Epictetus · c. 50 – c. 135 CE
Discourses 3.23 ¶5 — Epictetus
From “To Those Who Read and Discuss for the Sake of Ostentation”
Translation by George Long (1877)
Epictetus, Discourses 3.23 ¶5
The philosopher’s school, ye men, is a surgery: you ought not to go out of it with pleasure, but with pain. For you are not in sound health when you enter: one has dislocated his shoulder, another has an abscess, a third a fistula, and a fourth a headache. Then do I sit and utter to you little thoughts and exclamations that you may praise me and go away, one with his shoulder in the same condition in which he entered, another with his head still aching, and a third with his fistula or his abscess just as they were? Is it for this then that young men shall quit home, and leave their parents and their friends and kinsmen and property, that they may say to you, “Wonderful!” when you are uttering your exclamations. Did Socrates do this, or Zeno, or Cleanthes?
Cite this passage
Epictetus, Discourses 3.23 ¶5, tr. George Long (1877)
https://whatwouldstoicsdo.com/passage/discourses/3.23.5
Epictetus, Discourses (as recorded by Arrian), tr. George Long (1877). Text: Standard Ebooks (CC0). Sources and licences
In plain English
AI-written notesA philosophy class should work like a clinic: you arrive with injuries and ought to leave with something treated, which may hurt, not with a pleasant feeling and compliments for the speaker. Learning that does not change you has not done its job.
Older wording
- “fistula”
- — an abnormal channel or running sore
- “surgery”
- — a doctor's clinic
- “abscess”
- — a swollen, infected sore
Themes and situations
- Learning and progress
- Virtue and character
- Pride and humility
- Speech and silence
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