Plain
Epictetus — The Slave

What do most people do instead? They act like a traveler heading home who stops at a nice inn and decides to stay there forever. You've forgotten your purpose. You weren't traveling to live at this inn. You were just passing through it. But this inn is so pleasant! Sure, and how many other inns are pleasant? How many beautiful meadows are pleasant? They're still just places to pass through. Your real purpose is to return home, to ease your family's worries, to do your duty as a citizen, to marry, to have children, to serve in public office. You didn't come here to hunt for the most pleasant spots. You came to live where you were born and where you belong as a citizen.

Discourses, On the Power of Speaking 194 of 388
What Matters Most Knowing Yourself
Epictetus — The Slave Original

What then is usually done? Men generally act as a traveller would do on his way to his own country, when he enters a good inn, and being pleased with it should remain there. Man, you have forgotten your purpose: you were not travelling to this inn, but you were passing through it. But this is a pleasant inn. And how many other inns are pleasant? and how many meadows are pleasant? yet only for passing through. But your purpose is this, to return to your country, to relieve your kinsmen of anxiety, to discharge the duties of a citizen, to marry, to beget children, to fill the usual magistracies. For you are not come to select more pleasant places, but to live in these where you were born and of which you were made a citizen.

Discourses, On the Power of Speaking 194 of 388
Epictetus — The Slave

But if you ask me what the most excellent thing is, what should I say? I can't say it's the power of speech. It's the power of the will, when it's working correctly. The will uses speech and all other abilities, big and small. When your will is set right, a bad person becomes good. When it fails, a person becomes bad. This is why we're unlucky or lucky. This is why we blame each other or feel pleased with each other. In short, if we neglect our will, we become unhappy. If we take careful care of it, we become happy.

Discourses, On the Power of Speaking 193 of 388
Knowing Yourself What Matters Most
Epictetus — The Slave Original

But if you ask me what then is the most excellent of all things, what must I say? I cannot say the power of speaking, but the power of the will, when it is right ([Greek: orthae]). For it is this which uses the other (the power of speaking), and all the other faculties both small and great. For when this faculty of the will is set right, a man who is not good becomes good: but when it fails, a man becomes bad. It is through this that we are unfortunate, that we are fortunate, that we blame one another, are pleased with one another. In a word, it is this which if we neglect it makes unhappiness, and if we carefully look after it, makes happiness.

Discourses, On the Power of Speaking 193 of 388
‹ Previous Next ›

Ancient philosophy, in plain English.

About · Support