"Epictetus - Golden Sayings of Epictetus" - читать интересную книгу автора (Epictetus)

"Nay, but it is a proper place."

"And how many more of the sort there may be; only to pass
through upon thy way! Thy purpose was to return to thy country;
to relieve thy kinsmen's fears for thee; thyself to discharge the
duties of a citizen; to marry a wife, to beget offspring, and to
fill the appointed round of office. Thou didst not come to choose
out what places are most pleasant; but rather to return to that
wherein thou wast born and where wert appointed to ba a citizen."


III



Try to enjoy the great festival of life with other men.


IV



But I have one whom I must please, to whom I must be
subject, whom I must obey:-- God, and those who come next to Him.
He hath entrusted me with myself: He hath made my will subject to
myself alone and given me rules for the right use thereof.


V



Rufus used to say, If you have leisure to praise me, what I
say is naught. In truth he spoke in such wise, that each of us
who sat there, though that some one had accused him to Rufus:-- so
surely did he lay his finger on the very deeds we did: so surely
display the faults of each before his very eyes.


VI



But what saith God?-- "Had it been possible, Epictetus, I
would have made both that body of thine and thy possessions free
and unimpeded, but as it is, be not deceived:-- it is not thine
own; it is but finely tempered clay. Since then this I could not
do, I have given thee a portion of Myself, in the power of
desiring and declining and of pursuing and avoiding, and is a