Somebody has arrived from Rome. “I only hope there is no bad news.” Why, what harm can happen to you when you are not there? — Somebody has arrived from Greece. “I only hope there is no bad news.” Why, at this rate, every place can be the cause of misfortune to you. Is it not enough for you to be unfortunate where you are, but must you be unhappy on the other side of the sea also, and by letter? Such is the security of your condition!
~ Epictetus
slip:4a557.
…the world is one great city, and the substance out of which it is formed is single, and there must necessarily be a cycle of change, in which one thing gives way to another, and some things are destroyed and others come into being, and some things remain where they were and others are moved.
~ Epictetus
slip:4a566.
The school of a philosopher is a surgery. You should not depart from it in pleasure, but in pain, for you are not healthy when you come in, but one of you has a dislocated shoulder, another an abscess, another a fistula, another a headache. And am I to come up with pretty thoughts and reflections, so that each of you will go away praising me, but with the same dislocated shoulder, the same aching head, the same fistula, and the same abscess that you brought in?
~ Epictetus
slip:4a295.
First tell yourself what sort of man you want to be; then act accordingly in all you do. For in almost everything else we see this to be the practice. Athletes first determine what kind of athlete they want to be, and then act accordingly. … You will find the same in the arts. If you are a carpenter, you will have these procedures, if a blacksmith, those. For, if we do not refer each of our actions to some standard, we shall be acting at random; if to an improper standard, we shall fail utterly.
~ Epictetus
slip:4a280.
What, then, is wrong with you? I tell you, it is this, that you have neglected and corrupted that part of you, whatever it may be, with which we feel desire or aversion, and the impulse to act or not to act. Neglected in what way? By letting it remian ignorant of the true nature of the good, to which it was born, and of the nature of evil, and of what it has as its own and what is not its own.
~ Epictetus
slip:4a321.
Like an ape, you imitate whatever you see, and one thing after another is sure to please you, but no longer to please you as soon as it becomes familiar. For you have never entered upon anything with due consideration, nor after examining the whole matter carefully and systematically, but always approach things in a random and poorly motivated manner.
~ Epictetus
slip:4a563.
When you have considered all these things with care, then, if you think fit, approach philosophy, and be willing to give up all of this in exchange for serenity, freedom and an undisturbed mind. Otherwise, do not come near; do not, like children, be at one time a philosopher, later a tax-collector, then a rhetorititian, and then one of Caesar’s procurators. These things are not compatible. You must be one man, either good or bad. You must cultivate either your own ruling faculty or externals, and apply yourself either to things within or those outside; that is, you must assume either the attitude of a philosopher or that of a layman.
~ Epictetus
slip:4a554.
No sign of any good habit, no attention or regard to yourselves. You do not watch yourself closely and ask, “How do I deal with the impressions that befall me? In accordance with nature or contrary to nature? As I ought, or as I ought not to? Do I say to the things that lie outside the sphere of choice that they are nothing to me?” If you are not yet in this state, fly from your former habits, fly from all laymen, if you ever want to make a start on becoming somebody.
~ Epictetus
slip:4a548.
For who is the man under training? The man who practices not exercising his desire, and directing this aversion only to things that lie within the sphere of choice, and who practices the hardest in the things most difficult to achieve. So different people will have to practice harder in different respects.
~ Epictetus
slip:4a569.
The good man is invincible; for he engages in no contest where he is not superior. “If you want my land, take it, and take my servants, take my public post, take my poor body. But you will not cause my desire to fail to attain its end, or my aversion to fall into what it would avoid.” This is the only contest he enters into: How can he fail, then, to be invincible?
~ Epictetus
slip:4a341.
But what does Socrates say? “As one man rejoices in the improvement of his land, and another in that of his horse, so I rejoice day by day in following my own improvement.
~ Epictetus
slip:4a325.
What would you like to be doing when you are overtaken by [disease and death]? For you surely will be, whatever you are doing. If you think you could be doing something better than this when you are overtaken, go and do it. For my own part, may death overtake me while I am engaged in nothing other than the care of my own faculty of choice, so that it may be unhindered, unrestrained, serene, and free.
~ Epictetus
slip:4a364.
The soul is like a vessel filled with water; and impressions are like a ray of light that falls upon the water. If the water is disturbed, the ray will seem to be disturbed likewise, though in reality it is not.
~ Epictetus
slip:4a388.
You are a human being; that is, a mortal animal capable of making a rational use of impressions. And what does it mean to use them rationally? In accordance with nature and perfectly. What is exceptional in you? Is it the animal part? No. The mortal? No. That which enables you to deal with impressions? No. What is exceptional in you is your faculty of reason.
~ Epictetus
slip:4a391.
Socrates knew how a rational soul is moved; that it is like a balance, and if a weight is thrown in the scale, it will incline whether you wish it or not. Show the rational governing faculty a contradiction, and it will renounce it; but if you fail to do so, blame yourself rather than the person whom you are unable to convince.
~ Epictetus
slip:4a333.
When one of the company said to him, “convince me that logic is useful,” he said, … Would you like me to demonstrate it to you? Then I must make use of a demonstrative argument? And how will you know, then, whether I am deceiving you with a sophism? And when the man remained silent, he said, … You see how you yourself admit that logic is necessary, since without it you cannot even determine whether it is necessary or not.
~ Epictetus
slip:4a313.
Suppose he had passed his judgement upon a hypothetical proposition, and declared, ‘I judge the proposition, “if it be day, there is light,” to be false,’ what would have happened to the proposition? Who is being judged here? Who has been condemned? The proposition, or he who is utterly mistaken about it? So who on Earth is this man who has authority to pass such judgement on you?
~ Epictetus
slip:4a458.
For this reason philosophers exhort us not to be contented with mere learning, but to add practice also, and then training. For we have long been accustomed to do the opposite of what we should, and the opinions that we hold and apply are the opposite of the correct ones. If, therefore, we do not also adopt and apply the correct opinions, we shall be nothing more than interpreters of the judgements of others.
~ Epictetus
slip:4a658.
Try this: Hop over to https://wolframalpha.com and type in the following using your birthday…
how many days between m/d/yyyy and today
Study that number while looking for some perspective. Don’t tip into the yawing chasm of self-doubt, but rather strut towards the fertile plain of , “I’m awesome.” Finally, read this:
For this reason philosophers exhort us not to be contented with mere learning, but to add practice also, and then training. For we have long been accustomed to do the opposite of what we should, and the opinions that we hold and apply are the opposite of the correct ones. If, therefore, we do not also adopt and apply the correct opinions, we shall be nothing more than interpreters of the judgements of others.
~ Epictetus
slip:4a658.
…circa 700,000 days ago.
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No great thing comes into being all of a sudden; … Now if the fruit of a fig-tree is not brought to perfection suddenly and in a single hour, would you expext to gather the fruit of a man’s mind in so short a time, and so easily? I tell you, expect no such thing.
slip:4a527.