The Enchiridion and Fragments

The Enchiridion

Or, Manual

I

Some things are in our power, and others are not. In our power are opinion (ὑπόληψις), the impulse to move toward a thing (ὁρμή), desire, and aversion (ἔκκλισις, turning away from a thing). In a word, whatever is our own act is in our power.

Not in our power are the body, property, reputation, and public offices, meaning positions of official authority. In a word, whatever is not our own act is not in our power.

The things in our power are free by nature. Nothing can restrain or hinder them. The things not in our power are weak and slavish. They are subject to restraint, and they are controlled by others.

Remember, then, what follows from this. If you think that things which are slavish by nature are free, and that things in the power of others are your own, you will be hindered. You will lament, you will be disturbed, and you will blame both gods and men.

But suppose you treat only what is your own as your own, and you recognize that what belongs to another really does belong to another. Then no one will ever compel you or hinder you. You will never blame anyone or accuse anyone. You will do nothing against your will. No one will harm you, and you will have no enemy, because you will suffer no harm.

If you aim at such great things, remember that you cannot take hold of them with a small effort. You must give up some things entirely and postpone others for the present.

Suppose you want these great things and also want power and wealth. Then you may not gain even power and wealth, because you are also aiming at the greater things. And you will certainly fail to gain the things that alone secure happiness and freedom.

Start practicing at once. To every harsh appearance, say: “You are an appearance, and not at all what you appear to be.”

Then examine it by the rules you have, and above all by the first rule: does it concern the things in our power or the things not in our power? If it concerns something not in our power, be ready to say, “This does not concern me.”

II

Remember that desire carries a promise: that you will obtain what you desire. Aversion, turning away from something, carries its own promise: that you will not fall into what you are trying to avoid. A person who fails to get what he desires is unfortunate. A person who falls into what he would avoid is unhappy.

If you try to avoid only those things contrary to nature that are within your power, you will never fall into anything you are trying to avoid. But if you try to avoid disease, death, or poverty, you will be unhappy.

So remove aversion from all things that are not in our power. Transfer it to the things contrary to nature that are in our power. As for desire, do away with it completely for the present.

If you desire anything not in our power, you are bound to be unfortunate. And of the things in our power that it would be good to desire, none is yet within your reach.

Use only the power of moving toward an object and pulling back from it. Even these powers you should use lightly, with reservations, and without strain.

III

Whenever something delights your mind, meets a need, or is loved, remember to add a question to your idea of it: what is its nature? Begin with the smallest things.

If you love an earthenware pot, say that it is an earthenware pot you love. Then, when it breaks, you will not be disturbed. If you kiss your child or your wife, say that it is a human being you are kissing. Then, when your wife or child dies, you will not be disturbed.

IV

When you are about to undertake any action, remind yourself what kind of action it is. If you are going to bathe at the public baths, picture what happens there. Some people splash water, others push against one another, others insult one another, and some steal.

You will undertake the matter more safely if you say to yourself: “I now intend to bathe, and also to keep my will in harmony with nature.” Do the same in every action.

Then, if something gets in the way of your bathing, have this thought ready: “This was not all I intended. I also intended to keep my will in harmony with nature. I will not keep it so if I am vexed at what happens.”

V

People are disturbed not by the things that happen, but by their opinions about those things. Death, for example, is nothing terrible. If it were, it would have seemed terrible to Socrates. The opinion that death is terrible is the terrible thing.

So when we are hindered, disturbed, or grieved, let us never blame others. Let us blame ourselves, meaning our own opinions.

An uninstructed person blames others for his own bad condition. A person whose instruction has begun blames himself. A person whose instruction is complete blames neither another nor himself.

VI

Do not take pride in any excellence that belongs to someone else. If a horse were proud and said, “I am beautiful,” one might put up with it. But when you are proud and say, “I have a beautiful horse,” you should recognize that you are taking pride in having a good horse.

What, then, is your own? The use of appearances, the impressions that things make on you. So when your use of appearances is in harmony with nature, then take pride. Then you will be proud of something good that is your own.

VII

Consider a sea voyage. When the ship has put into port and you go ashore to get water, you might amuse yourself along the way by picking up a shellfish or some bulb. But your thoughts should stay on the ship. You should keep watching in case the captain calls.

If he calls, you must throw all those things away. Otherwise you may be tied up and tossed aboard like sheep.

So it is in life. If, instead of a little bulb and a shell, you are given a wife and child, nothing prevents you from taking them. But if the captain calls, run to the ship and leave all those things behind without a backward look.

And if you are old, do not even go far from the ship, in case you are called and fail to come.

VIII

Do not seek to have things happen as you wish. Instead, wish for things to happen as they actually do happen, and your life will flow on calmly.

IX

Disease hinders the body, but not the will, unless the will itself chooses to be hindered. Lameness hinders the leg, but not the will.

Apply this reflection to everything that happens. You will find that it hinders something else, but not you yourself.

X

Whenever something happens to you, remember to turn to yourself and ask what power you have for making good use of it.

If you see a beautiful man or a beautiful woman, you will find that the power to resist is self-control. If you face hard labor or pain, you will find the power of endurance. If you face insults, you will find patience. If you have trained yourself into this habit, appearances will not carry you away with them.

XI

Never say of anything, “I have lost it.” Say instead, “I have given it back.” Has your child died? It has been given back. Has your wife died? She has been given back. Has your estate been taken from you? Then has that not been given back as well?

“But the person who took it from me is a bad man.” What does it matter to you by whose hands the giver asked for it back? As long as he allows you to have it, take care of it as something that belongs to another, the way travelers treat an inn.

XII

If you intend to make progress, throw away thoughts like these: “If I neglect my affairs, I will have nothing to live on,” or “Unless I punish my slave, he will turn out bad.”

It is better to die of hunger, and so be released from grief and fear, than to live in abundance while troubled. And it is better for your slave to be bad than for you to be unhappy.

Begin, then, with little things. Has the oil been spilled? Has a little wine been stolen? Say to yourself on that occasion: “This is the price of freedom from disturbance. This is the price of tranquility. Nothing is got for nothing.”

When you call your slave, consider that he may not hear you. And if he does hear, consider that he may do nothing you want. But he is not in so strong a position, nor you in so weak a one, that whether you stay undisturbed should be in his power.

XIII

If you want to make progress, be willing to be thought senseless and foolish about external things. Be content to be thought to know nothing. And if some people think you are someone important, distrust yourself.

You should know that it is not easy both to keep your will in harmony with nature and to secure external things. If a person takes care of the one, he must necessarily neglect the other.

XIV

If you want your children, your wife, and your friends to live forever, you are being silly. You want things that are not in your power to be in your power, and things that belong to others to be yours.

In the same way, if you want your slave to be free of faults, you are a fool. You want badness not to be badness, but something else.

But if you wish never to fail in your desires, that you can do. So practice what you are able to do.

A person’s master is whoever has power over the things that person wants or does not want, with the power to give them or take them away. Whoever wants to be free, then, should neither want anything nor avoid anything that depends on others. If he does not keep this rule, he is bound to be a slave.

XV

Remember that you should behave in life as you would at a banquet. Suppose a dish is being carried around and reaches you. Reach out your hand and take a portion politely. Suppose it passes you by. Do not hold it back. Suppose it has not yet reached you. Do not send your desire ahead toward it, but wait until it is in front of you.

Act the same way toward children, toward a wife, toward public office, and toward wealth, and one day you will be a worthy guest at the banquets of the gods.

But if you take none of the things set before you, and even look down on them, then you will be not only a fellow guest of the gods but also a partner in their power. By acting this way, Diogenes, Heracleitus, and others like them deserved to be divine, and were called so.

XVI

When you see someone weeping in grief because a child has gone abroad or died, or because he has lost his property, take care that the appearance does not sweep you along with it, as though he were truly suffering in external things.

Instead, immediately draw a distinction in your own mind. Be ready to say: “It is not what has happened that afflicts this man, since it does not afflict someone else. It is his opinion about it that afflicts him.”

As far as words go, then, do not hesitate to show him sympathy, and if it comes to that, even to lament with him. But take care not to lament inwardly as well.

XVII

Remember that you are an actor in a play, and the play is whatever kind the author chooses. If he wants it short, it is short; if long, it is long.

If he wants you to play a poor man, see that you play the part naturally. Do the same if the part is a lame man, a magistrate, or a private citizen. Your job is to play well the part you are given. Choosing the part belongs to someone else.

XVIII

When a raven has croaked an ill omen, do not let the appearance sweep you away. Immediately draw a distinction in your mind and say: “Nothing this foretells is aimed at me. It concerns only my poor body, or my small property, or my reputation, or my children, or my wife.”

“For me, every sign is favorable if I choose. Whatever of these things comes about, it is in my power to benefit from it.”

XIX

You can be invincible if you enter no contest in which victory is not in your power. So when you see someone honored above others, or holding great power, or highly esteemed for any reason, take care not to suppose that he is happy. Do not be carried away by the appearance.

If the nature of the good lies in what is in our power, there will be no room in us for envy or jealousy. You yourself will not wish to be a general, a senator (πρύτανις), or a consul, but a free man. There is only one way to this: to disregard the things that are not in our power.

XX

Remember that the person who abuses you or strikes you is not the one who insults you. What insults you is your own opinion that these things are insulting. So when someone irritates you, recognize that it is your own opinion that has irritated you.

For this reason, above all, try not to be carried away by first appearances. If you can once gain some time and delay your response, you will find it easier to master yourself.

XXI

Keep death, exile, and everything else that seems terrible before your eyes every day, but death most of all. If you do, you will never think a mean or petty thought, and you will never desire anything beyond measure.

XXII

If you want to pursue philosophy, prepare yourself from the beginning to be laughed at. Expect many people to sneer at you and say, “He has suddenly come back to us a philosopher! Where did he get that haughty look he gives us?”

Do not put on a haughty look. Instead, hold on to the things that seem best to you, as someone appointed by God to this post.

Remember that if you stand by the same principles, the very people who first ridiculed you will later admire you. But if you let them overpower you, you will bring double ridicule on yourself.

XXIII

If it should ever happen that you turn toward external things in order to please someone, know that you have lost your purpose in life.

Be satisfied, then, in everything with being a philosopher. If you also want to seem a philosopher to someone, seem so to yourself, and you will be able to do it.

XXIV

Do not let thoughts like these trouble you: “I will live without honor and be nobody anywhere.” If lack of honor (ἀτιμία) is an evil, you cannot fall into evil through someone else’s doing, any more than you can be drawn into something shameful through someone else’s doing.

Is it your business to win a magistrate’s office, or to be invited to a banquet? Not at all. How, then, can missing these things be a lack of honor?

And how will you be “nobody anywhere”? You ought to be somebody only in the things that are in your power. In those things, you are free to be a person of the greatest worth.

“But my friends will go without help!” What do you mean by “without help”? They will not get money from you, and you will not make them Roman citizens. Who told you that these things are among those in our power, rather than in the power of others? And who can give another person what he does not have himself?

“Then get money,” your friends say, “so that we can have some too.” If I can get money while also keeping myself modest, faithful, and generous of spirit, show me the way, and I will get it.

But if you ask me to lose the things that are good and truly my own so that you can gain things that are not good, see how unfair and foolish you are. Besides, which would you rather have: money, or a faithful and modest friend? Help me, then, to be that kind of person. Do not ask me to do things that would make me lose that character.

“But my country,” you say, “will lose whatever help I could give it.” I ask again: what help do you mean? It will not get colonnades or public baths from you. And what does that matter?

The city is not supplied with shoes by the blacksmith, nor with weapons by the shoemaker. It is enough if each person fully performs the work that belongs to him.

If you supplied the city with one more faithful and modest citizen, would you not be useful to it? Yes. Then you cannot be useless to it yourself.

“What place, then, will I hold in the city?” you ask. Whatever place you can hold while keeping your faithfulness and modesty.

But if, in trying to be useful to the state, you lose these qualities, what good could you do it once you had become shameless and faithless?

XXV

Has someone been given precedence over you at a banquet, or been greeted before you, or been invited to give advice when you were not? If these things are good, you ought to be glad that he has received them. If they are bad, do not be upset that you have not received them.

Remember also that if you do not act as others do to obtain things that are not in our power, you cannot be considered worthy of an equal share of them.

How can a person get the same share as another if he does not wait at a powerful man’s door as the other does? Or if he does not escort that man when he goes out, as the other does? Or if he does not praise and flatter him as the other does?

You will be unjust and greedy, then, if you refuse to pay the price at which these things are sold and still want to have them for nothing.

What is the price of lettuce? An obol, perhaps, a small coin. Suppose a man pays the obol and gets the lettuce, while you do not pay the obol and do not get the lettuce. Do not suppose you have less than he does. He has the lettuce, and you have the obol you did not spend.

The same holds in the other case. You have not been invited to someone’s dinner because you did not pay the host the price at which the dinner is sold. He sells it for praise. He sells it for personal attention.

So pay the price for which it is sold, if it is to your advantage. But if you want to keep the price and still get the thing, you are greedy and foolish.

Do you have nothing, then, in place of the dinner? Yes, you do. You have not flattered a man you did not choose to flatter. And you have not had to put up with him when he enters the room.

XXVI

We can learn the will of nature from the matters on which we all agree. For example, when your neighbor’s slave breaks a cup, or anything else, we are quick to say, “That is one of the things that happen.”

Know, then, that when your own cup is broken, you ought to think as you did when your neighbor’s cup was broken.

Apply this reflection to greater things as well. Has someone else’s child or wife died? Everyone would say, “This is something that happens to human beings.”

But when a man’s own child or wife dies, he immediately cries out, “Woe is me, how wretched I am!” We ought to remember how we feel when we hear that the same thing has happened to others.

XXVII

A target is not set up so that people will miss it. In the same way, evil does not exist in the world by nature.

XXVIII

If someone were going to hand your body over to the power of any stranger you happened to meet on the road, you would be angry.

Yet you hand your mind over to the power of anyone you meet, so that if he abuses you, it becomes disturbed and troubled. Are you not ashamed of this?

XXIX

In every action, consider what comes before it and what follows from it, and only then undertake it. If you do not, you will begin eagerly, without having thought about the consequences. Later, when some ugly things have shown themselves, you will be ashamed.

Suppose a man wants to win at the Olympic games. So do I, since it is a fine thing. But consider what comes before it and what follows from it, and then begin.

You must follow strict discipline. You must eat according to strict orders and give up delicacies. You must train as you are told, at set times, in heat and in cold. You must not drink cold water, nor wine whenever you like.

In short, you must hand yourself over to your trainer as you would to a physician, and then enter the contest.

Sometimes you will strain your hand or dislocate your ankle. You will swallow plenty of dust. Sometimes you will be flogged. And after all this, you may be defeated.

When you have considered all this, go into the contest if you still want to. If you do not think it through, you will behave like children. At one moment they play wrestlers, then flute players, then gladiators, then trumpeters, then tragic actors.

In the same way, you will be an athlete at one time, a gladiator at another, then an orator, then a philosopher. But with your whole soul you will be nothing at all.

Like an ape, you will imitate everything you see, and one thing after another will catch your fancy. That is because you have not undertaken anything after due thought, nor examined it well. You have approached it carelessly and with lukewarm desire.

So some people, having seen a philosopher or heard one speak the way Euphrates speaks (and who can speak as he does?), want to become philosophers themselves.

My friend, first consider what kind of thing it is. Then examine your own nature, to see whether you can bear the role.

Do you want to be a pentathlete or a wrestler? Look at your arms and your thighs, and examine your loins. Different people are formed by nature for different things.

Do you think that if you take up philosophy, you can go on eating as you do now, drinking as you do now, and indulging the same dislikes?

You must go without sleep and endure hard work. You must leave your relatives and be looked down on by a slave. In everything you will have the lesser share: in honor, in office, in the courts, in every small matter.

Consider these things, and decide whether you are willing to accept them in exchange for freedom from the passions, liberty, and tranquility.

If not, take care that you do not act like little children: a philosopher now, then a servant of the tax collectors, the publicani, then an orator, then a manager of Caesar’s affairs.

These things do not fit together. You must be one person, either good or bad. You must cultivate either your own ruling faculty or external things.

You must apply your skill either to what is within or to what is outside. In other words, you must hold the position either of a philosopher or of an ordinary person.

XXX

Our duties are generally measured by our relationships (ταῖς σχέσεσι). Is someone your father? Then your duty is to take care of him, to give way to him in everything, and to bear it when he scolds you or strikes you.

“But he is a bad father.” Were you, then, made by nature to be related to a good father? No, only to a father.

Does your brother wrong you? Then keep your own proper position toward him. Do not examine what he is doing. Examine what you must do so that your will stays in accordance with nature.

No one else will harm you unless you choose. You will be harmed only when you think you are harmed.

In this way, you will discover your duties from your relationships: as a neighbor, as a citizen, as a general. You need only make a habit of considering these relationships.

XXXI

As for piety toward the gods, know that the most important thing is to hold right opinions about them. Believe that they exist and that they govern the universe well and justly.

Fix yourself firmly in this duty: to obey them, to yield to them in everything that happens, and to follow it willingly, as something brought about by the wisest intelligence. If you do this, you will never blame the gods or accuse them of neglecting you.

This cannot be done in any other way than by withdrawing from the things that are not in our power, and by placing good and evil only in the things that are in our power.

If you think that anything not in our power is good or bad, then when you fail to get what you want, or fall into what you do not want, you will necessarily find fault with those who caused it and hate them.

Every living creature is formed by nature to flee and turn away from things that appear harmful and from whatever causes the harm. It is equally formed to pursue and admire things that are useful and whatever causes them.

It is impossible, then, for someone who thinks he has been harmed to take pleasure in what he believes caused the harm, just as it is impossible to take pleasure in the harm itself.

This is also why a son abuses his father when the father does not give him a share of the things considered good. This is what made the brothers Polynices and Eteocles enemies: the opinion that royal power was a good.

This is why the farmer curses the gods, and the sailor, and the merchant, and those who lose their wives and children. For where a person’s interest lies, there his piety lies too.

So whoever takes care to desire as he ought and to avoid (ἐκκλίνειν) as he ought is, by the same act, taking care of his piety.

But to pour libations, offer sacrifices, and give first fruits according to the custom of our ancestors is a duty that belongs to everyone. These things should be done purely, and not meanly, carelessly, or stingily, nor beyond our means.

XXXII

When you turn to divination, remember that you do not know how things will turn out. That is exactly what you have come to ask the diviner. But if you really are a philosopher, you already know, before you arrive, what kind of thing the outcome will be. If it is one of the things not in our power, it must necessarily be neither good nor bad.

So do not bring desire or aversion (ἔκκλισιν) to the diviner. If you do, you will approach him in fear. Instead, decide in advance that whatever happens is indifferent and does not concern you. Whatever it turns out to be, you will be able to use it well, and no one can prevent that. Then go to the gods with confidence, as your advisers.

Once advice has been given, remember whom you have taken as your advisers. Remember also whom you will be disregarding if you do not obey them.

Go to divination, as Socrates said you should, only about matters where the whole question depends on the outcome. These are matters where neither reason nor any other skill gives you a way of knowing what you are asking about.

So when you ought to share a friend’s danger or your country’s, do not ask the diviner whether you should share it. Suppose the diviner says the signs in the sacrificial victims are unfavorable. Plainly they point to death, to the maiming of some part of the body, or to exile. But reason holds that even with these risks, we should share the dangers of our friend and our country.

Listen, then, to the greater diviner, the Pythian god. He threw out of his temple the man who failed to help his friend while that friend was being murdered.

XXXIII

Decide at once on a definite character and pattern of conduct for yourself. Keep to it both when you are alone and when you are with other people.

Make silence the general rule. Otherwise, say only what is necessary, and say it in few words. We will speak occasionally, when the situation calls for it, but not about the common topics: not about gladiators, horse races, or athletes, and not about eating or drinking, which are the usual subjects.

Above all, do not talk about other people, whether to blame them, praise them, or compare them. If you can, use your own conversation to steer your companions’ conversation toward what is proper. But if you find yourself stuck among strangers, stay silent.

Do not laugh much, or on many occasions, or without restraint.

Refuse to take an oath at all, if possible. If that is not possible, refuse as far as you can.

Avoid banquets given by strangers and by ignorant people. But if an occasion ever requires you to attend, keep your attention carefully focused, so that you do not slip into the manners of the vulgar, the uninstructed. For you must understand that if your companion is impure, whoever keeps company with him will become impure too, even if he started out pure.

Take the things that concern the body only as far as bare need requires: food, drink, clothing, house, and slaves. Leave out everything that is for show or luxury.

As for sexual pleasure, abstain as far as you can before marriage. If you do indulge in it, do so in the way custom allows. But do not be harsh toward those who indulge in these pleasures, and do not lecture them. Do not keep boasting that you yourself abstain.

If someone tells you that a certain person speaks badly of you, do not defend yourself against what was said. Reply instead: “He must not have known my other faults, or he would not have mentioned only these.”

There is no need to go to the theater often. But if a suitable occasion for going ever arises, do not show yourself a partisan of anyone except yourself. That is, want only what actually happens to happen, and want the prize to go only to the one who actually wins it. In this way nothing will thwart you.

Abstain entirely from shouting, from laughing at anyone or anything, and from violent emotion. When you leave, do not talk much about what happened on stage, except what may help your own improvement. If you do talk about it at length, it is obvious that you admired the spectacle more than you should have.

Do not readily go to hear certain people give public readings, or visit them. But if you do attend, keep a serious and composed manner, and also avoid making yourself unpleasant.

When you are about to meet someone, especially someone regarded as being of higher standing, ask yourself what Socrates or Zeno would have done in that situation. Then you will have no difficulty in making proper use of the occasion.

When you are going to visit someone of great power, prepare yourself in advance. Imagine that you will not find him at home, that you will be shut out, that the door will not be opened, and that he will not care about you.

If, knowing all this, it is still your duty to visit him, bear whatever happens. Never say to yourself, “It wasn’t worth the trouble.” That is foolish, and it is the mark of a person who is upset by externals.

In company, be careful not to talk much or at length about your own deeds or dangers. It may be pleasant for you to recall your own dangers, but it is not equally pleasant for others to hear what has happened to you.

Be careful also not to try to make people laugh. This is a slippery path toward vulgar habits, and it tends to lower the respect your neighbors have for you.

It is also a dangerous habit to drift toward obscene talk. When something like this happens, rebuke the person who started it, if there is a good opportunity. If there is not, at least make it plain that you are displeased: by your silence, by blushing, and by a look of disapproval.

XXXIV

When you receive the impression (φαντασίαν) of some pleasure, guard yourself against being carried away by it. Let the thing wait for you, and give yourself some delay. Then think of two times: the time when you will enjoy the pleasure, and the time afterward, when you will regret it and reproach yourself.

Set against these how glad you will be if you abstain, and how you will approve of yourself. But if it seems the right moment to do the thing, take care that its charm, its pleasure, and its attraction do not overpower you. Weigh against them how much better it is to know that you have won this victory.

XXXV

When you have decided that something ought to be done, and you are doing it, never avoid being seen doing it, even if most people will think badly of it. If it is not right to do it, then avoid the act itself. But if it is right, why are you afraid of those who will wrongly find fault?

XXXVI

Consider the proposition “it is either day or it is night.” As an “either/or” statement, it has great value. As a “both/and” statement, joining the two parts together, it is worthless. In the same way, at a dinner, taking the larger portion has great value for the body, but it is worth nothing for preserving the spirit of fellowship.

So when you are eating with someone, remember to look not only at the value to your body of the food set before you, but also at the value of the courtesy you ought to show your host.

XXXVII

If you have taken on a role beyond your strength, you have acted badly in that, and you have also neglected the role you could have filled.

XXXVIII

When you walk around, you take care not to step on a nail or twist your ankle. Take the same care not to damage your own ruling faculty. If we observe this rule in every action, we will undertake each action with more security.

XXXIX

For every person, the body is the measure of possessions, just as the foot is the measure of the shoe. If you hold to this rule, the needs of the body, you will keep to the right measure. But if you go beyond it, you will necessarily be carried away, as if over a cliff.

The same is true of the shoe. Once you go beyond what the foot needs, the shoe becomes gilded, then purple, then embroidered. There is no limit to what has once passed its true measure.

XL

As soon as women reach the age of fourteen, men call them “mistresses” (κυρίαι, dominae). So, seeing that there is nothing else they can gain except the power of sleeping with men, they begin to adorn themselves and to place all their hopes in this.

It is therefore worth our while to make sure they understand that men value them for nothing other than being decent, modest, and discreet.

XLI

It is a sign of a small mind to spend a great deal of time on matters of the body: much exercise, much eating, much drinking, much relieving of the body, much sex. These things should be done as secondary matters. Let all your care be directed to the mind.

XLII

When someone treats you badly or speaks badly of you, remember that he does or says this because he thinks it is right. He cannot follow what seems right to you, only what seems right to him.

So if his opinion is wrong, he is the one who is harmed, since he is the one who has been deceived. If someone takes a true conjunctive proposition to be false, the proposition is not harmed; the person who is mistaken about it is.

If you start from these views, you will be gentle toward anyone who insults you. On each occasion, say to yourself: “It seemed so to him.”

XLIII

Everything has two handles: one by which it can be carried, and one by which it cannot. If your brother wrongs you, do not take hold of the matter by the handle of his wrongdoing, because that is the handle by which it cannot be carried.

Take hold of it by the other handle instead: that he is your brother, that he was brought up with you. Then you will be holding the matter by the handle by which it can be carried.

XLIV

These arguments do not hold together: “I am richer than you, so I am better than you”; “I am more eloquent than you, so I am better than you.” These, on the other hand, do hold together: “I am richer than you, so my possessions are greater than yours”; “I am more eloquent than you, so my speech is better than yours.” But you are neither your possessions nor your speech.

XLV

Does someone bathe quickly? Do not say he bathes badly, but that he bathes quickly. Does someone drink a lot of wine? Do not say he does this badly, but that he drinks a lot. Until you have understood the judgment behind the act, how do you know whether he is doing wrong?

In this way you will not end up having a clear grasp of some impressions while giving your assent to quite different ones.

XLVI

Never call yourself a philosopher, and do not talk much about philosophical principles among the uninstructed. Instead, do what follows from those principles. At a banquet, for example, do not explain how a person ought to eat. Eat as you ought to eat.

Remember that Socrates, too, avoided all display in this way. People used to come to him and ask him to introduce them to philosophers, and he would take them to philosophers. So easily did he accept being overlooked.

So if a conversation about some principle arises among the uninstructed, keep silent for the most part. There is a great danger that you will immediately vomit up what you have not digested. And when someone tells you that you know nothing, and it does not bother you, then you can be sure you have begun the work of philosophy.

Sheep do not vomit up their grass to show the shepherds how much they have eaten. They digest the pasture inside, and outwardly they produce wool and milk. You, too, should not show your principles to the uninstructed. Show them the actions that come from digesting those principles.

XLVII

If you have managed to supply your body with everything it needs at small cost, do not be proud of it. If you drink only water, do not announce at every opportunity, “I drink water.” First consider how much more frugal the poor are than we are, and how much more hardship they endure.

If you ever want to train yourself in labor and endurance, do it for your own sake, not for others to see. Do not go hugging cold statues to display your hardiness. If you are ever very thirsty, take a mouthful of cold water, spit it out, and tell no one.

XLVIII

The condition and mark of an uninstructed person is this: he never expects benefit or harm to come from himself, but only from external things. The condition and mark of a philosopher is this: he expects all benefit and all harm to come from himself.

The signs of someone who is making progress are these. He censures no one, praises no one, blames no one, and accuses no one. He says nothing about himself as though he were somebody or knew something. When he is obstructed or hindered in any way, he blames himself.

If someone praises him, he privately laughs at the person praising him. If someone censures him, he offers no defense. He goes about like someone weak and recovering, careful not to disturb anything that has been set in place before it has become firmly fixed.

He has removed all desire from himself. He directs his aversion (ἔκκλισιν) only toward those things within our power that are contrary to nature. He moves toward everything with moderation. Whether he is thought foolish or ignorant, he does not care. In a word, he watches himself as though he were an enemy lying in ambush.

XLIX

When someone is proud because he can understand and explain the writings of Chrysippus, say to yourself: “If Chrysippus had not written obscurely, this man would have had nothing to be proud of.”

But what is it that I want? To understand Nature and to follow it. So I ask who can interpret Nature for me. When I hear that it is Chrysippus, I go to him. But I do not understand what he has written, so I look for someone to interpret him. So far there is still nothing to be proud of.

Once I have found the interpreter, what remains is to put the precepts, the lessons, into practice. That alone is something to be proud of. But if I admire the explanation itself, what have I become except a grammarian instead of a philosopher? The only difference is that I am explaining Chrysippus instead of Homer.

So when someone says to me, “Read Chrysippus to me,” I blush instead, because I cannot show that my actions match and agree with his words.

L

Whatever rules are set before you for the conduct of life, keep to them as if they were laws, and as if you would be guilty of impiety if you broke any of them. And pay no attention to whatever anyone says about you, for that is not your concern.

LI

How long will you put off thinking yourself worthy of the best things, and never, in any matter, violating the reason that makes distinctions? You have accepted the principles you ought to agree to, and you have agreed to them.

What teacher, then, are you still waiting for, that you put off correcting yourself until he comes? You are no longer a youth but a full-grown man.

Suppose you are careless and lazy, piling delay upon delay and intention upon intention, and setting one day after another as the day you will begin attending to yourself. Then you will fail to notice that you are making no progress. You will remain uninstructed throughout your life and up to your death.

So decide at once that it is right to live as a full-grown man and as someone making progress. Let everything that appears best to you be a law that must not be broken.

When anything laborious or pleasant, glorious or inglorious, is set before you, remember that the contest is now. The Olympic games are now, and they cannot be postponed. Remember too that progress is either lost or kept depending on a single defeat and a single giving way.

This is how Socrates became perfect: he improved himself in all things and attended to nothing except reason. You are not yet a Socrates, but you ought to live as someone who wishes to be a Socrates.

LII

The first and most necessary part (τόπος) of philosophy is the use of principles (φεωρήματα), for instance, that we must not lie. The second part concerns demonstrations, for instance, how it is proved that we ought not to lie.

The third part confirms and explains the first two. For example, it asks how this is a demonstration. What is a demonstration? What is a logical consequence? What is a contradiction? What is truth? What is falsehood?

The third part is necessary because of the second, and the second because of the first. But the most necessary part, the one on which we ought to rest, is the first.

Yet we do the opposite. We spend our time on the third part, and all our effort goes into it, while we entirely neglect the first. And so we lie, while keeping the proof that we ought not to lie ready to hand.

LIII

In every circumstance we should keep these maxims ready to hand:

Lead me, O Zeus, and you, O Destiny,
The way that you have bidden me to go:
I am ready to follow. If I refuse,
I make myself a wretch, and still must follow.

But whoever nobly yields to necessity,
We count as wise, and skilled in things divine.

And the third as well: “O Crito, if this is what pleases the gods, so let it be. Anytus and Melitus can indeed kill me, but they cannot harm me.”

Fragments

These Fragments are titled “Epicteti Fragmenta maxime ex Ioanne Stobaeo, Antonio, et Maximo collecta” (Fragments of Epictetus, collected chiefly from John Stobaeus, Antonius, and Maximus), in Schweighaeuser’s edition. That edition includes some notes and corrections to the text of the Fragments, along with a short essay on them by Schweighaeuser.

Nothing is known about Stobaeus or when he lived, except one fact. He preserved some ethical extracts from the Neoplatonist Hierocles, who lived around the middle of the fifth century AD. It is therefore concluded that Stobaeus lived after Hierocles. The fragments attributed to Epictetus survive in Stobaeus’s work called Ἁνφολόγιον, also known as the Florilegium or the Sermones.

Antonius Monachus, a Greek monk, also compiled a Florilegium, a collection of excerpts, which he titled Melissa (the bee). His date is uncertain, but he certainly lived much later than Stobaeus.

Maximus, also called the monk and honored as a saint, is said to have been a native of Constantinople, born about AD 580.

Some of the Fragments in Schweighaeuser’s edition are certainly not by Epictetus. Many of them are obscure. I have translated them as accurately as I can, and the reader must make of them whatever sense he can.

I

A life that depends on fortune is like a stream swollen by winter rains. It is turbulent, full of mud, hard to cross, tyrannical, noisy, and short-lived.

II

A soul at home with virtue is like a spring that never stops flowing. It is pure, calm, fit to drink, sweet, and sociable in sharing itself. It is also rich, harmless, and free from mischief.

III

If you want to be good, first believe that you are bad.

IV

It is better to do wrong rarely and admit it, while acting rightly most of the time, than to admit wrongdoing rarely while doing wrong often.

V

Discipline your passions (πάφη), so that they do not punish you.

VI

Be less concerned with the disgrace that comes from people’s opinions than with escaping the disgrace that comes from the truth.

VII

If you want people to speak well of you, learn to speak well of others. Once you have learned to speak well of them, try to act well too. Then you will enjoy the reward of being spoken well of.

VIII

Consider freedom and slavery. The first is a name for virtue, the second a name for vice, and both are acts of the will. Where there is no will, neither of them touches these things.

The soul is accustomed to be master of the body, and the things that belong to the body have no share in the will. For no one is a slave whose will is free.

IX

There are two evil chains: fortune, which binds the body, and vice, which binds the soul. Someone whose body is free but whose soul is bound is a slave. On the other hand, someone whose body is bound but whose soul is free is free.

X

The bond of the body is loosened by nature through death, and by vice through money. But the bond of the soul is loosened by learning, by experience, and by discipline.

XI

If you want to live free from disturbance and with pleasure, try to make everyone who lives with you good. They will be good if you teach those who are willing and send away those who are unwilling to be taught.

Wickedness and slavery will fly away together with those who leave. Goodness and liberty will stay behind with those who remain.

XII

It is shameful for people who sweeten their drink with the gift of the bees to embitter reason, the gift of the gods, by their wickedness.

XIII

No one who loves money, pleasure, and fame also loves mankind. Only someone who loves virtue does.

XIV

You would not choose to sail in a large, richly decorated ship laden or adorned with gold, and then drown. In the same way, do not choose to live in a large, costly house and be troubled by cares.

XV

When we are invited to a banquet, we take what is served to us. If a guest asked the host to bring him fish or sweet cakes, people would consider him unreasonable. Yet in the world we ask the gods for what they do not give, and we do this even though they have given us many things.

XVI

Epictetus said that people who take pride in things not in our power are amusing. One man says, “I am better than you, for I own much land, and you are wasting away from hunger.” Another says, “I am of consular rank.” Another says, “I am a Procurator (ἐπίτροπος).” Another says, “I have curly hair.”

But a horse does not say to another horse, “I am better than you, for I have plenty of fodder and barley, my bits are gold, and my harness is embroidered.” He says, “I am faster than you.”

Every animal is better or worse according to its own merit (virtue) or its own badness. Is man, then, the only creature without a virtue of his own? Must we look to our hair, our clothes, and our ancestors?

XVII

Sick people are upset with a physician who gives them no advice, and they think he has given up on them. Why should they not feel the same way about a philosopher who says nothing at all that is useful to a person? Why not conclude that he has given up hope of their ever reaching a sound state of mind?

XVIII

People whose bodies are in good condition can endure both heat and cold. In the same way, people whose souls are in good condition can endure anger, grief, excessive joy, and the other emotions.

XIX

Ask yourself whether you want to be rich or to be happy. If you want to be rich, understand that wealth is neither a good thing nor in any way in your power.

If you want to be happy, understand that happiness is both a good thing and in your power. Wealth is a temporary loan from fortune, but happiness comes from the will.

XX

Suppose you see a viper, an asp, or a scorpion in a box of ivory or gold. You do not love the creature or think it fortunate because the box is costly. Because its nature is deadly, you turn away from it in disgust.

In the same way, when you see vice living amid wealth and the swollen abundance of fortune, do not be dazzled by the splendor of the material. Instead, despise the false character of the morals within.

XXI

Wealth is not one of the good things. Great spending is one of the bad things. Moderation (σωφροσύνη) is one of the good things.

Moderation leads to frugality and to the acquisition of good things, but wealth leads to great spending and draws us away from moderation. It is therefore difficult for a rich man to be moderate, or for a moderate man to be rich.

XXII

If you had been conceived or born on a ship, you would not be eager to become its master (κυβερνήτης), so—. For in that case the ship would not be naturally connected with you, nor would wealth in the other case. But reason is naturally connected with you everywhere.

Since reason naturally belongs to you and is born in you, regard it as especially your own and take care of it.

XXIII

If you had been born among the Persians, you would not have wanted to live in Hellas (Greece). You would have wanted to live happily in Persia. So if you are born in poverty, why do you try to grow rich? Why not remain in poverty and be happy?

XXIV

It is better to lie squeezed into a narrow bed and be healthy than to toss with disease on a broad couch. In the same way, it is better to keep yourself within a small but sufficient income and be happy than to have a great fortune and be miserable.

XXV

Sorrow comes not from poverty but from desire. And it is not wealth that frees us from fear, but reason (the power of reasoning, λογισμός). If you acquire this power of reasoning, you will neither desire wealth nor complain about poverty.

XXVI

A horse is not elated or proud of its manger, its trappings, and its blankets. A bird is not proud of its scraps of cloth and its nest. Both are proud of their speed: the horse of the speed of its feet, the bird of the speed of its wings.

So do not take great pride in your food and clothing, or in any external things at all. Take pride in your integrity and your good deeds (εὐποιία).

XXVII

Living well is different from living extravagantly. Living well comes from moderation, self-sufficiency (αὐταρκείας), good order, propriety, and frugality. Living extravagantly comes from intemperance, luxury, disorder, and impropriety.

The result of the first is true praise; the result of the second is blame. So if you want to live well, do not seek praise for lavish spending.

XXVIII

Let your measure for all food and drink be the first satisfaction of desire. Let appetite itself be your food and your pleasure. Then you will not take more than you need, you will have no need of cooks, and you will be content with whatever drink comes your way.

XXIX

Eat in a way that is neither luxurious nor gloomy, but cheerful and frugal. Then the soul will not be disturbed by being deceived by the body’s pleasures, and it will be able to despise them. Nor will the soul be harmed by enjoying present luxury, and the body will not later suffer from disease.

XXX

Make sure that what nourishes you is not the food you put into your stomach but the cheerfulness of your mind. The food turns into excrement and is expelled, and urine flows out with it. But cheerfulness remains uncorrupted forever, even when the soul is separated from the body.

XXXI

At banquets, remember that you are entertaining two guests, the body and the soul. Whatever you give the body, you soon expel. But whatever you give the soul, you keep forever.

XXXII

Do not mix anger with lavish spending and serve both to your guests. The abundance that fills the body is soon gone, but anger sinks into the soul and stays there a long time.

Take care, then, not to be carried away by anger and insult your guests at great expense. Instead, please them with frugality and gentle behavior.

XXXIII

At your meals, make sure that those who serve (your slaves) do not outnumber those being served. It is foolish for many people to wait on a few couches.

XXXIV

It is best if you take part in the work even while the feast is being prepared. It is also best if, while you are feasting, you share what is set before you with those who serve.

But if such behavior does not suit the occasion, remember this. While you rest, you are served by people who are working. While you eat, you are served by people who are not eating. While you drink, you are served by people who are not drinking.

While you talk, you are served by people who must stay silent. While you are at ease, you are served by people who are under constraint.

If you remember this, you will not get heated with anger and act absurdly yourself. Nor will you cause harm by provoking someone else.

XXXV

Quarreling and contention are foolish everywhere, and they are especially unbecoming in conversation over wine. A drunk man cannot teach a sober one, and a drunk man cannot be convinced by a sober one either. Where there is no sobriety, you will find that all your efforts to persuade have been wasted.

XXXVI

Grasshoppers (cicadas) are musical; snails have no voice. Snails enjoy being moist, while grasshoppers enjoy being dry. The dew calls the snails out, and they crawl forth for it. The hot sun, on the other hand, rouses the grasshoppers, and they sing in its heat.

So if you want to be a musical person who harmonizes well with others, do not let your soul go out and be polluted when it is drenched with wine over the cups. But when it is fired by reason in company, then tell it to speak oracular words and sing the oracles of justice.

XXXVII

Consider the person you are talking with in three ways: as your superior, your inferior, or your equal. If he is your superior, you should listen to him and be persuaded. If he is your inferior, you should persuade him. If he is your equal, you should agree with him. In this way you will never be guilty of quarrelsomeness.

XXXVIII

It is better to conquer opinion by agreeing with the truth than to be conquered by the truth through agreeing with opinion.

XXXIX

If you seek the truth, you will not try to win by any means possible. And if you have found the truth, you will gain the advantage of never being defeated.

XL

Truth conquers by its own strength, but opinion conquers among those who stand outside.

XLI

It is better to live with one free man, without fear and free, than to be a slave among many.

XLII

Do not try to make others suffer what you avoid suffering yourself. You avoid slavery, so take care that others are not your slaves. If you can bear to keep a slave, you show that you are first a slave yourself. For vice has nothing in common with virtue, nor freedom with slavery.

XLIII

A healthy person would not choose to be cared for by the sick, and would not want the people who live with him to be sick. In the same way, a free man would not put up with being served by slaves, or with having the people who live with him be slaves.

XLIV

Whoever you are, if you wish not to be counted among the slaves, free yourself from slavery. You will be free if you free yourself from desire.

Aristides, Epaminondas, and Lycurgus were not called, respectively, the just man, a god, and a savior because they were rich and served by slaves. They earned these names because they were poor and freed Greece from slavery.

XLV

If you want your household to be well managed, imitate Lycurgus of Sparta. He did not surround his city with walls. Instead, he strengthened its people with virtue, and so kept the city free for all time.

Do the same. Do not surround your house with a large courtyard or build high towers. Strengthen the people who live there with goodwill, loyalty, and friendship. Then nothing harmful will get in, not even if the whole army of wickedness lines up against it.

XLVI

Do not hang your walls with painted panels and pictures. Decorate your house with moderation (σωφροσύνη) instead.

The first kind of decoration is foreign to the house and unsuited to it, a passing trick played on the eyes. The second is natural, cannot be erased, and remains the house’s ornament forever.

XLVII

Instead of gathering herds of oxen, try to gather herds of friends in your house.

XLVIII

A wolf looks like a dog. In the same way, a flatterer, a seducer of other men’s wives, and a hanger-on all look like a friend. So be careful that you do not unknowingly let in destructive wolves in place of watchdogs.

XLIX

Wanting people to admire your house because its walls are whitened with plaster is the mark of a man without taste. But to make our character attractive through the goodness of how we treat and speak with others is the mark of a man who loves beauty and loves humanity.

L

If you start by admiring small things, you will not be thought worthy of great ones. But if you look down on small things, you will be greatly admired.

LI

Nothing is pettier than the love of pleasure, the love of gain, and pride. Nothing is higher than greatness of soul, gentleness, love of humanity, and generosity.

LII

People bring up the “peevish philosophers,” the Stoics. Their view is that pleasure is not in itself something in accordance with nature. It is rather something that follows from the things that are in accordance with nature, such as justice, self-control, and freedom.

What follows from this? Is the soul pleased and calmed by the pleasures of the body, which are lesser, as Epicurus says? And is it not pleased by its own goods, which are the greatest?

Nature has also given me a sense of shame. I blush deeply even at the thought of saying something indecent. This feeling does not allow me to treat pleasure as the good and the purpose of life.

LIII

In Rome, women carry around Plato’s Republic, because it allows women to be held in common. They pay attention only to Plato’s words, not to his meaning.

Plato does not first recommend marriage, with one man living with one woman, and then propose that the women should be shared. He abolishes that kind of marriage altogether and introduces a different kind.

In short, people like to find excuses for their faults. Yet philosophy says we should not stretch out even a finger without a reason.

LIV

Among pleasures, the ones that come most rarely give the greatest delight.

LV

If a person goes beyond moderation, the things that give the greatest delight would become the things that give the least.

LVI

Agrippinus deserves praise for this reason: although he was a man of the highest merit, he never praised himself, and if someone else praised him, he blushed.

He was the kind of man, Epictetus said, who would write in praise of whatever unpleasant thing happened to him. If it was a fever, he wrote in praise of fever. If he was disgraced, he wrote in praise of disgrace. If he was exiled, he wrote in praise of exile.

Epictetus also told of one occasion when Agrippinus was about to sit down to dinner. A messenger brought news that Nero had ordered him into exile. Agrippinus replied, “Well then, we will dine at Aricia.”

LVII

Diogenes said that no labor is good unless its purpose is courage and strength (τόνος) of the soul, not of the body.

LVIII

An accurate scale is not corrected by another accurate scale, and it is not judged by an inaccurate one. In the same way, a just judge is not corrected by just judges, and he is not condemned by unjust ones.

LIX

What is straight does not need anything straight to set it right. In the same way, what is just does not need anything just.

LX

Do not pass judgment in a court before you yourself have been tried before justice.

LXI

If you want your judgments to be just, do not pay attention to either of the parties in the case, or to those who argue for them. Pay attention to justice itself.

LXII

You will stumble least in your judgments if you stumble least in your own life.

LXIII

When you judge justly, it is better to be blamed undeservedly by the person you condemned than, when you judge unjustly, to be blamed deservedly before nature.

LXIV

The touchstone that tests gold is not itself tested by the gold. The same is true of the person who has the ability to judge.

LXV

It is shameful for a judge to be judged by others.

LXVI

Nothing is straighter than what is straight, and in the same way nothing is more just than what is just.

LXVII

Which of us does not admire what Lycurgus the Spartan did? One of the citizens injured him and destroyed the sight of one of his eyes. The people handed the young man over to Lycurgus so that he could punish him however he chose.

Lycurgus spared him. He taught him and made a good man of him, and then brought him into the theater. When the Spartans expressed their surprise, Lycurgus said, “I received this young man from you when he was insolent and violent. I give him back to you gentle and a good citizen.”

LXVIII

Pittacus was wronged by a certain person and had the power to punish him, but he let him go. He said, “Forgiveness is better than revenge. Forgiveness is the sign of a gentle nature, but revenge is the sign of a savage one.”

LXIX

But above all, this is the work of nature: to bind together and fit together our impulse toward what appears fitting and useful.

LXX

Some people suppose that others will easily despise us if we do not do every kind of harm to those who first show hostility toward us. This is the mark of very low and foolish people.

By thinking this way, we claim that a man is considered contemptible because he is unable to do harm. But a man is far more truly considered contemptible because he is unable to do good.

LXXI

When you are about to attack someone violently and with threats, remember first to tell yourself that you are by nature gentle. If you do nothing savage, you will go on living without regret and without blame.

LXXII

A person should understand that it is not easy to hold a firm principle unless he says the same things every day, hears the same things, and at the same time applies them to his life.

LXXIII

[Nicias was so devoted to work that he often asked his slaves whether he had bathed and whether he had dined.]

LXXIV

[The slaves of Archimedes used to drag him by force away from his table of diagrams and rub him with oil. Archimedes would then draw his figures on his own oiled body.]

LXXV

[Lampis the shipowner was asked how he had acquired his wealth. He answered, “My great wealth came with no difficulty. But my small wealth, my first gains, came with much labor.”]

LXXVI

Over drinks (παρὰ πότον), Solon happened to say nothing. Periander asked him whether he was silent because he had nothing to say or because he was a fool. Solon replied, “No fool is able to stay silent over drinks.”

LXXVII

On every occasion, try to look after nothing so much as what is safe. Silence is safer than speech. And leave unsaid whatever lacks sense and reason.

LXXVIII

Harbor beacons raise a great flame from a few pieces of dry wood, and they give ships wandering at sea all the help they need. In the same way, an outstanding man in a storm-tossed state, while content with little for himself, does great service to his fellow citizens.

LXXIX

If you set out to manage a ship, you would certainly learn the helmsman’s art thoroughly. [So if you would govern a state, learn the art of governing a state.] Then, just as in the first case you will be able to manage the whole ship, in the second you will be able to manage the whole state.

LXXX

If you plan to beautify your city by dedicating offerings and monuments, first dedicate to yourself the noblest offering of all: gentleness, justice, and generosity.

LXXXI

You will do the state the greatest service if you raise up not the roofs of its houses but the souls of its citizens. It is better for great souls to live in small houses than for base slaves to lurk in great ones.

LXXXII

Do not decorate the walls of your house with costly stone from Euboea and Sparta. Instead, adorn the minds of the citizens, and of those who govern the state, with the education that comes from Greece. States are well governed by the wisdom of men, not by stone and wood.

LXXXIII

If you wanted to raise lions, you would not concern yourself with how costly their dens were, but with the animals’ habits. In the same way, if you undertake to lead your fellow citizens, do not worry so much about the expense of the buildings. Take care instead for the manly character of the people who live in them.

LXXXIV

A skilled horse trainer does not feed only the good colts and let the ones that resist the rein go hungry. He feeds both alike. He disciplines the difficult one more and pushes him until he matches the other.

In the same way, a careful man skilled in political power tries to treat citizens of good character well. But he does not want those of the opposite character to be ruined all at once. He in no way begrudges either group their food. He teaches and presses harder on the one who resists reason and law.

LXXXV

A goose is not frightened by cackling, and a sheep is not frightened by bleating. So do not let the clamor of a senseless crowd alarm you.

LXXXVI

When a crowd unreasonably demands something that belongs to you, you are not thrown off balance. In the same way, do not let even a mob move you from your purpose when they try unjustly to move you.

LXXXVII

Pay what you owe the state as quickly as you can, and you will never be asked for what you do not owe.

LXXXVIII

The sun does not wait for prayers and incantations to persuade it to rise. It shines at once and is greeted by everyone.

So you too should not wait for applause, shouts, and praise to persuade you to do good. Do good of your own accord, and you will be loved as much as the sun.

LXXXIX

A ship should not rely on a single small anchor, and a life should not rest on a single hope.

XC

We should stretch our legs, and stretch our hopes, only as far as what is possible.

XCI

When Thales was asked what is most universal, he answered, “Hope, because hope stays with those who have nothing else.”

XCII

It is more necessary to heal the soul than the body, because dying is better than living badly.

XCIII

Pyrrho used to say that there is no difference between dying and living. Someone said to him, “Then why don’t you die?” Pyrrho replied, “Because there is no difference.”

XCIV

Nature is admirable and, as Xenophon says, a lover of living creatures. We love and care for the body, which is of all things the most unpleasant and the dirtiest.

If we had to look after our neighbor’s body for just five days, we could not bear it. Consider what it would be like to get up in the morning and clean another person’s teeth, and, after attending to some of the necessary bodily functions, to wash those parts.

It is truly remarkable that we love a thing for which we perform such services every day. I fill this bag, and then I empty it. What could be more tiresome?

But I must act as the servant of God. For this reason I stay here and put up with washing this miserable body, feeding it, and clothing it. When I was younger, God also laid another task on me, and I accepted it.

So why do you not accept it when Nature, who gave us this body, takes it away? “I love the body,” you may say. Well, as I said just now, Nature also gave you this love of the body. But Nature says, “Let it go now, and be troubled by it no longer.”

XCV

When a man dies young, he blames the gods. When he grows old and still does not die, he blames the gods again, because he is suffering at an age when his suffering should already have ended.

Yet when death does approach, he wants to live. He sends for the physician and begs him to spare no care or effort. “People are remarkable,” Epictetus said. “They are willing neither to live nor to die.”

XCVI

A shorter life that is better should by all means be preferred to a longer life that is worse.

XCVII

When we are children, our parents hand us over to a paedagogue, the servant who watches over a child at all times and makes sure no harm comes to him.

When we become adults, God hands us over to our own innate conscience (συνειδήσει) to take care of us. We must never despise this guardian. If we do, we will both displease God and make ourselves enemies of our own conscience.

XCVIII

[We should use wealth as the material for some particular action, not for every action alike.]

XCIX

[Everyone, then, should desire virtue more than wealth. Wealth is dangerous to the foolish, because it increases human wickedness.

The less sense a person has, the more violently he indulges in excess, because wealth gives him the means to satisfy his mad craving for pleasure.]

C

What we should not do, we should not even consider doing.

CI

Think carefully before you say or do anything, because once something has been said or done, you cannot take it back.

CII

Every place is safe for the person who lives justly.

CIII

Crows peck out the eyes of the dead, but only once the dead no longer need them. Flatterers, by contrast, destroy the souls of the living and blind their eyes.

CIV

The anger of an ape and the threats of a flatterer should be regarded in the same way.

CV

Listen to people who want to advise you about what is useful, not to people who are always eager to flatter. The first group actually sees what is useful.

The second group looks only for what agrees with the opinions of those in power. Like shadows that copy the movements of the bodies that cast them, flatterers simply echo whatever the powerful say.

CVI

Anyone who gives advice should first consider the sense of shame and the character of the people he is advising. Those who have lost the ability to blush cannot be corrected.

CVII

Warning someone is better than reproaching him. A warning is gentle and friendly; a reproach is harsh and insulting.

A warning also corrects people who are doing wrong, while a reproach only proves them guilty.

CVIII

Give from what you have to strangers (ξένοις) and to those in need. Someone who does not give to others when they lack something will not receive help himself when he lacks something.

CIX

A pirate was washed ashore and was dying in a storm. A man brought him clothing, took him into his house, and supplied everything else he needed.

When someone criticized the man for doing a kindness to a wicked person, he replied, “I showed this consideration not to the man, but to humanity.”

CX

A person should pursue not every pleasure, but only the pleasure that leads to the good.

CXI

A wise person resists pleasures. A foolish person is enslaved by them.

CXII

Pleasure is like bait. It is thrown in front of everything that is truly bad, and it easily lures greedy souls onto the hook of destruction.

CXIII

Choose to punish your appetites rather than be punished by them.

CXIV

No one is free who is not master of himself.

CXV

The vine bears three bunches of grapes. The first is pleasure, the second drunkenness, and the third violence.

CXVI

When you are drinking wine, do not talk at length to show off your learning. What comes out will be bitter, ill-tempered nonsense.

CXVII

Anyone who drinks more than three cups is drunk. And if he is not drunk, he has still gone beyond moderation.

CXVIII

Renew your talk about God every day, even more readily than you renew your food.

CXIX

Think of God more often than you breathe.

CXX

Always remember that whatever you are doing, whether in soul or in body, God stands beside you as an observer.

If you remember this, you will never go wrong in any of your prayers or any of your actions, and you will have God living with you.

CXXI

Just as it is pleasant to look at the sea from dry land, it is pleasant for someone who has escaped from troubles to think back on them.

CXXII

Law is meant to serve human life, but it cannot do so when people refuse to accept its help. Law displays its particular excellence only in those who obey it.

CXXIII

Physicians are like saviors to the sick, and laws are like saviors to those who have been wronged.

CXXIV

The most just laws are the ones that are most true.

CXXV

It is fitting to yield to the law, to a magistrate, and to someone wiser than yourself.

CXXVI

Things done against the law are the same as things never done at all.

CXXVII

When things are going well, it is very easy to find a friend. When things are going badly, it is the hardest thing of all.

CXXVIII

Time relieves the foolish of their sorrow, but reason relieves the wise.

CXXIX

A wise person does not grieve over what he lacks, but rejoices in what he has.

CXXX

When Epictetus was asked how a person could cause pain to an enemy, he answered, “By preparing himself to live the best life he can.”

CXXXI

No wise person should be unwilling to hold public office (τοῦ ἄρχειν). It is impious to withdraw from being useful to those who need our services.

It is also ignoble to give way to worthless people. And it is foolish to prefer being badly governed to governing well.

CXXXII

Nothing suits a ruler better than to look down on no one and show no arrogance, but to oversee everyone with equal care.

CXXXIII

[Anyone can live happily in poverty, but very few can live happily with wealth and power (ἀρχαῖς). Poverty is so much more valuable that no law-abiding, just person (νόμιμος) would trade it for disreputable wealth.

The only exception would be if Themistocles, the son of Neocles and the richest of the Athenians, were better than Aristides and Socrates, even though Themistocles was poor in virtue.

But the wealth of Themistocles, and Themistocles himself, have perished and left no name behind. In a bad person, everything dies with death, but the good is eternal.]

CXXXIV

Remember that the nature of the universe was, is, and always will be the same. Things that come into being cannot come into being in any other way than they do now.

This change and transformation is shared not only by human beings and every other living thing on earth, but also by divine things.

Even the four elements are changed and transformed up and down. Earth becomes water, water becomes air, and air in turn is transformed into other things. The same kind of transformation also takes place from above to below.

If a person tries to turn his mind toward these thoughts, and to persuade himself to accept willingly what is necessary, he will pass through life with complete moderation and harmony.

CXXXV

Someone who is dissatisfied with present circumstances and with what fortune gives him is an untrained amateur (ἰδιώτης) in the business of living.

But someone who bears these things, and everything that follows from them, nobly and rationally deserves to be considered a good person.

CXXXVI

Everything obeys and serves the universe: earth and sea, the sun and the other stars, the plants of the earth and the animals.

Our bodies obey it too, falling ill or staying healthy as the universe decides, passing through youth and old age and all the other changes.

What is reasonable, then, and within our power is this: our judgment should not be the only thing that resists the universe. The universe is strong and superior, and it has made better decisions about us by governing us together with the whole.

Besides, such resistance is unreasonable. It accomplishes nothing except to torment us uselessly and bring us pain and sorrow.

Fragments of Disputed Authorship

The fragments that follow are attributed partly to Epictetus and partly to other writers.

CXXXVII

Contentment is a short and pleasant road. It brings great delight with little trouble.

CXXXVIII

Fortify yourself with contentment, because it is a fortress that cannot be taken.

CXXXIX

Value nothing more than truth. Do not value even the choice of a friendship above it, if that choice is free from the influence of the passions, because the passions confuse and darken justice.

CXL

Truth is immortal and everlasting. It gives us a beauty that does not fade with time, and it does not take away the freedom of speech that comes from justice.

Instead, it gives us knowledge of what is just and lawful. It separates the unjust from these things and refutes it.

CXLI

We should no more have a poorly managed freedom of speech than a blunt knife.

CXLII

Nature gave human beings one tongue but two ears, so that we may listen to others twice as much as we speak.

CXLIII

Nothing is truly pleasant or unpleasant by nature. Everything becomes so through habit.

CXLIV

Choose the best life, because habit will make it pleasant.

CXLV

Take care to leave your sons well educated rather than rich. The hopes of the educated are better than the wealth of the ignorant.

CXLVI

A daughter is a possession that belongs to her father and yet is not his own.

CXLVII

The same person advised leaving children a sense of modesty rather than gold.

CXLVIII

A father’s reproach is a pleasant medicine, because it contains more that is useful than it does that is painful.

CXLIX

A man who is lucky in his son-in-law has gained a son. A man who is unlucky in his son-in-law has lost a daughter as well.

CL

Education, like gold, is valued everywhere.

CLI

Whoever practices wisdom practices the knowledge that concerns God.

CLII

Among all living creatures, nothing is as beautiful as a human being adorned with learning.

CLIII

We should avoid the friendship of bad people and the hostility of good people.

CLIV

Hard circumstances test friends and expose enemies.

CLV

When our friends are present, we should treat them well. When they are absent, we should speak well of them.

CLVI

No one should imagine that anyone loves him when he himself loves no one.

CLVII

Choose both your physician and your friend not because they are the most agreeable, but because they are the most useful.

CLVIII

If you want to live without sorrow, think about what is going to happen as though it had already happened.

CLIX

Be free from grief, but not through the insensitivity of irrational animals, nor through the thoughtlessness of the foolish. Be free from grief as a virtuous person is, by having reason as your consolation.

CLX

The best people, both in public life and in private life, are those whose minds are least disturbed by disasters and whose actions struggle hardest against them.

CLXI

Educated people are like those trained in the palaestra, the wrestling school. Even when they fall, they get up again from their misfortune quickly and skillfully.

CLXII

In misfortune, we should call on reason for help, as we would call on a good physician.

CLXIII

When a fool enjoys a great deal of good fortune, it works on him like heavy drinking: he becomes even more foolish.

CLXIV

Envy is the opponent of the fortunate.

CLXV

Whoever keeps in mind what a human being is will never be troubled by anything that happens.

CLXVI

A good voyage requires a pilot and a wind. Happiness requires reason and skill.

CLXVII

We should enjoy good fortune while we have it, as we enjoy the fruits of autumn.

CLXVIII

Anyone who is troubled by what happens through the necessity of nature is unreasonable.

Some Fragments of Epictetus Omitted by Upton and by Meibomius

CLXIX

Of all the things that exist, God has placed some in our power and some not. In our power he has placed the best and most important thing, the very thing that makes him happy: the use of appearances (φαντασιῶν), meaning the impressions that present themselves to the mind.

When this use is rightly managed, the result is freedom, happiness, tranquility, and steadiness. It is also justice and law, self-control, and every other virtue. Everything else, God has not placed in our power.

We too, then, should be of one mind with God. We should make this same division of things and look after what is in our power.

What is not in our power we should entrust to the universe (τῷ κόσμῳ). Whether it requires our children, our country, our body, or anything else, we should give it up willingly.

CLXX

A young man in the theater was boasting, “I am wise, because I have talked with many wise men.” Epictetus replied, “I have also talked with many rich men, but I am not rich.”

CLXXI

The same person said that someone who has been well taught should not talk among the untaught, just as it is not right for a sober person to talk among people who are drunk.

CLXXII

When Epictetus was asked who is rich, he answered, “The person who is content, who has enough.”

CLXXIII

Xanthippe was criticizing Socrates for making so few preparations to receive his friends. Socrates replied, “If they are our friends, they will not mind. And if they are not, we will not mind about them.”

CLXXIV

Archelaus once sent for Socrates, intending to make him rich. Socrates told the messengers to take back this answer:

“At Athens, four measures of meal (choenices) sell for one obolus, which is a sixth of a drachma, and the fountains run with water. What I have may not be enough for me. Yet I am enough for what I have, and so it becomes enough for me.”

Do you not see that the actor Polus used no nobler voice when he played Oedipus as king than when he played Oedipus as a wanderer and beggar at Colonus? Shall the good man then appear inferior to Polus? Shall he be unable to play well every character the Deity assigns him?

Shall he not imitate Ulysses, who cut no worse a figure in rags than in a soft purple robe?

CLXXV

“What do I care,” Epictetus says, “whether all things are composed of atoms (ἀτόμων), or of similar parts (ὁμοιομερῶν), or of fire and earth?”

Is it not enough to know the nature of good and evil? It is enough to know the proper measures (μέτρα) of our desires and aversions (ἐκκλίσεων), and of our movements toward things and away from them. We should use these as rules for managing the affairs of life, and not trouble ourselves about the things above us.

Those higher things may well be beyond the reach of the human mind. And even if someone supposed they could be fully understood, what would be the benefit of understanding them? Must we not say that people who make these questions a necessary part of philosophical discussion are giving themselves needless trouble?

Is the precept written at Delphi, “Know thyself,” also superfluous, then? “It is not,” he says.

What, then, does it mean? Suppose someone gave a member of a chorus (a choreutes) the precept to know himself. Would he not understand the precept as telling him to pay attention to himself?

CLXXVI

You are a little soul carrying a dead body, as Epictetus said.

CLXXVII

Epictetus said that he had discovered an art of giving assent.

On the subject of the movements toward and away from things, he had found that we must pay attention to several points. These movements must be subject to exception (μεφ’ ὑπεξαιρέσεως). They must be social. They must correspond to the worth of each thing.

He also said that we ought to abstain entirely from desire, and to direct aversion (ἐκκλίσει) toward none of the things that are not in our power.

CLXXVIII

The contest, he said, is not about some ordinary matter. It is about whether we are mad or not.

CLXXIX

Aul. Gellius, xvii 19.

Favorinum ego audivi dicere Epictetum philosophum dixisse, “plerosque istos qui philosophari videntur, philosophos esse hujuscemodi, ἄνευ τοῦ πράττειν, μέχρι τοῦ λέγειν.” Id significat, factis procul, verbis tenus. Jam illud est vehementius, quod Arrianus solitum eum dictitare in libris, quos de Dissertationibus ejus composuit, scriptum reliquit.

Nam, “quum,” inquit, “animadverterat hominem pudore amisso, importuna industria, corruptis moribus, audacem, confidentem lingua, caeteraque omnia praeter animum procurantem; istiusmodi,” inquit, “hominemi quum viderat studia quoque et disciplinas philosophiae contrectare, et physica adire et meditari dialectica, multaque id genus theoremata suspicari sciscitarique, inclamabat deum atque hominum fidem, ac plerumque, inter clamandum his eum verbis increpabat: Ἄνθρωπε, ποῦ βάλλεις; σκέψαι εἰ κεκάθαρται τὸ ἀγγεῖον. ἂν γὰρ εἰς τὴν οἴησιν βάλλῃς, ἀπώλετο. ἢν σαπῇ, ἢ οὖρον ἢ ὂξος γένοιτ’ ἂν, ἢ τι τούτων χεῖρον.”

Nihil profecto his verbis gravius, nihil verius, quibus declarabat maximus philosophorum, “literas atque doctrinas Philosophiae, quum in hominem falsum atque degenerem, tamquam in vas spurcum atque pollutum influxissent, verti, mutari, corrumpi, et (quod ipse κυνικώτερον ait) urinam fieri, aut si quid est urina spurcius.”

Praeterea idem ille Epictetus, quod ex eodem Favorino audivimus, solitus dicere est: “duo esse vitia multo omnium gravissima et taeterrima, intolerantiam et incontinentiam, quum aut injurias quae sunt ferendae non toleramus neque ferimus, aut a quibus rebus voluptatibusque nos tenere debemus non tenemus.

Itaque,” inquit, “si quis haec duo verba cordi habeat, eaque sibi imperando atque observando curet, is erit pleraque impeccabilis vitamque vivet tranquillissimam. Verba duo haec dicebat, Ἀνέχου καὶ Ἀπέχου.”

I heard Favorinus say that the philosopher Epictetus had said that “most of those who appear to practice philosophy are philosophers of this kind: without the doing, only as far as the saying (ἄνευ τοῦ πράττειν, μέχρι τοῦ λέγειν).” That means far from deeds, and only as far as words.

Still stronger is something Arrian recorded in the books he composed about Epictetus’s Discourses, which Epictetus was in the habit of saying often.

Arrian writes that Epictetus would sometimes notice a man who had lost all sense of shame. Such a man was restlessly busy, corrupt in character, bold, confident in his tongue, and attentive to everything except his own soul.

When Epictetus saw a man like this also taking up the studies and disciplines of philosophy, turning to physics, practicing dialectic, and speculating and inquiring into many theories of that kind, he would call upon the good faith of gods and men.

Often, amid his outcry, he would rebuke the man in these words: “Man, where are you putting it? Consider whether the vessel has been cleaned. For if you pour it into your conceit, it is lost. If it rots, it may turn into urine or vinegar, or something worse than these.”

Nothing could be weightier or truer than these words. In them the greatest of philosophers declared that “the writings and teachings of philosophy, when they flow into a false and degenerate man, as into a filthy and polluted vessel, are turned, changed, and corrupted. As he himself put it, in a more Cynic manner (κυνικώτερον), they become urine, or anything filthier than urine.”

Besides this, as we also heard from Favorinus, the same Epictetus used to say “that there are two vices by far the gravest and most hideous of all: intolerance and incontinence.”

Intolerance is when we do not tolerate or endure the injuries that ought to be endured. Incontinence is when we do not restrain ourselves from the things and pleasures we ought to keep away from.

“Therefore,” he said, “if someone takes these two words to heart, and is careful to command them upon himself and observe them, he will be almost entirely free from fault and will live a most tranquil life.” The two words he spoke were these: Ἀνέχου καὶ Ἀπέχου, “Endure and abstain.”

CLXXX

Aul. Gellius, xix 1.

Philosophus in disciplina Stoica celebratus … ex sarcinula sua librum protulit Epicteti philosophi quintum Διαλεξέαν: quas ab Arriano digestas congruere scriptis Zenonis et Chrysippi non dubium est. In eo libro Graeca scilicet oratione scriptum ad hanc sententiam legimus:

“Visa animi,” quas φαντασίας philosophi appellant, “qui bus mens hominis prima statim specie accidentis ad ani mum rei pellitur, non voluntatis sunt, neque arbitraria, sed vi quadam sua inferunt sese hominibus noscitanda. Probationes autem quas συγκαταθέσεις vocant, quibus eadem visa noscuntur ac dijudicantur, voluntariae sunt fiuntque hominum arbitratu.

Propterea quum sonus aliquis aut caelo aut ex ruina aut repentinus [nesciusj pericali nuntius vel quid aliud ejusmodi factum, sapientis quoque animum paulisper moveri et contrahi et pallescere necessum est, non opinione alicujus mali praecepta, sed quibusdam motibus rapidis et inconsultis officium mentis atque rationis praevertentibus.

Mox tamen ille sapiens ibidem [idem?] τὰς τοιαύτας φαντασίας, id est, visa istaec animi sui terrifica non approbat: hoc est οὐσυγκατατίθεται οὐδὲ προσεπιδοξάζει, sed abjicit respuitque, nec ei metuendum esse in his quidquam videtur.

Atque hoc inter insipientis sapientisque animum differre dicunt, quod insipiens, qualia esse primo animi sui pulsu visa sunt saeva et aspera, talia esse vero putat, et eadem incepta tamquam jure metuenda sint, sua quoque assensione approbat καὶ προσεπιδοξάζει (hoc enim verbo Stoici quum super ista re disserunt utuntur).

Sapiens autem quum breviter et strictim colore atque vultu motus est, οὐ συγκατατίθεται, sed statum vigoremque sententiae suae retinet, quam de hujuscemodi visis semper habuit, ut de minime metuendis, sed fronte falsa et formidine inani territantibus.”

A philosopher well known in the Stoic school … took from his little bag the fifth book of the Discourses of the philosopher Epictetus. These discourses were arranged by Arrian, and there is no doubt that they agree with the writings of Zeno and Chrysippus.

In that book, written of course in Greek, we read a passage to the following effect.

“The mind’s impressions, which philosophers call φαντασίαι, strike a person’s mind immediately at the first appearance of anything that reaches it. They are not a matter of will, nor under our control. By a certain force of their own, they press themselves upon people to be recognized.

“But the assents, which philosophers call συγκαταθέσεις, are what we use to recognize and judge those same impressions. These are voluntary and depend on human choice.

“So when there is some sound, from the sky or from a collapsing building, or sudden news of some danger, or anything else of that kind, even the wise man’s mind must be shaken for a little while. It must shrink back and grow pale.

“This does not happen because he has formed an opinion that something evil is coming. It happens through certain rapid, unconsidered movements that run ahead of the work of mind and reason.

“Soon, however, the wise man does not approve such impressions, that is, these terrifying appearances in his mind. He does not assent to them or add an opinion to them (οὐ συγκατατίθεται οὐδὲ προσεπιδοξάζει). Instead, he throws them off and rejects them, and nothing in them seems to him worth fearing.

“The Stoics say that the mind of the foolish person differs from the mind of the wise person in this respect. Whatever seemed cruel and harsh at the first shock to his mind, the foolish person believes really is so.

“And as if these things that have begun to frighten him were rightly to be feared, he also approves them by his own assent and adds an opinion to them (καὶ προσεπιδοξάζει). This is the word the Stoics use when they discuss this subject.

“The wise man, by contrast, is moved briefly and slightly in his color and expression, but he does not assent (οὐ συγκατατίθεται). He keeps the steadiness and strength of the judgment he has always held about impressions of this kind: that they are not to be feared at all, but frighten us with a false face and an empty terror.”

CLXXXI

Arnobius Advers. Gentes, in fine libri secundi.

Quum de animarum agitur salute ac de respectu nostri; “aliquid et sine ratione faciendum est,” ut Epictetum dixisse approbat Arrianus.

Arnobius, Against the Gentiles, at the end of the second book: “When the question concerns the salvation of souls and regard for ourselves, ‘something must be done even without reason,’ as Arrian confirms that Epictetus said.”

End of The Enchiridion and Fragments. Choose another edition.