You’re an actor in a play, which will be as the author chooses, act even that part with all your skill Giovanni Reale, John R. Catan, 1990, A History of Ancient Philosophy: The schools of the Imperial Age, p. 80. SUNY Press Except, well, Epictetus is completely wrong. Reason is not inviolate, and as anyone who's read Thinking, Fast and Slow knows, humans are only "rational" in comparison to the other animals around us. I wonder how Epictetus would have reacted to research showing that emotions are absolutely necessary to being able to make decisions at all considering his view of Reason as the essential self, separated from the body and from all of the good and bad that the world buffets us with?

It is only our opinions and principles that can render us unhappy, and it is only the ignorant person who finds fault with another. [68] Every desire degrades us, and renders us slaves of what we desire. [68] We ought not to forget the transitory character of all external advantages, even in the midst of our enjoyment of them; but always to bear in mind that they are not our own, and that therefore, they do not properly belong to us. Thus prepared, we shall never be carried away by opinions. [69] So choose: either regain the love of your old friends by reverting to your former self or remain better than you once were and forfeit their affection He is unwaveringly concerned with the practical rather than the theoretical. This book is full of castigation for philosophy students who consider themselves successful when they can satisfactorily summarize and refute a logical argument. Logic is just a plaything, Epictetus says, and all this argument is entirely besides the point. How will you react when you’re in a ship that’s being tossed about in a storm? How will you react if you’re banished or if your loved one dies? How will you face death? Remember, he says, that books are ultimately just another external good, like money or power, and by prizing them, like any external good, we simply make ourselves victims of circumstances.

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Reason alone is good, the irrational is evil, and the irrational is intolerable to the rational. [46] The good person should labour chiefly on their own reason; to perfect this is in our power. [47] To repel evil opinions by the good is the noble contest in which humans should engage; it is not an easy task, but it promises true freedom, peace of mind ( ataraxia), and a divine command over the emotions ( apatheia). [48] We should especially be on our guard against the opinion of pleasure because of its apparent sweetness and charms. [49] The first object of philosophy, therefore, is to purify the mind. [50] Epictetus is mentioned in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce: in the fifth chapter of the novel the protagonist Stephen Dedalus discusses Epictetus's famous lamp with a dean of his college. [75] Epictetus also is mentioned briefly in Franny and Zooey by J. D. Salinger, and is referred to by Theodore Dreiser in his novel Sister Carrie. Both the longevity of Epictetus's life and his philosophy are alluded to in John Berryman's poem, "Of Suicide." We are like travellers at an inn or guests at a stranger's table; whatever is offered we take with thankfulness, and sometimes, when the turn comes, we may refuse; in the former case we are a worthy guest of the deities, and in the latter we appear as a sharer in their power. [64] Anyone who finds life intolerable is free to quit it, but we should not abandon our appointed role without sufficient reason. [65] The Stoic sage will never find life intolerable and will complain of no one, neither deity nor human. [66] Those who go wrong we should pardon and treat with compassion, since it is from ignorance that they err, being as it were, blind. [67]

We are bound up by the law of nature with the whole fabric of the world. [15] In the world the true position of a human is that of a member of a great system. [15] Each human being is in the first instance a citizen of one's own nation or commonwealth; but we are also a member of the great city of gods and people. [15] Nature places us in certain relations to other persons, and these determine our obligations to parents, siblings, children, relatives, friends, fellow-citizens, and humankind in general. [21] The shortcomings of our fellow people are to be met with patience and charity, and we should not allow ourselves to grow indignant over them, for they too are a necessary element in the universal system. [21] Providence [ edit ] Robin Hard (translation reviser), Christopher Gill (editor), (1995), The Discourses of Epictetus. (Everyman) ISBN 0-460-87312-1 The virtuous philosopher that is led by their principles knows that nothing or no one external to themselves can truly harm them; no one has that power. The only one who can truly harm you is, of course, yourself. ("Another person will not hurt you without your co-operation; you are hurt the moment you believe yourself to be.")

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When faced with an obstacle in life, ask yourself: 'Is this something that is in my control? Or it is something external to myself?' If the former, you can choose how it affects you. If the latter, it is none of your concern. Needless suffering plagues people who think those externals are their responsibility. By clinging too much to all outside of one's self, the loss of such externals only causes unnecessary pain to the individual.

Everyday acquire something that will fortify you against old-age, death, loss, and other ills as well; Lucian, Demoxan, c. 55, torn, ii., ed Hemsterh., p. 393; as quoted in A Selection from the Discourses of Epictetus With the Encheiridion (2009), p. 6 Heinrich Ritter, Alexander James William Morrison, (1846), The History of Ancient Philosophy, Volume 4, p. 210 Ocr tesseract 5.2.0-1-gc42a Ocr_detected_lang en Ocr_detected_lang_conf 1.0000 Ocr_detected_script Latin Ocr_detected_script_conf 0.9913 Ocr_module_version 0.0.18 Ocr_parameters -l eng Old_pallet IA-NS-0001428 Openlibrary_editionMan, the rational animal, can put up with anything except what seems to him irrational; whatever is rational is tolerable Heinrich Ritter, Alexander James William Morrison, (1846), The History of Ancient Philosophy, Volume 4, p. 212 a b c Boter, Gerard J. (2011). "Epictetus". In Brown, Virginia; Hankins, James; Kaster, Robert A. (eds.). Catalogus Translationum Et Commentariorum: Medieval and Renaissance Latin Translations and Commentaries. Vol.9. The Catholic University of America Press. p.6. ISBN 978-0813217291. If you consider yourself as a human being and as a part of some whole, it may be in the interest of the whole that you should now fall ill, now embark on a voyage and be exposed to danger, now suffer poverty, and perhaps even die before your time. Why do you resent this, then? Don’t you know that in isolation a foot is no longer a foot, and that you likewise will no longer be a human being? What, then, is a human being? A part of a city, first of all that which is made up of gods and human beings, then that which is closest to us and which we call a city, which is a microcosm of the universal city.