speech and such communication as you receive here, you must advance to
perfection, and purge your will, and correct the faculty which makes
use of the appearances of things; and since it is necessary also for
the teaching of theorems to be effected by a certain mode of
expression and with a certain variety and sharpness, some persons
captivated by these very things abide in them, one captivated by the
expression, another by syllogisms, another again by sophisms, and
still another by some other inn of the kind; and there they stay and
waste away as if they were among Sirens.
Man, your purpose was to make yourself capable of using
conformably to nature the appearances presented to you, in your
desires not to be frustrated, in your aversion from things not to fall
into that which you would avoid, never to have no luck, nor ever to
have bad luck, to be free, not hindered, not compelled, conforming
yourself to the administration of Zeus, obeying it, well satisfied
with this, blaming no one, charging no one with fault, able from
your whole soul to utter these verses:

"Lead me, O Zeus, and thou, too, Destiny."

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 dwell o well there, forgetting the things at home, and do
you say, "These things are fine"? Who says that they are not fine? but
only as being a way home, as inns are. For what hinders you from being
an unfortunate man, even if you speak like Demosthenes? and what
prevents you, if you can resolve syllogisms like Chrysippus, from
being wretched, from sorrowing, from envying, in a word, from being
disturbed, from being unhappy? Nothing. You see then that these were
inns, worth nothing; and that the purpose before you was something
else. When I speak thus to some persons, they think that I am
rejecting care about speaking, or care about theorems. I am not
rejecting this care, but I am rejecting the abiding about these things
incessantly and putting our hopes in them. If a man by this teaching
does harm to those who listen to him, reckon me too among those who do
this harm: for I am not able, when I see one thing which is most
excellent and supreme, to say that another is so, in order to please
you.

CHAPTER 24

To a person who was one of those who was not valued by him

A certain person said to him: "Frequently I desired to hear you
and came to you, and you never gave me any answer: and now, if it is
possible, I entreat you to say something to me." Do you think, said
Epictetus, that as there is an art in anything else, so there is
also an art in speaking, and that he who has the art, will speak
skillfully, and he who has not, will speak unskillfully? "I do think
so." He, then, who by speaking receives benefit himself and is able to