Discourses 2.13 ¶2 — Epictetus

Epictetus, Discourses 2.13 ¶2

Should I try to please you? Why? I suppose, you know the measure by which one man is estimated by another. Have you taken pains to learn what is a good man and what is a bad man, and how a man becomes one or the other? Why then are you not good yourself? “How,” he replies, “am I not good?” Because no good man laments or groans or weeps, no good man is pale and trembles, or says, “How will he receive me, how will he listen to me?” Slave, just as it pleases him. Why do you care about what belongs to others? Is it now his fault if he receives badly what proceeds from you? “Certainly.” And is it possible that a fault should be one man’s, and the evil in another? “No.” Why then are you anxious about that which belongs to others? “Your question is reasonable; but I am anxious how I shall speak to him.” Cannot you then speak to him as you choose? “But I fear that I may be disconcerted?” If you are going to write the name of Dion, are you afraid that you would be disconcerted? “By no means.” Why? is it not because you have practiced writing the name? “Certainly.” Well, if you were going to read the name, would you not feel the same? and why? Because every art has a certain strength and confidence in the things which belong to it.—Have you then not practiced speaking? and what else did you learn in the school? Syllogisms and sophistical propositions? For what purpose? was it not for the purpose of discoursing skillfully? and is not discoursing skillfully the same as discoursing seasonably and cautiously and with intelligence, and also without making mistakes and without hindrance, and besides all this with confidence? “Yes.” When then you are mounted on a horse and go into a plain, are you anxious at being matched against a man who is on foot, and anxious in a matter in which you are practiced, and he is not? “Yes, but that person (to whom I am going to speak) has power to kill me.” Speak the truth then, unhappy man, and do not brag, nor claim to be a philosopher, nor refuse to acknowledge your masters, but so long as you present this handle in your body, follow every man who is stronger than yourself. Socrates used to practice speaking, he who talked as he did to the tyrants, to the dicasts (judges), he who talked in his prison. Diogenes had practiced speaking, he who spoke as he did to Alexander, to the pirates, to the person who bought him. These men were confident in the things which they practiced. But do you walk off to your own affairs and never leave them: go and sit in a corner, and weave syllogisms, and propose them to another. There is not in you the man who can rule a state.