gifts? And will you not keep your oath when you have sworn it?
And what oath will you swear? Never to disobey, never to arraign
or murmur at aught that comes to you from His hand: never
unwillingly to do or suffer aught that necessity lays upon you.
"Is this oath like theirs?"
They swear to hold no other dearer than Caesar: you, to hold
our true selves dearer than all else beside.

XXXVIII

"How shall my brother cease to be wroth with me?"
Bring him to me, and I will tell him. But to thee I have
nothing to say about his anger.

XXXIX

When one took counsel of Epictetus, saying, "What I seek is
this, how even though my brother be not reconciled to me, I may
still remain as Nature would have me to be," he replied: "All
great things are slow of growth; nay, this is true even of a
grape or of a fig. If then you say to me now, I desire a fig, I
shall answer, It needs time: wait till it first flower, then cast
its blossom, then ripen. Whereas then the fruit of the fig-tree
reaches not maturity suddenly nor yet in a single hour, do you
nevertheless desire so quickly, and easily to reap the fruit of
the mind of man?-- Nay, expect it not, even though I bade you!"

XL

Epaphroditus had a shoemaker whom he sold as being good-for-nothing.
This fellow, by some accident, was afterwards
purchased by one of Caesar's men, and became a shoemaker to
Caesar. You should have seen what respect Epaphroditus paid him
then. "How does the good Felicion? Kindly let me know!" And if
any of us inquired, "What is Epaphroditus doing?" the answer was,
"He is consulting about so and so with Felicion."-- Had he not
sold him as good-for-nothing? Who had in a trice converted him
into a wiseacre?
This is what comes of holding of importance anything but the
things that depend on the Will.

XLI

What you shun enduring yourself, attempt not to impose on
others. You shun slavery-- beware of enslaving others! If you can
endure to do that, one would thing you had been once upon a time
a slave yourself. For Vice has nothing in common with virtue, nor
Freedom with slavery.

XLII