"Discourses" - читать интересную книгу автора (Epictetus)

as in the case of assent the persuasion that a thing is so, and in the
case of dissent the persuasion that a thing is not so, and in the case
of a suspense of judgment the persuasion that a thing is uncertain, so
also in the case of a movement toward anything the persuasion that a
thing is for a man's advantage, and it is impossible to think that one
thing is advantageous and to desire another, and to judge one thing to
be proper and to move toward another, why then are we angry with the
many? "They are thieves and robbers," you may say. What do you mean by
thieves and robbers? "They are mistaken about good and evil." Ought we
then to be angry with them, or to pity them? But show them their
error, and you will see how they desist from their errors. If they
do not see their errors, they have nothing superior to their present
opinion.

"Ought not then this robber and this adulterer to be destroyed?"
By no means say so, but speak rather in this way: "This man who has
been mistaken and deceived about the most important things, and
blinded, not in the faculty of vision which distinguishes white and
black, but in the faculty which distinguishes good and bad, should
we not destroy him?" If you speak thus, you will see how inhuman
this is which you say, and that it is just as if you would say, "Ought
we not to destroy this blind and deaf man?" But if the greatest harm
is the privation of the greatest things, and the greatest thing in
every man is the will or choice such as it ought to be, and a man is
deprived of this will, why are you also angry with him? Man, you ought
not to be affected contrary to nature by the bad things of another.
Pity him rather: drop this readiness to be offended and to hate, and
these words which the many utter: "These accursed and odious fellows."
How have you been made so wise at once? and how are you so peevish?
Why then are we angry? Is it because we value so much the things of
which these men rob us? Do not admire your clothes, and then you
will not be angry with the thief. Do not admire the beauty of your
wife, and you will not be angry with the adulterer. Learn that a thief
and an adulterer have no place in the things which are yours, but in
those which belong to others and which are not in your power. If you
dismiss these things and consider them as nothing, with whom are you
still angry? But so long as you value these things, be angry with
yourself rather than with the thief and the adulterer. Consider the
matter thus: you have fine clothes; your neighbor has not: you have
a window; you wish to air the clothes. The thief does not know wherein
man's good consists, but he thinks that it consists in having fine
clothes, the very thing which you also think. Must he not then come
and take them away? When you show a cake to greedy persons, and
swallow it all yourself, do you expect them not to snatch it from you?
Do not provoke them: do not have a window: do not air your clothes.
I also lately had an iron lamp placed by the side of my household
gods: hearing a noise at the door, I ran down, and found that the lamp
had been carried off. I reflected that he who had taken the lamp
had done nothing strange. What then? To-morrow, I said, you will
find an earthen lamp: for a man only loses that which he has. "I