Epictetus · c. 50 – c. 135 CE
Discourses 4.11 ¶6 — Epictetus
From “About Purity (Cleanliness)”
Translation by George Long (1877)
Epictetus, Discourses 4.11 ¶6
What then? does any man (that is, do I) require you to ornament yourself? Far from it; except to ornament that which we really are by nature: the rational faculty, the opinions, the actions; but as to the body only so far as purity, only so far as not to give offense. But if you are told that you ought not to wear garments dyed with purple, go and daub your cloak with muck or tear it. “But how shall I have a neat cloak?” Man, you have water; wash it. Here is a youth worthy of being loved, here is an old man worthy of loving and being loved in return, a fit person for a man to entrust to him a son’s instruction, to whom daughters and young men shall come, if opportunity shall so happen, that the teacher shall deliver his lessons to them on a dunghill. Let this not be so: every deviation comes from something which is in man’s nature; but this (deviation) is near being something not in man’s nature.
Cite this passage
Epictetus, Discourses 4.11 ¶6, tr. George Long (1877)
https://whatwouldstoicsdo.com/passage/discourses/4.11.6
Epictetus, Discourses (as recorded by Arrian), tr. George Long (1877). Text: Standard Ebooks (CC0). Sources and licences
In plain English
AI-written notesCare for your appearance only as far as cleanliness and not offending others, and put your real effort into improving your reasoning, judgements and actions. You do not need fine clothes, but there is no virtue in squalor either, and nobody can teach or be admired while looking neglected.
Older wording
- “rational faculty”
- — your reasoning mind
- “daub”
- — smear roughly
Themes and situations
- Virtue and character
- Self-discipline and habit
- Learning and progress
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