Epictetus · c. 50 – c. 135 CE
Discourses 2.23 ¶4 — Epictetus
From “On the Power of Speaking”
Translation by George Long (1877)
Epictetus, Discourses 2.23 ¶4
Then being so great a faculty and set over all the rest, let it (the will) come forward and tell us that the most excellent of all things is the flesh. Not even if the flesh itself declared that it is the most excellent, would any person bear that it should say this. But what is it, Epicurus, which pronounces this, which wrote about the End (purpose) of our Being, which wrote on the Nature of Things, which wrote about the Canon (rule of truth), which led you to wear a beard, which wrote when it was dying that it was spending the last and a happy day? Was this the flesh or the will? Then do you admit that you possess anything superior to this (the will)? and are you not mad? are you in fact so blind and deaf?
Cite this passage
Epictetus, Discourses 2.23 ¶4, tr. George Long (1877)
https://whatwouldstoicsdo.com/passage/discourses/2.23.4
Epictetus, Discourses (as recorded by Arrian), tr. George Long (1877). Text: Standard Ebooks (CC0). Sources and licences
In plain English
AI-written notesA taunt aimed at Epicurus: the writings that praised bodily pleasure as the highest good came from his mind and will, not his flesh, so by writing them he already treats something in himself as superior to the body.
Older wording
- “Canon”
- — a rule or standard for judging truth
Themes and situations
- Judgements and impressions
- Pleasure and pain
- Learning and progress
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