All the Works of Epictetus, Which Are Now Extant/Book 1/Chapter 30
CHAPTER XXX.
What we ought to have ready, in difficult Circumstances.
§. 1.When you are going to any of the Great remember, that there is Another, who sees from Above, what passes; and whom you ought to please, rather than Man. He, therefore, asks you:
In the Schools, what did you use to call Exile, and Prison, and Chains, and Death, and Defamation?
I? Indifferent Things.
What, then, do you call them now? Are they at all changed?
No.
Are you changed, then?
No.
Tell me, then, what Things are indifferent.
Things independent on Choice.
Tell me the Consequence too.
Things independent on Choice, are nothing to me.
Tell me, likewise, what appeared to us, to be the Good of Man.
A right Choice, and a [right] Use of the Appearances of Things.
What his End?
To follow Thee.
Do you the same Things now, too?
Yes. I do the same Things, even now.
Well, go in, then, boldly, and mindful of these Things; and he [to whom you are going] will see, what a Youth, who hath studied what he ought, is among Men, who have not. I protest, I imagine you will have such Thoughts as these: "Why do we provide so many and great Qualifications, for nothing? Is the Power, the Antechamber, the Attendants, the Guards, no more than this? Is it for these, that I have listen'd to so many Dissertations? These are nothing: and I had qualified myself as for some great Encounter."
End of the First Book.