Golden Sayings   

torture, exile, stripes--in a word, to render up all that is not
thine own? Else thou wilt be a slave amid slaves, wert thou ten
thousand times a consul; aye, not a whit the less, though thou
climb the Palace steps. And thou shalt know how true the saying
of Cleanthes, that though the words of philosophers may run
counter to the opinions of the world, yet have they reason on
their side.

CXLII

Asked how a man should best grieve his enemy, Epictetus
replied, "By setting himself to live the noblest life himself."

CXLIV

I am free, I am a friend of God, ready to render Him willing
obedience. Of all else I may set store by nothing--neither by
mine own body, nor possessions, nor office, nor good report, nor,
in a word, aught else beside. For it is not His Will, that I
should so set store by these things. Had it been His pleasure, He
would have placed my Good therein. But now He hath not done so:
therefore I cannot transgress one jot of His commands. In
everything hold fast to that which is thy Good--but to all else
(as far as is given thee) within the measure of Reason only,
contented with this alone. Else thou wilt meet with failure, ill
success, let and hindrance. These are the Laws ordained of God--
these are His Edicts; these a man should expound and interpret;
to these submit himself, not to the laws of Masurius and
Cassius.

CXLV

Remember that not the love of power and wealth sets us under
the heel of others, but even the love of tranquillity, of
leisure, of change of scene--of learning in general, it matters
not what the outward thing may be--to set store by it is to place
thyself in subjection to another. Where is the difference then
between desiring to be a Senator, and desiring not to be one:
between thirsting for office and thirsting to be quit of it?
Where is the difference between crying, Woe is me, I know not
what to do, bound hand and foot as I am to my books so that I
cannot stir! and crying, Woe is me, I have not time to read! As
though a book were not as much an outward thing and independent
of the will, as office and power and the receptions of the great.
Or what reason hast thou (tell me) for desiring to read? For
if thou aim at nothing beyond the mere delight of it, or gaining
some scrap of knowledge, thou art but a poor, spiritless knave.
But if thou desirest to study to its proper end, what else is
this than a life that flows on tranquil and serene? And if thy
reading secures thee not serenity, what profits it?--"Nay, but it