If you shall have lain down ten days, get up and attempt to make a long walk, and you will see how your legs are weakened. Generally, then, if you would make anything a habit, do it;9 Epictetus is saying that we need to practise. If we don’t do something for a long time, it is difficult to then do it when we need to. And, likewise, failure is not important (for everyone will fail as life and fortune sometimes prove too much for us to virtuously handle); tenacity is the key. ‘Getting back in the saddle’ is how this thought has come down to us over the millennia.
