Remember when I used to post loads in this thread? Yeah, me too. We looked at Zen, didn't we, yes we did, and it's parents Taoism and Buddhism, Epicurus too I think, maybe a few others. Well I'm back! No more Taoism, I promise, well... not for a little while anyway.
Today we're gonna be looking at Epictetus. Who? Epictetus! Exciting, right? You betya.
So who was Epictetus? He was an ex-slave who, after being granted freedom, became a Stoic philosopher. What's so special about him? Well, despite being a slave and made lame by an unkindly master, he remained calm and cheerful. Or to put it another way - he had what most would regard as a bloody awful life but he didn't whine or even feel bad about it. But most importantly, his words are still relevant today.
Good books on Epictetus I hear you cry? Enchiridion (Dover Thrift Editions) is a good little book and consists solely of his teachings, and also Discourses and Selected Writings (Penguin Classics) which is a little more fleshed out and arguably the better read. If you like Marcus Aurelius and Seneca, and even Buddhist psychology, then you'll probably enjoy Epictetus. So what was his teaching? This:
Men are disturbed, not by things, but by what they think of things.
Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants.
If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid.
Attach yourself to what is spiritually superior, regardless of what other people think or do. Hold to your true aspirations no matter what is going on around you.
It is impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows.
None is a slave whose acts are free.
All religions must be tolerated… for every man must get to heaven in his own way.
First learn the meaning of what you say, and then speak.
Seek not the good in external things; seek it in yourselves.
He who laughs at himself never runs out of things to laugh at.
Any person capable of angering you becomes your master.
I am not Eternity, but a human being—a part of the whole, as an hour is part of the day. I must come like the hour, and like the hour must pass!
No thing great is created suddenly, any more than a bunch of grapes or a fig. If you tell me that you desire a fig, I answer you that there must be time. Let it first blossom, then bear fruit, then ripen.
A man should so live that his happiness shall depend as little as possible on external things.
A ship should not ride on a single anchor, nor life on a single hope.
Even as the Sun doth not wait for prayers and incantations to rise, but shines forth and is welcomed by all: so thou also wait not for clapping of hands and shouts and praise to do thy duty; nay, do good of thine own accord, and thou wilt be loved like the Sun.
Don’t seek to have events happen as you wish, but wish them to happen as they do happen, and all will be well with you.
What a man.
All that copying n pasting when I could have posted this:
