with—and this is the worst of all—a habit of not paying attention is developed; and after that a habit of deferring attention; and always you grow accustomed to putting off from one time to another tranquil and appropriate living, the life in accordance with nature, and persistence in that life. Now if the postponement of such matters is profitable, it is still more profitable to abandon them altogether; but if it is not profitable, why do you not maintain your attention continuously? "To-day I want to play." What is to prevent your playing, then,—but with attention? "I want to sing." What is to prevent your singing, then,—but with attention? There is no part of the activities of your life excepted, to which attention does not extend, is there? What, will you do it worse by attention, and better by inattention? And yet what other thing, of all that go to make up our life, 5is done better by those who are inattentive? Does the inattentive carpenter do his work moreaccurately? The inattentive helmsman steer1 more safely? And is there any other of the lesser functions of life which is done better by inattention?

20But now, when you say, "To-morrow I will pay attention," I would have you know that this is what you are saying: "To-day I will be shameless, tactless, abject; it will be in the power of other men to grieve me; I will get angry to-day, I will give way to envy." Just see all the evils that you are allowing yourself! But if it is good for you to pay attention to-morrow, how much better is it to-day! If it is to your interest to-morrow, it is much more so to-day, that you may be able to do the same to-morrow also, and not put it off again, this time to the day after to-morrow.

He who is dissatisfied with what he has and what has been given him by fortune is a layman in the art of living, but the man who bears all this in a noble spirit and makes a reasonable use of all that comes from it deserves to be considered a good man.

For it is a common saying among us that the contemptible man is recognized among other things by his incapacity to do harm; but he is much better recognized by his incapacity to extend help.