Discourses, Fragments, Handbook (Oxford World's Classics)
For in that case, one would have to say that tumours develop for the good of the body just because they do in fact develop, and, in a word, that to fall into error is natural just because almost all of us, or at least most of us, do fall into error.
Epictetus • Discourses, Fragments, Handbook (Oxford World's Classics)
—‘We ought to hold to our decisions.’—What are you up to, man? Not to every decision, but to those that are justified.
Epictetus • Discourses, Fragments, Handbook (Oxford World's Classics)
I’ll show you the sinews of a philosopher. And what sinews are those? Desire that never fails in its aim, aversion that never falls into what it wants to avoid, motivation that accords with one’s duty, purpose that is carefully weighed, and assent that is not over-hasty. That is what you’ll see.
Epictetus • Discourses, Fragments, Handbook (Oxford World's Classics)
So mighty and so invincible is human nature! For how can a vine be moved to act, not like a vine, but like an olive tree? Or an olive tree in turn, not like an olive tree, but like a vine? That’s impossible, inconceivable. [19] Neither is it possible, then, for a human being to lose his human affections altogether,
Epictetus • Discourses, Fragments, Handbook (Oxford World's Classics)
principal duties. And what are those? [26] Fulfilling one’s role as a citizen, marrying, having children, honouring God, taking care of one’s parents, and, in a word, having our desires and aversions, and our motives to act and or not to act, as each of them ought to be, in accordance with our nature. And what is our nature? [27] To be people who a
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wherever we find family affection accompanied by reason, we can confidently declare it to be right and
Epictetus • Discourses, Fragments, Handbook (Oxford World's Classics)
in the case of most faults, the main reason why people can be brought to confess to them is that they conceive them as being in some sense involuntary,
Epictetus • Discourses, Fragments, Handbook (Oxford World's Classics)
These are the thoughts that those who embark on philosophy ought to reflect upon; it is these that they should write about day after day, and it is in these that they should train themselves.
Epictetus • Discourses, Fragments, Handbook (Oxford World's Classics)
Day by day you must keep before your eyes death and exile and everything else that seems frightening, but most especially death; and then you’ll never harbour any mean thought, nor will you desire anything beyond due measure.