Epictetus, Discourses, 4.3.7--12

 

Epictetus, Discourses, 4.3.7--12

"Pay attention to your impressions, keep a watchful eye on them. It’s no little

thing that you are guarding, but decency, integrity, robustness, serenity, the

absence of pain, fear, and disturbance—to sum it up, freedom. What are you

going to sell all these for? Look at what your purchase is worth.

      But I shall not get anything comparable in return. 

When you do get something, look at what you are taking in place of what you

are giving up. I take modesty, he takes high offices of state [literally a tribunate

or a praetorship], I take integrity. But I don’t make a big noise where it is out of

place. I will not stand up where I shouldn’t. For I am free and a friend of God,

with the purpose of obeying him willingly. I shouldn’t lay claim to anything else.

Not body, or property, or public position, or reputation—quite simply, nothing. For

he does not want me to claim them. If he had wanted me to, he would have

made them good for me. But he has not done so. I therefore cannot disobey his

instructions.

Guard your own good in everything; and, for the rest, be satisfied with just what

you have been given so long as you can exercise good reasoning in it. If not,

you will have an unhappy life; you will be thwarted and impeded. These are the

laws dispatched from God; these are his commandments. It is in these that you

should make yourself an expert; make yourself subordinate to these, and not to

the laws of Masurius and Cassius. (4.3.7–12)" (Tr. A. A. Long, pp.188--9).

A. A. Long (2002). Epictetus: A Stoic and Socratic Guide to Life