"Discourses" - читать интересную книгу автора (Epictetus)

going to do? Shall we amputate this member and return to the
gymnasium?" But the athlete persisted in his resolution and died. When
some one asked Epictetus how he did this, as an athlete or a
philosopher, "As a man," Epictetus replied, "and a man who had been
proclaimed among the athletes at the Olympic games and had contended
in them, a man who had been familiar with such a place, and not merely
anointed in Baton's school. Another would have allowed even his head
to be cut off, if he could have lived without it. Such is that
regard to character which is so strong in those who have been
accustomed to introduce it of themselves and conjoined with other
things into their deliberations."

"Come, then, Epictetus, shave yourself." "If I am a philosopher,"
I answer, "I will not shave myself." "But I will take off your
head?" If that will do you any good, take it off.

Some person asked, "How then shall every man among us perceive
what is suitable to his character?" How, he replied, does the bull
alone, when the lion has attacked, discover his own powers and put
himself forward in defense of the whole herd? It is plain that with
the powers the perception of having them is immediately conjoined;
and, therefore, whoever of us has such powers will not be ignorant
of them. Now a bull is not made suddenly, nor a brave man; but we must
discipline ourselves in the winter for the summer campaign, and not
rashly run upon that which does not concern us.

Only consider at what price you sell your own will; if for no
other reason, at least for this, that you sell it not for a small sum.
But that which is great and superior perhaps belongs to Socrates and
such as are like him. "Why then, if we are naturally such, are not a
very great number of us like him?" Is it true then that all horses
become swift, that all dogs are skilled in tracking footprints? "What,
then, since I am naturally dull, shall I, for this reason, take no
pains?" I hope not. Epictetus is not superior to Socrates; but if he
is not inferior, this is enough for me; for I shall never be a Milo,
and yet I do not neglect my body; nor shall I be a Croesus, and yet
I do not neglect my property; nor, in a word, do we neglect looking
after anything because we despair of reaching the highest degree.

CHAPTER 3

How a man should proceed from the principle of God being the
father of all men to the rest

If a man should be able to assent to this doctrine as he ought, that
we are all sprung from God in an especial manner, and that God is
the father both of men and of gods, I suppose that he would never have
any ignoble or mean thoughts about himself. But if Caesar should adopt
you, no one could endure your arrogance; and if you know that you
are the son of Zeus, will you not be elated? Yet we do not so; but