The Philosophy of Epictetus

by Epictetus

  THE PHILOSOPHY OF EPICTETUS

  Golden Sayings and Fragments

  Epictetus

  DOVER PUBLICATIONS, INC.

  MINEOLA, NEW YORK

  DOVER THRIFT EDITIONS

  GENERAL EDITOR: SUSAN L. RATTINER

  EDITOR OF THIS VOLUME: JANET BAINE KOPITO

  Copyright

  Copyright © 2017 by Dover Publications, Inc.

  All rights reserved.

  Bibliographical Note

  This Dover edition, first published in 2017, is a republication of “The Golden Sayings of Epictetus” from Volume 2 of The Harvard Classics, published by P. F. Collier & Son, New York, in 1909. A new introductory Note has been specially prepared for this edition.

  International Standard Book Number

  ISBN-13: 978-0-486-81123-9

  ISBN-10: 0-486-81123-9

  Manufactured in the United States by LSC Communications

  81123901 2017

  www.doverpublications.com

  Note

  Epictetus (c. 55–135 CE), born in Phrygia (present-day Turkey), was of Greek heritage. He is known to have been a slave in Rome during the time of Nero. He became familiar with the philosophy of the Stoics by attending the lectures of C. Musonius Rufus; Epictetus himself, after his emancipation from slavery, taught Stoicism in Rome. When philosophers were banished from Italy about 90 CE by the emperor, Domitian, Epictetus traveled to Nicopolis (in Epirus, western Greece), where he continued to teach the philosophy. References to Socrates, Diogenes, Zeno, Hercules, and Greek gods such as Zeus and Athena provide a vivid historical context for the Golden Sayings [a selection from the Discourses and The Encheiridion (the “manual” or “handbook”)]. Particulars of his death are unknown.

  Epictetus’s lectures and pronouncements are preserved in writings such as the Golden Sayings thanks to the efforts of Arrian, a Greek philosopher and historian who was a disciple of Epictetus. It is Arrian’s transcriptions that survive today, adding Epictetus to the long line of philosophers influenced by the Stoics. The philosophy, which originated in Greece in the early fourth century BCE, became popular in Rome during the empire but was subject to the favor of the emperor (Domitian rejected it, but Marcus Aurelius was an enthusiastic adherent). As a “practical” philosophy, rather than a primarily theoretical one, Stoicism was useful as a guide for living one’s everyday life—Stoics believed that although we cannot control everything in our lives, we should strive to set goals that are achievable and over which we do have control. Contemporary concepts such as self-empowerment and positive thinking can be discerned in many Stoic beliefs.

  The following selection of memorable quotations from Epictetus, drawn from the present compilation, offers guidelines for living a responsible and self-determined life (section numbers are given in brackets):

  Wouldst thou have men speak good of thee? speak good of them. And when thou hast learned to speak good of them, try to do good unto them, and thus thou wilt reap in return their speaking good of thee. [L]

  What you shun enduring yourself, attempt not to impose on others. You shun slavery—beware of enslaving others! [XLI]

  When a youth was giving himself airs in the Theatre and saying, “I am wise, for I have conversed with many wise men,” Epictetus replied, “I too have conversed with many rich men, yet I am not rich!” [LXV]

  To you, all you have seems small: to me, all I have seems great. Your desire is insatiable, mine is satisfied . . . [L]et your desire go! covet not many things, and you will obtain. [XCV]

  If any be unhappy, let him remember that he is unhappy by reason of himself alone. For God hath made all men to enjoy felicity and constancy of good. [CXXII]

  Asked, Who is the rich man? Epictetus replied, “He who is content.” [CLXXXII]

  Fortify thyself with contentment: that is an impregnable stronghold. [Fragments attributed to Epictetus, XVII]

  Contents

  The Philosophy of Epictetus

  Appendix A: Fragments Attributed to Epictetus

  Appendix B: The Hymn of Cleanthes

  THE PHILOSOPHY OF EPICTETUS

  Golden Sayings and Fragments

  I

  ARE THESE the only works of providence in us? What words suffice to praise or set them forth? Had we but understanding, should we ever cease hymning and blessing the Divine Power, both openly and in secret, and telling of His gracious gifts? Whether digging or ploughing or eating, should we not sing the hymn to God:

  Great is God, for that He has given us such instruments to till the ground withal:—

  Great is God, for that He hath given us hands, and the power of swallowing and digesting; of unconsciously growing and breathing while we sleep!

  Thus should we ever have sung: yea and this, the grandest and divinest hymn of all:—

  Great is God, for that He hath given us a mind to apprehend these things, and duly to use them!

  What then! seeing that most of you are blinded, should there not be some one to fill this place, and sing the hymn to God on behalf of all men? What else can I that am old and lame do but sing to God? Were I a nightingale, I should do after the manner of a nightingale. Were I a swan, I should do after the manner of a swan. But now, since I am a reasonable being, I must sing to God: that is my work: I do it, nor will I desert this my post, as long as it is granted me to hold it; and upon you too I call to join in this selfsame-hymn.

  II

  HOW THEN do men act? As though one returning to his country who had sojourned for the night in a fair inn, should be so captivated thereby as to take up his abode there.

  “Friend, thou hast forgotten thine intention! This was not thy destination, but only lay on the way thither.”

  “Nay, but it is a proper place.”

  “And how many more of the sort there be; only to pass through upon thy way! Thy purpose was to return to thy country; to relieve thy kinsmen’s fears for thee; thyself to discharge the duties of a citizen; to marry a wife, to beget offspring, and to fill the appointed round of office. Thou didst not come to choose out what places are most pleasant; but rather to return to that wherein thou wast born and where thou wert appointed to be a citizen.”

  III

  TRY TO enjoy the great festival of life with other men.

  IV

  BUT I have one whom I must please, to whom I must be subject, whom I must obey:—God, and those who come next to Him. He hath entrusted me with myself: He hath made my will subject to myself alone and given me rules for the right use thereof.

  V

  RUFUS USED to say, If you have leisure to praise me, what I say is naught. In truth he spoke in such wise, that each of us who sat there, thought that some one had accused him to Rufus:—so surely did he lay his finger on the very deeds we did: so surely display the faults of each before his very eyes.

  VI

  BUT WHAT saith God?—“Had it been possible, Epictetus, I would have made both that body of thine and thy possessions free and unimpeded, but as it is, be not deceived:—it is not thine own; it is but finely tempered clay. Since then this I could not do, I have given thee a portion of Myself, in the power of desiring and declining and of pursuing and avoiding, and in a word the power of dealing with the things of sense. And if thou neglect not this, but place all that thou hast therein, thou shalt never be let or hindered; thou shalt never lament; thou shalt not blame or flatter any. What then? Seemeth this to thee a little thing?”—God forbid!— “Be content then therewith!”

  And so I pray the Gods.

  VII

  WHAT SAITH Antisthenes? Hast thou never heard?—

  It is a kingly thing, O Cyrus, to do well and to be evil spoken of.

  VIII

  “AY, BUT to debase mys
elf thus were unworthy of me.”

  “That,” said Epictetus, “is for you to consider, not for me. You know yourself what you are worth in your own eyes; and at what price you will sell yourself. For men sell themselves at various prices. This was why, when Florus was deliberating whether he should appear at Nero’s shows, taking part in the performance himself, Agrippinus replied, ‘Appear by all means.’ And when Florus inquired, ‘But why do not you appear? ‘he answered, ‘Because I do not even consider the question.’ For the man who has once stooped to consider such questions, and to reckon up the value of external things, is not far from forgetting what manner of man he is. Why, what is it that you ask me? Is death preferable, or life? I reply, Life. Pain or pleasure? I reply, Pleasure.”

  “Well, but if I do not act, I shall lose my head.”

  “Then go and act! But for my part I will not act.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you think yourself but one among the many threads which make up the texture of the doublet. You should aim at being like men in general—just as your thread has no ambition either to be anything distinguished compared with the other threads. But I desire to be the purple—that small and shining part which makes the rest seem fair and beautiful. Why then do you bid me become even as the multitude? Then were I no longer the purple.”

  IX

  IF A man could be thoroughly penetrated, as he ought, with this thought, that we are all in an especial manner sprung from God, and that God is the Father of men as well as of Gods, full surely he would never conceive aught ignoble or base of himself. Whereas if Cæsar were to adopt you, your haughty looks would be intolerable; will you not be elated at knowing that you are the son of God? Now however it is not so with us: but seeing that in our birth these two things are commingled—the body which we share with the animals, and the Reason and Thought which we share with the Gods, many decline towards this unhappy kinship with the dead, few rise to the blessed kinship with the Divine. Since then every one must deal with each thing according to the view which he forms about it, those few who hold that they are born for fidelity, modesty, and unerring sureness in dealing with the things of sense, never conceive aught base or ignoble of themselves: but the multitude the contrary. Why, what am I?—A wretched human creature; with this miserable flesh of mine. Miserable indeed! but you have something better than that paltry flesh of yours. Why then cling to the one, and neglect the other?

  X

  THOU ART but a poor soul laden with a lifeless body.

  XI

  THE OTHER day I had an iron lamp placed beside my household gods. I heard a noise at the door and on hastening down found my lamp carried off. I reflected that the culprit was in no very strange case. “To-morrow, my friend,” I said, “you will find an earthenware lamp; for a man can only lose what he has.”

  XII

  THE REASON why I lost my lamp was that the thief was superior to me in vigilance. He paid however this price for the lamp, that in exchange for it he consented to become a thief: in exchange for it, to become faithless.

  XIII

  BUT GOD hath introduced Man to be a spectator of Himself and of His works; and not a spectator only, but also an interpreter of them. Wherefore it is a shame for man to begin and to leave off where the brutes do. Rather he should begin there, and leave off where Nature leaves off in us: and that is at contemplation, and understanding, and a manner of life that is in harmony with herself.

  See then that ye die not without being spectators of these things.

  XIV

  YOU JOURNEY to Olympia to see the work of Phidias; and each of you holds it a misfortune not to have beheld these things before you die. Whereas when there is no need even to take a journey, but you are on the spot, with the works before you, have you no care to contemplate and study these?

  Will you not then perceive either who you are or unto what end you were born: or for what purpose the power of contemplation has been bestowed upon you?

  “Well, but in life there are some things disagreeable and hard to bear.”

  And are there none at Olympia? Are you not scorched by the heat? Are you not cramped for room? Have you not to bathe with discomfort? Are you not drenched when it rains? Have you not to endure the clamour and shouting and such annoyances as these? Well, I suppose you set all this over against the splendour of the spectacle, and bear it patiently. What then? have you not received powers wherewith to endure all that comes to pass? have you not received greatness of heart, received courage, received fortitude? What care I, if I am great of heart, for aught that can come to pass? What shall cast me down or disturb me? What shall seem painful? Shall I not use the power to the end for which I received it, instead of moaning and wailing over what comes to pass?

  XV

  IF WHAT philosophers say of the kinship of God and Men be true what remains for men to do but as Socrates did:—never, when asked one’s country, to answer, “I am an Athenian or a Corinthian,” but “I am a citizen of the world.”

  XVI

  HE THAT hath grasped the administration of the World, who hath learned that this Community, which consists of God and men, is the foremost and mightiest and most comprehensive of all:—that from God have descended the germs of life, not to my father only and father’s father, but to all things that are born and grow upon the earth, and in an especial manner to those endowed with Reason (for those only are by their nature fitted to hold communion with God, being by means of Reason conjoined with Him)—why should not such an one call himself a citizen of the world? Why not a son of God? Why should he fear aught that comes to pass among men? Shall kinship with Cæsar, or any other of the great at Rome, be enough to hedge men around with safety and consideration, without a thought of apprehension: while to have God for our Maker, and Father, and Kinsman, shall not this set us free from sorrows and fears?

  XVII

  I DO not think that an old fellow like me need have been sitting here to try and prevent your entertaining abject notions of yourselves, and talking of yourselves in an abject and ignoble way: but to prevent there being by chance among you any such young men as, after recognising their kindred to the Gods, and their bondage in these chains of the body and its manifold necessities, should desire to cast them off as burdens too grievous to be borne, and depart to their true kindred. This is the struggle in which your Master and Teacher, were he worthy of the name, should be engaged. You would come to me and say: “Epictetus, we can no longer endure being chained to this wretched body, giving it food and drink and rest and purification; aye, and for its sake forced to be subservient to this man and that. Are not these things indifferent and nothing to us? Is it not true that death is no evil? Are we not in a manner kinsmen of the Gods, and have we not come from them? Let us depart thither, whence we came: let us be freed from these chains that confine and press us down. Here are thieves and robbers and tribunals: and they that are called tyrants, who deem that they have after a fashion power over us, because of the miserable body and what appertains to it. Let us show them that they have power over none.”

  XVIII

  AND TO this I reply:—

  “Friends, wait for God. When He gives the signal, and releases you from this service, then depart to Him. But for the present, endure to dwell in the place wherein He hath assigned you your post. Short indeed is the time of your habitation therein, and easy to those that are thus minded. What tyrant, what robber, what tribunals have any terrors for those who thus esteem the body and all that belong to it as of no account? Stay; depart not rashly hence!”

  XIX

  SOMETHING LIKE that is what should pass between a teacher and ingenuous youths. As it is, what does pass? The teacher is a lifeless body, and you are lifeless bodies yourselves. When you have had enough to eat to-day, you sit down and weep about to-morrow’s food. Slave! if you have it, well and good; if not, you will depart: the door is open—why lament? What further room is there for tears? What further occasion for flattery? Why should one envy ano
ther? Why should you stand in awe of them that have much or are placed in power, especially if they be also strong and passionate? Why, what should they do to us? What they can do, we will not regard: what does concern us, that they cannot do. Who then shall still rule one that is thus minded?

  XX

  SEEING THIS then, and noting well the faculties which you have, you should say,—“Send now, O God, any trial that Thou wilt; lo, I have means and powers given me by Thee to acquit myself with honour through whatever comes to pass!”—No; but there you sit, trembling for fear certain things should come to pass, and moaning and groaning and lamenting over what does come to pass. And then you upbraid the Gods. Such meanness of spirit can have but one result—impiety.

  Yet God has not only given us these faculties by means of which we may bear everything that comes to pass without being crushed or depressed thereby; but like a good King and Father, He has given us this without let or hindrance, placed wholly at our own disposition, without reserving to Himself any power of impediment or restraint. Though possessing all these things free and all your own, you do not use them! you do not perceive what it is you have received nor whence it comes, but sit moaning and groaning; some of you blind to the Giver, making no acknowledgment to your Benefactor; others basely giving themselves to complaints and accusations against God.

  Yet what faculties and powers you possess for attaining courage and greatness of heart, I can easily show you; what you have for upbraiding and accusation, it is for you to show me!

  XXI

  HOW DID Socrates bear himself in this regard? How else than as became one who was fully assured that he was the kinsman of the Gods?

  XXII

  IF GOD had made that part of His own nature which He severed from Himself and gave to us, liable to be hindered or constrained either by Himself or any other, He would not have been God, nor would He have been taking care of us as He ought. . . . If you choose, you are free; if you choose, you need blame no man— accuse no man. All things will be at once according to your mind and according to the Mind of God.