That alone is in our power, which is our own work; and in this class are our opinions, impulses, desires, and aversions. On the contrary, what is not in our power, are our bodies, possessions, glory, and power. Any delusion on this point leads to the greatest errors, misfortunes, and troubles, and to the slavery of the soul. [38] Jonathan Barnes, Logic and Imperial Stoa, Leiden: Brill, 1997 (Chapter Three: Epictetuts, pp.24–127). [ ISBNmissing] This is a manual for Business Ethics 101. The following metaphor is not original to me, but imagine your life as placed on a wheel with spokes. If you focus your life in the center, the hub, then when the wheel turns, as it must, you will be moved, to be sure, but you won’t be thrown over the place.

Simplicius, Commentary on the Enchiridion, 46. It is possible that he married her, but Simplicius' language on that subject is ambiguous. Percy Ewing Matheson, (1916), Epictetus: The Discourses and Manual together with Fragments of his Writings. (Oxford University Press) The main point of the Discourses can be summed up in a couple sentences: If it is under your control, change it. If it's not under your control, don't worry about it. Jones, Daniel; Roach, Peter, James Hartman and Jane Setter, eds. Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary. 17th edition. Cambridge UP, 2006. Origen's Contra Celcus, Book vii, episode is in chapter LIII, with a secondary mention of the episode in chapter LIV.

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My dear Lucillius Make this your business in life: Learn to share the Joy of a Soul Happy and Confident, lifted above every circumstance " Seneca Epistles a b Heinrich Ritter, Alexander James William Morrison, (1846), The History of Ancient Philosophy, Volume 4, p. 206 Aurelius was one of the most powerful men of his time and Seneca was one of the wealthiest of his. Epictetus was at the other end of the spectrum Only the internal world is within our control. This is what Epictetus calls the “realm of choice.” We cannot choose our circumstances, but we can choose how we react to those circumstances. We cannot, for example, prevent ourselves from being robbed; but we can choose not to place value in our jewelry, and so maintain peace of mind in the event of a robbery. Everything, even our lives and our loved ones, only has value because we give it value with our minds. You can laugh at your own executioner if you don’t regard execution as an evil. This power—the power to change our attitude towards the external world—Epictetus regards as the ultimate and quintessential human faculty. This is the power of choice, and constitutes human freedom. It is thought that the Bodleian manuscript may be a copy of one owned by Arethas of Caesarea in the early 10th century. [26] Arethas was an important collector of manuscripts and he is also responsible for transmitting a copy of Marcus Aurelius' Meditations. [26] The Bodleian manuscript contains marginal notes which have been identified as by Arethas. [26]

We are like travellers at an inn or guests at a stranger's table; whatever is offered we take with thankfulness, and sometimes, when the turn comes, we may refuse; in the former case we are a worthy guest of the deities, and in the latter we appear as a sharer in their power. [64] Anyone who finds life intolerable is free to quit it, but we should not abandon our appointed role without sufficient reason. [65] The Stoic sage will never find life intolerable and will complain of no one, neither deity nor human. [66] Those who go wrong we should pardon and treat with compassion, since it is from ignorance that they err, being as it were, blind. [67]

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True education lies in learning to distinguish what is our own from what does not belong to us. [15] But there is only one thing which is fully our own: that which is our will or choice ( prohairesis). [15] The use which we make of the external impressions is our one chief concern, and upon the right kind of use depends exclusively our happiness. [16] If you consider yourself as a human being and as a part of some whole, it may be in the interest of the whole that you should now fall ill, now embark on a voyage and be exposed to danger, now suffer poverty, and perhaps even die before your time. Why do you resent this, then? Don’t you know that in isolation a foot is no longer a foot, and that you likewise will no longer be a human being? What, then, is a human being? A part of a city, first of all that which is made up of gods and human beings, then that which is closest to us and which we call a city, which is a microcosm of the universal city.