United States or Vatican City ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Instead of ennobling my spirit it only tired my brain and ended up in making me so mad I flung the book into the wood-box.... Dinky-Dunk has just pinned a piece of paper on my door; it is a sentence from Epictetus. And it says: "Better it is that great souls should live in small habitations than that abject slaves should burrow in great houses!" Sunday the Eighteenth
If you had the moon you wouldn't be any happier. Then you lie awake half the night repining because the last post has brought a letter to the effect that 'the Board cannot entertain your application for, etc. You say the two cases are not alike. They are not. Your child has never heard of Epictetus. On the other hand, justice is the moon. At your age you surely know that.
If Seneca sought for EASE, the grand aim of Epictetus was FREEDOM, of Marcus Aurelius was SELF-GOVERNMENT. This difference of aim characterises their entire philosophy, though all three of them are filled with precepts which arise from the Stoical contempt of opinion, of fortune, and of death.
It was at this time that he had acquired the power of reading enough to seek for books; and the books that he had got hold of were Epictetus, and some fragments of Fenelon. With all the force of youth, he had been by turns the stoic and the quietist; and, while busied in submitting himself to the pressure of the present, he had turned from the past, and scarcely dreamed of the future.
See the good Aurelius, in later and more corrupt ages, forsaking the pleasures of an imperial throne, that he might meditate on his soul's welfare, or the slave Epictetus, unfolding the richest lessons of moral wisdom to a corrupt and listless generation. The loftier forms of the ancient philosophy were never popular, even at Athens.
How my father went on, in my opinion, deserves a chapter to itself. ... And a chapter it shall have, and a devil of a one too so look to yourselves. 'Tis either Plato, or Plutarch, or Seneca, or Xenophon, or Epictetus, or Theophrastus, or Lucian or some one perhaps of later date either Cardan, or Budaeus, or Petrarch, or Stella or possibly it may be some divine or father of the church, St.
The Poet, speaking in his own person, may at once delight and improve us by sentiments, which teach us the independence of goodness, of wisdom, and even of genius, on the favours of fortune. And having made a due reverence before the throne of Antonine, he may bow with equal awe before Epictetus among his fellow-slaves "and rejoice In the plain presence of his dignity."
In his Epictetus there is the following note: 'Bought in May 1785, the first book printed on vellum that entered my library; rather luxurious for a young fellow of seventeen, but then all my little savings were devoted to acquiring books; parties of pleasure, and elegancies of toilette, everything was sacrificed to my beloved books; and at that time a brisk and brilliant business permitted expenses which were followed by hard years of privation; it was in my first youth that I found it easiest to spend money on my books. Renouard began life as a manufacturer.
Maelius, who had the highest philosophic reputation among them, once when I was present, happened to get into a great rage with his people, and as though he had received an intolerable injury, exclaimed, 'I cannot endure it; you are killing me; why, you'll make me like him! pointing to me," evidently as if Epictetus were the merest insect in existence. And, again he says in the Manual.
As regards my own peculiar position, I feel that my first duty is to present an example of reverence and affection for my country, and not of a selfish ambition. I may have other personal reasons also, tending to the same conclusion." "Some favourite passages in Epictetus, perhaps, or in the Bible," said Jacques: "some reasons confirmed by the whispers of the priests.
Word Of The Day