Plain
Epictetus — The Slave

Instead, you act like everything in your life is fine and secure. You focus on the advanced topic of keeping things unchanged. But what are you trying to keep unchanged? Your cowardice. Your petty spirit. Your worship of rich people. Your desires that never get satisfied. Your attempts to avoid things that fail anyway. You're anxious to protect these worthless traits. Shouldn't you have gained something valuable from philosophy first, and then worked to protect that? Who builds a wall around nothing? What doorkeeper guards a door that doesn't exist?

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Knowing Yourself What Matters Most
Epictetus — The Slave Original

But as if all your affairs were well and secure, you have been resting on the third topic, that of things being unchanged, in order that you may possess unchanged—what? cowardice, mean spirit, the admiration of the rich, desire without attaining any end, and avoidance which fails in the attempt? About security in these things you have been anxious. Ought you not to have gained something in addition from reason, and then to have protected this with security? And whom did you ever see building a battlement all around and encircling it with a wall? And what doorkeeper is placed with no door to watch?

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Epictetus — The Slave

Have you gotten into the habit of looking to other people while studying philosophy? Do you hope for nothing from yourself? Then go ahead — cry and moan and eat your meals in fear that you might not have food tomorrow. Shake with worry about your slaves. Fear they'll steal from you, run away, or die. Live this way. Keep living this way. You've only approached philosophy in name. You've disgraced its teachings as much as you can by showing they're useless to anyone who tries them. You never sought steadiness, peace of mind, or freedom from your emotions. You never sought any teacher for this purpose, but many teachers for clever arguments. You never seriously examined any situation by asking yourself: Can I handle this, or can't I? What should I do next?

Discourses, To Those Who Fear Want 303 of 388
Knowing Yourself Calm Your Mind
Epictetus — The Slave Original

And have you also been accustomed while you were studying philosophy to look to others and to hope for nothing from yourself? Lament then and groan and eat with fear that you may not have food to-morrow. Tremble about your poor slaves lest they steal, lest they run away, lest they die. So live, and continue to live, you who in name only have approached philosophy, and have disgraced its theorems as far as you can by showing them to be useless and unprofitable to those who take them up; you who have never sought constancy, freedom from perturbation, and from passions; you who have not sought any person for the sake of this object, but many for the sake of syllogisms; you who have never thoroughly examined any of these appearances by yourself, Am I able to bear, or am I not able to bear? What remains for me to do?

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Ancient philosophy, in plain English.

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