The Discourses of Epictetus

 Table of Contents

 BOOK ONE

 Chapter 1

 Chapter 2

 Chapter 3

 Chapter 4

 Chapter 5

 Chapter 6

 Chapter 7

 Chapter 8

 Chapter 9

 Chapter 10

 Chapter 11

 Chapter 12

 Chapter 13

 Chapter 14

 Chapter 15

 Chapter 16

 Chapter 17

 Chapter 18

 Chapter 19

 Chapter 20

 Chapter 21

 Chapter 22

 Chapter 23

 Chapter 24

 Chapter 25

 Chapter 26

 Chapter 27

 Chapter 28

 Chapter 29

 Chapter 30

 BOOK TWO

 Chapter 1

 Confidence then ought to be employed against death, and caution against the fear of death. But now we do the contrary, and employ against death the at

 Chapter 2

 Chapter 3

 Chapter 4

 Chapter 5

 Chapter 6

 Chapter 7

 Chapter 8

 Such will I show myself to you, faithful, modest, noble, free from perturbation. What, and immortal too, exempt from old age, and from sickness? No,

 Chapter 9

 Chapter 10

 Chapter 11

 Chapter 12

 Well then the matter is not now very safe, and particularly at Rome for he who attempts to do it, must not do it in a corner, you may be sure, but m

 Chapter 13

 For this reason when Zeno was going to meet Antigonus, he was not anxious, for Antigonus had no power over any of the things which Zeno admired and Z

 Chapter 14

 Chapter 15

 Chapter 16

 See how tragedy is made when common things happen to silly men.

 Chapter 17

 Chapter 18

 Chapter 19

 Of things some are good, some are bad, and others are indifferent. The good then are the virtues and the things which partake of the virtues the bad

 Chapter 20

 Chapter 21

 Chapter 22

 Do you think that Admetus did not love his own child when he was little? that he was not in agony when the child had a fever? that he did not often sa

 Such are the wishes that they utter.

 Chapter 23

 Then having this purpose before you, if some little form of expression pleases you, if some theorems please you, do you abide among them and choose t

 Chapter 24

 Chapter 25

 Chapter 26

 BOOK THREE

 Chapter 1

 Was Hermes going to descend from heaven to say this to him? And now the Gods say this to you and send the messenger, the slayer of Argus, to warn you

 Chapter 2

 Chapter 3

 Chapter 4

 Chapter 5

 Chapter 6

 Chapter 7

 Chapter 8

 Chapter 9

 Chapter 10

 And we ought to retain these verses in such way that we may use them, not that we may utter them aloud, as when we exclaim Paean Apollo. Again in fe

 Chapter 11

 This, then, may be applied even to a father: I must not, even if a worse man than you should come, treat a father unworthily-, for all are from pater

 Chapter 12

 Chapter 13

 Chapter 14

 Chapter 15

 Chapter 16

 Chapter 17

 Chapter 18

 Chapter 19

 Chapter 20

 Chapter 21

 Chapter 22

 And what does he say himself?

 Wretch, which of your affairs goes badly? Your possessions? No. Your body? No. But you are rich in gold and copper. What then is the matter with you?

 whose duty it is to look after others, the married and those who have children to see who uses his wife well, who uses her badly who quarrels what

 he answered, when he was half-asleep,

 But before all the Cynic's ruling faculty must be purer than the sun and, if it is not, he must be a cunning knave and a fellow of no principle, sinc

 and also, If so it pleases the gods, so let it be why should he not have confidence to speak freely to his own brothers, to his children, in a word

 So he was conscious of his own qualification, and knew her weakness.

 Chapter 23

 Chapter 24

 And still earlier it was the fortune of Hercules to visit all the inhabited world

 casting out and clearing away their lawlessness and introducing in their place good rules of law. And yet how many friends do you think that he had in

 Chapter 25

 Chapter 26

 Relying on what? Not on reputation nor on wealth nor on the power of a magistrate, but on his own strength, that is, on his opinions about the things

 BOOK FOUR

 Chapter 1

 But what do you say, philosopher? The tyrant summons you to say something which does not become you. Do you say it or do you not? Answer me. Let me c

 Chapter 2

 Chapter 3

 Chapter 4

 Is it your will that I should go to Rome? I will go to Rome. To Gyara? I will go to Gyara. I will go to Athens? I will go to Athens. To prison? I will

 Chapter 5

 Chapter 6

 he transfers to these things. Where have I failed in the matters pertaining to flattery? What have I done? Anything like a free man, anything like

 Chapter 7

 Chapter 8

 And not this only, but he neither desires nor seeks anything, nor man nor place nor amusement, as children seek the vintage or holidays always fortif

 Chapter 9

 Chapter 10

 Why is this your ill? Do you, then, instead of removing it, blame your mother for not foretelling it to you that you might continue grieving from that

 Chapter 11

 For Aristophanes says of Socrates that he also walked the air and stole clothes from the palaestra. But all who have written about Socrates bear exact

 Chapter 12

 Chapter 13

Table of Contents

BOOK ONE

  1. Of the things which are in our Power, and not in our Power
  2. How a Man on every occasion can maintain his Proper Character
  3. How a man should proceed from the principle of God being the father of all men to the rest
  4. Of progress or improvement
  5. Against the academics
  6. Of providence
  7. Of the use of sophistical arguments, and hypothetical, and the like
  8. That the faculties are not safe to the uninstructed
  9. How from the fact that we are akin to God a man may proceed to the consequences
  10. Against those who eagerly seek preferment at Rome
  11. Of natural affection
  12. Of contentment
  13. How everything may he done acceptably to the gods
  14. That the deity oversees all things
  15. What philosophy promises
  16. Of providence
  17. That the logical art is necessary
  18. That we ought not to be angry with the errors of others
  19. How we should behave to tyrants
  20. About reason, how it contemplates itself
  21. Against those who wish to be admired
  22. On precognitions
  23. Against Epicurus
  24. How we should struggle with circumstances
  25. On the same
  26. What is the law of life
  27. In how many ways appearances exist, and what aids we should provide against them
  28. That we ought not to be angry with men; and what are the small and the great things among men
  29. On constancy
  30. What we ought to have ready in difficult circumstances

BOOK TWO

  1. That confidence is not inconsistent with caution
  2. Of Tranquillity
  3. To those who recommend persons to philosophers
  4. Against a person who had once been detected in adultery
  5. How magnanimity is consistent with care
  6. Of indifference
  7. How we ought to use divination
  8. What is the nature of the good
  9. That when we cannot fulfill that which the character of a man promises, we assume the character of a philosopher
  10. How we may discover the duties of life from names
  11. What the beginning of philosophy is
  12. Of disputation or discussion
  13. On anxiety
  14. To Naso
  15. To or against those who obstinately persist in what they have determined
  16. That we do not strive to use our opinions about good and evil
  17. How we must adapt preconceptions to particular cases
  18. How we should struggle against appearances
  19. Against those who embrace, philosophical opinions only in words
  20. Against the Epicureans and Academics
  21. Of inconsistency
  22. On friendship
  23. On the power of speaking
  24. To a person who was one of those who was not valued by him
  25. That logic is necessary
  26. What is the property of error

BOOK THREE

  1. Of finery in dress
  2. In what a man ought to be exercised who has made proficiency; and that we neglect the chief things
  3. What is the matter on which a good man should he employed, and in what we ought chiefly to practice ourselves
  4. Against a person who showed his partisanship in an unseemly way in a theatre
  5. Against those who on account of sickness go away home
  6. Miscellaneous
  7. To the administrator of the free cities who was an Epicurean
  8. How we must exercise ourselves against appearances
  9. To a certain rhetorician who was going up to Rome on a suit
  10. In what manner we ought to bear sickness
  11. Certain miscellaneous matters
  12. About exercise
  13. What solitude is, and what kind of person a solitary man is
  14. Certain miscellaneous matters
  15. That we ought to proceed with circumspection to everything
  16. That we ought with caution to enter, into familiar intercourse with men
  17. On providence
  18. That we ought not to be disturbed by any news
  19. What is the condition of a common kind of man and of a philosopher
  20. That we can derive advantage from all external things
  21. Against those who readily come to the profession of sophists
  22. About cynicism
  23. To those who read and discuss for the sake of ostentation
  24. That we ought not to be moved by a desire of those things which are not in our power
  25. To those who fall off from their purpose
  26. To those who fear want

BOOK FOUR

  1. About freedom
  2. On familiar intimacy
  3. What things we should exchange for other things
  4. To those who are desirous of passing life in tranquility
  5. Against the quarrelsome and ferocious
  6. Against those who lament over being pitied
  7. On freedom from fear
  8. Against those who hastily rush into the use of the philosophic dress
  9. To a person who had been changed to a character of shamelessness
  10. What things we ought to despise, and what things we ought to value
  11. About Purity
  12. On attention
  13. Against or to those who readily tell their own affairs