FRAGMENTS
feed and shelter it; and when I was younger, there was still another behest which it laid upon me, yet nevertheless I endured it. Why, then, when Nature, which gave us our body, takes it away, do you not bear it?—I love it, says somebody.—Well, but as I was just now saying, is it not Nature that has given you this very affection? But the same Nature also says, "Let it go now, and have no more trouble with it."
24
The same
If a man dies young, he blames the gods <because he is carried off before his time. But if a man fails to die when he is old, he too blames the gods>, because, when it was long since time for him to rest, he has trouble; yet none the less, when death draws nigh, he wishes to live, and sends for the doctor, and implores him to spare no zeal and pains. People are very strange, he used to say, wishing neither to live nor to die.
25
From Epictetus
When you attack someone with vehemence and threatening, remember to tell yourself beforehand that you are a tame animal;[1] and then you will never do anything fierce, and so will come to the end of your life without having to repent, or to be called to account.
- ↑ See IV. 5, 10.
