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Enchiridion (Dover Thrift Editions: Philosophy)

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Enchiridion (Dover Thrift Editions: Philosophy)

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Highlights & Notes

In the Stoic view, our capacity to be happy is completely dependent on ourselves—how we treat ourselves, how we relate to others, and how we react to events in general. Events are good or bad only in terms of our reaction to them. We must not try to predict or control what happens, but merely to accept events with equanimity. The only thing we control is our will, and God has given us a will that cannot be influenced or thwarted by external events—unless we allow it. We are not responsible for the ideas or events that present themselves to us, but only for the ways in which we act on them.

Men are disturbed not by the things which happen, but by the opinions about the things:

It is the act of an ill-instructed man to blame others for his own bad condition; it is the act of one who has begun to be instructed, to lay the blame on himself; and of one whose instruction is completed, neither to blame another, nor himself.

Seek not that the things which happen should happen as you wish; but wish the things which happen to be as they are, and you will have a tranquil flow of life.

Disease is an impediment to the body, but not to the will, unless the will itself chooses. Lameness is an impediment to the leg, but not to the will. And add this reflection on the occasion of everything that happens; for you will find it an impediment to something else, but not to yourself.

On the occasion of every accident (event) that befalls you, remember to turn to yourself and inquire what power you have for turning it to use.

Whoever then wishes to be free, let him neither wish for anything nor avoid anything which depends on others: if he does not observe this rule, he must be a slave.

Remember that in life you ought to behave as at a banquet. Suppose that something is carried round and is opposite to you. Stretch out your hand and take a portion with decency. Suppose that it passes by you. Do not detain it. Suppose that it is not yet come to you. Do not send your desire forward to it, but wait till it is opposite to you.

When you see a person weeping in sorrow either when a child goes abroad or when he is dead, or when the man has lost his property, take care that the appearance do not hurry you away with it, as if he were suffering in external things.6 But straightway make a distinction in your own mind, and be in readiness to say, it is not that which has happened that afflicts this man, for it does not afflict another, but it is the opinion about this thing which afflicts the man. So far as words then do not be unwilling to show him sympathy,7 and even if it happens so, to lament with him. But take care that you do not lament internally also.

Remember that it is not he who reviles you or strikes you, who insults you, but it is your opinion about these things as being insulting. When then a man irritates you, you must know that it is your own opinion which has irritated you. Therefore especially try not to be carried away by the appearance. For if you once gain time and delay, you will more easily master yourself.

If it should ever happen to you to be turned to externals in order to please some person, you must know that you have lost your purpose in life.

  • life issue

But if you ask me to lose the things which are good and my own, in order that you may gain the things which are not good, see how unfair and silly you are.

When you have decided that a thing ought to be done and are doing it, never avoid being seen doing it, though the many shall form an unfavorable opinion about it. For if it is not right to do it, avoid doing the thing; but if it is right, why are you afraid of those who shall find fault wrongly?

These reasonings do not cohere: I am richer than you, therefore I am better than you; I am more eloquent than you, therefore I am better than you. On the contrary these rather cohere, I am richer than you, therefore my possessions are greater than yours: I am more eloquent than you, therefore my speech is superior to yours. But you are neither possession nor speech.

If you wish to be good, first believe that you are bad.

It is better to do wrong seldom and to own it, and to act right for the most part, than seldom to admit that you have done wrong and to do wrong often.

The bond of the body is loosened by nature through death, and by vice through money:25 but the bond of the soul is loosened by learning, and by experience and by discipline.

Those who are well constituted in the body endure both heat and cold: and so those who are well constituted in the soul endure both anger and grief and excessive joy and the other affects.

Wealth is not one of the good things; great expenditure is one of the bad; moderation is one of the good things. And moderation invites to frugality and the acquisition of good things: but wealth invites to great expenditure and draws us away from moderation. It is difficult then for a rich man to be moderate, or for a moderate man to be rich.

It is not poverty which produces sorrow, but desire; nor does wealth release from fear, but reason (the power of reasoning). If then you acquire this power of reasoning, you will neither desire wealth nor complain of poverty.

Make your manner of eating neither luxurious nor gloomy, but lively and frugal, that the soul may not be perturbed through being deceived by the pleasures of the body, and that it may despise them; and that the soul may not be injured by the enjoyment of present luxury and the body may not afterward suffer from disease.29

In banquets remember that you entertain two guests, body and soul: and whatever you shall have given to the body you soon eject: but what you shall have given to the soul, you keep always.

If you seek truth, you will not seek by every means to gain a victory; and if you have found truth, you will have the gain of not being defeated.

If you wish your house to be well managed, imitate the Spartan Lycurgus. For as he did not fence his city with walls, but fortified the inhabitants by virtue and preserved the city always free;35 so do you not cast around (your house) a large court and raise high towers, but strengthen the dwellers by good-will and fidelity and friendship, and then nothing harmful will enter it, not even if the whole band of wickedness shall array itself against it.

Forgiveness is better than revenge: for forgiveness is the sign of a gentle nature, but revenge the sign of a savage nature.

You will do the greatest services to the state, if you shall raise not the roofs of the houses, but the souls of the citizens: for it is better that great souls should dwell in small houses than for mean slaves to lurk in great houses.

Do not decorate the walls of your house with the valuable stones from Eubœa and Sparta; but adorn the minds (breasts) of the citizens and of those who administer the state with the instruction which comes from Hellas (Greece). For states are well governed by the wisdom (judgment) of men, but not by stone and wood.

As the sun does not wait for prayers and incantations to be induced to rise, but immediately shines and is saluted by all: so do you also not wait for clappings of hands, and shouts and praise to be induced to do good, but be a doer of good voluntarily, and you will be beloved as much as the sun.

To the longer life and the worse, the shorter life, if it is better, ought by all means to be preferred.

A man should choose (pursue) not every pleasure, but the pleasure which leads to goodness.

No man is free who is not master of himself.

In prosperity it is very easy to find a friend; but in adversity it is most difficult of all things.

Epictetus being asked how a man should give pain to his enemy answered, By preparing himself to live the best life that he can.

Choose the best life, for custom (habit) will make it pleasant.

Be careful to leave your sons well instructed rather than rich, for the hopes of the instructed are better than the wealth of the ignorant.

Be free from grief not through insensibility like the irrational animals, nor through want of thought like the foolish, but like a man of virtue by having reason as the consolation of grief.

You are a little soul carrying a dead body, as Epictetus said.

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