"Epictetus" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Epictetus taught that no one could be the highest type of philosopher unless in exuberant health. Expressions of Emerson's and Walt Whitman's show how much their spiritual exaltation was bound up with their health conditions and ideals. "Give ...
— How to Live - Rules for Healthful Living Based on Modern Science • Irving Fisher and Eugene Fisk
... excellent philosopher Epictetus, we are all but acting parts in a play; and it is not a distinction in itself to be high or low, but to become the parts we are to perform. I am, by my office, prompter on this occasion, and shall give those who are a ...
— Isaac Bickerstaff • Richard Steele
... Edward Grimeston's translation (1607) of Jean de Serres's Inventaire General de l'Histoire de France. Since that date I owe to Mr. H. Richards, Fellow of Wadham College, Oxford, the important discovery that a number of speeches in the play are borrowed from the Discourses of Epictetus, from whom Chapman drew his conception of the character of Clermont D'Ambois. My brother-in-law, Mr. S. G. Owen, Student of Christ Church, has given me valuable help in explaining some obscure classical ...
— Bussy D'Ambois and The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois • George Chapman
... public affairs; and in the Roman world, for several centuries, the best public men were strongly inclined to Stoicism. Nevertheless, the logical tendency of Stoicism seems to me to be fulfilled only in such men as Diogenes and Epictetus. ...
— Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... gave him his liberty as a reward for his learning and wit. One of the privileges of a freedman in the ancient republics of Greece, was the permission to take an active interest in public affairs; and Aesop, like the philosophers Phaedo, Menippus, and Epictetus, in later times, raised himself from the indignity of a servile condition to a position of high renown. In his desire alike to instruct and to be instructed, he travelled through many countries, and among others came to Sardis, the capital of ...
— Aesop's Fables • Aesop
... celebrated translator of Epictetus. She was now in her seventieth year, and had been for many years an esteemed friend of Dr. Johnson. She died in 1806.-ED. , ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay
... created man in His own image," and long centuries afterwards, in his memorable oration to the wise men of Athens upon Mars' Hill, the Apostle Paul quoted with approval the words of the Greek poet, Cleanthes, who had said: "For we are all His off-spring." Epictetus, appealing to a master on behalf of his slaves, asked: "Wilt thou not remember over whom thou rulest, that they are thy relations, thy brethren by nature, ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... We've had enough, Why, there be other friends to greet us; We'll moralize In solemn wise With Plato or with Epictetus. ...
— A Little Book of Western Verse • Eugene Field
... What we do depends upon what we have been thinking and imagining and feeling. The Great Teacher was right when he bade men refrain not merely from murder, but from angry thoughts; not merely from adultery, but from lustful glances; not merely from perjury, but from the desire to deceive. Epictetus puts it, "What we ought not to do we should not even think of doing." And Marcus Aurelius writes, "We should accustom ourselves to think upon othing that we should hesitate to reveal to others if they asked to know it." This is sound advice. ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... their fitness for food when done, they should never have ventured to recommend them to others: the reader of them will often put the same quaere, as Jeremy, in Congreve's comedy of "Love for Love," when Valentine observes, "There's a page doubled down in Epictetus that is a feast for an emperor.—Jer. Was Epictetus a real cook, or ...
— The Cook's Oracle; and Housekeeper's Manual • William Kitchiner
... cast hither and thither indeed; so may a man be by the chances of fortune. But such adventures are purely external and of very small account. A slave may be dragged through the streets in chains, and yet retain the quiet soul of a philosopher, as was well seen in the person of Epictetus. A man may have every worldly prize in his possession, and stand absolute master of his personal fate, to all appearance, and yet he knows no peace, no certainty, because he is shaken within himself by every tide of thought that ...
— Light On The Path and Through the Gates of Gold • Mabel Collins
... was infected with the Greek keenness for subtle speculation, and the usual Phrygian tendency to superstition and fanaticism. Thirteen miles away, at Hierapolis, was growing into manhood the slave Epictetus, who later on will set out some of the most noble and lofty of pagan thoughts. The persistent love of the people of this neighbourhood for the angel-worship which St. Paul rebukes, is illustrated by the facts that in the 4th century a Church Council at Laodicea condemned the worship of angels, ...
— The Books of the New Testament • Leighton Pullan
... fearfully painful old age, by the continuous use of unsuitable food? That book you gave me, Mr. Ingram, is a wonderful book, but it gives you little consolation if you know another fit is coming on. And what is the good of knowing about Epictetus and Zeno and the rest if you've got rheumatism? Now, I mean to have classes to teach people what they should eat and drink; and I'll do it if you won't assume the guardianship ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 • Various
... Zaleucus, without feeling in one's heart the love of honourable and generous actions. The Romans have their Cicero, who alone is worth perhaps all the philosophers of Greece. After him come men still more worthy of respect, but whom one almost despairs of imitating; Epictetus in bondage, the Antonines and the ...
— Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary • Voltaire
... you. Well, suppose he can't, have you any objection to telling him your story? You, my friend, have, in a signal way, experienced adversity. Tell me, then, for my private good, how, without aid from the noble cripple, Epictetus, you have arrived at ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... Providence of God, discoursed with great plausibility on this subject, but still in reality retained the ancient doctrine of universal fate. From this example, a judgment may be formed concerning the necessity of using some caution, in appealing to the writings of Seneca, Antoninus, and Epictetus, as authorities, in determining what were the original ...
— Ancient and Modern Celebrated Freethinkers - Reprinted From an English Work, Entitled "Half-Hours With - The Freethinkers." • Charles Bradlaugh, A. Collins, and J. Watts
... hurried down the garden-walk now to meet him, and wrung his hand heartily: "Bruce! is it possible? You have not crossed my threshold since the old Epictetus days." ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 20, August 1877 • Various
... mark my points he declared, making his profit out of the mistake, that I was always too rapid. It was like the tyranny of a schoolmaster, the despotism of the rod, of which I can really give you no idea unless I compare myself to Epictetus under the yoke of a malicious child. When we played for money his winnings gave him the meanest and most ...
— The Lily of the Valley • Honore de Balzac
... mortal felicity; but labour in the ethics of faith, built upon heavenly assistance, and the happiness of both beings. Understand the rules, but swear not unto the doctrines of Zeno or Epicurus. Look beyond Antonius, and terminate not thy morals in Seneca or Epictetus. Let not the twelve but the two tables be thy law: let Pythagoras be thy remembrancer, not thy textuary and final instructor: and learn the vanity of the world, rather from Solomon than Phocylydes. Sleep not in the dogmas of the Peripatus, Academy, or Porticus. Be a moralist ...
— Sir Thomas Browne and his 'Religio Medici' - an Appreciation • Alexander Whyte
... shades Of Academus, is this false or true? Is Christ the abler teacher, or the schools? If Christ, then why resort at every turn To Athens or to Rome for wisdom short Of man's occasions, when in Him reside Grace, knowledge, comfort, an unfathomed store? How oft when Paul has served us with a text, Has Epictetus, Plato, Tully, preached! Men that, if now alive, would sit content And humble learners of a Saviour's worth, Preach it who might. Such was their love of truth, Their thirst of ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper
... began by reminding, or rather informing, Lenny Fairfield of all the instances of illustrious men afflicted by the injustice of others that occurred to his own excellent memory. He told him how the great Epictetus, when in slavery, had a master whose favorite amusement was pinching his leg, which, as the amusement ended in breaking that limb, was worse than the stocks. He also told him the anecdote of Lenny's own gallant countryman, Admiral Byng, whose execution gave rise to Voltaire's ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... to be argued. Do the expenses of exorcism fall on landlord or tenant? This, we think, can hardly be decided by a quotation from Epictetus. Alexis Comnenus bids us seek a bishop in the case of psychical phenomena ([Greek]). So Maitre Chopin argues, but he evades the point. Is it not the business of the owner of the house to 'whustle on his ...
— Cock Lane and Common-Sense • Andrew Lang
... which has often sprung From sordid arts, as Florio's out of dung. With what, O Codrus! is thy fancy smit? The flower of learning, and the bloom of wit. The gaudy shelves with crimson bindings glow, And Epictetus is a perfect beau. How fit for thee! bound up in crimson too, Gilt, and, like them, devoted to the view! Thy books are furniture. Methinks 'tis hard That science should be purchas'd by the yard; And Tonson, ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young
... intemperate,[FN215] but accursed poison to the temperate. Some might enjoy a long life, but others would heartily desire to curtail it. Some might groan under a slight indisposition, while others would whistle away a life of serious disease. An Epicure might be taken prisoner by poverty, yet an Epictetus would fearlessly face and vanquish him. How, then, do you distinguish the real cause of pain from that of pleasure? How do you know the causes of one are more numerous than the ...
— The Religion of the Samurai • Kaiten Nukariya
... malice in it; yet mee thinks the judicious peruser may honestly make use of it in the actions of his life, with advantage. The Lamprey, they say, hath a venemous string runs all along the back of it; take that out, and it is serv'd in for a choyce dish to dainty palates; Epictetus the Philosopher, sayes, Every thing hath two handles, as the fire brand, it may be taken up at one end in the bare hand without hurt: the other being laid hold on, will cleave to the very flesh, and the smart of it will pierce even to the heart. Sin hath ...
— Machiavelli, Volume I - The Art of War; and The Prince • Niccolo Machiavelli
... "Epictetus, who lies here, was a slave and a cripple, poor as the beggar in the proverb, and the favourite ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... one of the best tools a minister can have. He should be read in the great literary and sermonic literature, the work of Bossuet, Massillon, Chrysostom, Augustine, Fenelon, Marcus Aurelius, mediaeval homilies, Epictetus, Pascal, Guyon, Amiel, Vinet, La Brunetiere, Phelps, Jeremy Taylor, Barrows, Fuller, Whitefield, Bushnell, Edwards, Bacon, Newman, Ruskin, Carlyle, Emerson, Davies, Law, Bunyan, Luther, Spalding, ...
— The Warriors • Lindsay, Anna Robertson Brown
... Greece and Rome, appear to have been either public or private teachers; generally either of philosophy or of rhetoric. This remark will be found to hold true, from the days of Lysias and Isocrates, of Plato and Aristotle, down to those of Plutarch and Epictetus, Suetonius, and Quintilian. To impose upon any man the necessity of teaching, year after year, in any particular branch of science seems in reality to be the most effectual method for rendering him completely master of it himself. By ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... Epictetus has the same idea. In a passage reported by Arrian, he says, "but where are you going? It cannot be to a place of suffering: you will only return to the place from whence you came; you are about to be again peaceably ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 1 • Baron D'Holbach
... many more beautiful words to the same effect. It was the language of a statesman with aspirations and convictions. It sounded splendidly. Mr. Lodge is a classical scholar, and one wonders whether he remembers his Epictetus: "But you utter your elegant words only from your lips; for this reason they are without strength and dead, and it is nauseous to listen to your exhortations and your miserable virtue; which is ...
— The Mirrors of Washington • Anonymous
... these and other discouraging circumstances among the Romans, their slaves were often their rarest artists. They excelled too in science, insomuch as to be usually employed as tutors to their master's children; Epictetus, Terence and Phaedrus, were slaves,—but they were of the race of whites. It is not their condition then, but nature, ...
— Walker's Appeal, with a Brief Sketch of His Life - And Also Garnet's Address to the Slaves of the United States of America • David Walker and Henry Highland Garnet
... strong drink was brought among them. When all was in vain, he would go weeping away into the woods, and hide himself there till the hateful fire-water was all consumed and the madness over. Brainerd was greatly touched by this red-skinned Epictetus, who, he said, had more honesty, sincerity, and conscientiousness than he had ever met with in an Indian, and more of the temper of true religion; and he expounded to him the Christian doctrine with great carefulness and double earnestness. The self-taught philosopher broke in now and then with ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... as he caught the ball with difficulty, "the gallop from Lorium has made me somewhat stiff of joint, and I pitch and catch but poorly. Keep the pila flying, and I may grow more elastic, though just now I feel much like our last text from Epictetus, that the good Rusticus gave us yesterday—'a little ...
— Historic Boys - Their Endeavours, Their Achievements, and Their Times • Elbridge Streeter Brooks
... taken of the moral principles inculcated by the most esteemed of the sects of ancient philosophy, or of their individuals; particularly Pythagoras, Socrates, Epicurus, Cicero, Epictetus, Seneca, Antoninus. ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... of, while, as far as profane history goes back, we cannot fail to see proofs of the existence of slavery. "No legislator of history," says Voltaire, "attempted to abrogate slavery. Society was so accustomed to this degradation of the species, that Epictetus, who was assuredly worth more than his master, never expresses any surprise at his being a slave." Egypt, Sparta, Athens, Carthage, and Rome had their thousands of slaves. In the Bible, the best and chosen servants of God owned slaves, while in profane ...
— Aunt Phillis's Cabin - Or, Southern Life As It Is • Mary H. Eastman
... is met with. None but the most illogical and purposely ignorant of religious apologists will admit that the life of Jesus has been misrepresented by his followers to suit their particular aims. Had the followers of the moralist Epictetus or the Rabbi Hillel written lives of these two teachers they would be quite similar to the reputed life of Jesus. The moral sentiments attributed to Christ in the Gospels were borrowed from the Jewish rabbis and the numerous cults that flourished in ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks
... black, dry, but perfectly serene. He said nothing, but munched his crust of bread with good appetite, and bestowed a caress from time to time on his beloved, on the miserable bedstead that took up two-thirds of his room. If I had never learnt before that happiness resides in the soul, my Epictetus of Hyacinth Street would have ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists (Vol 1 of 2) • John Morley
... Slavery, for example, is abase thing; but a servile mind in a free man is contemptible. The labors of the slave, on the contrary, are not so when his feelings are not servile. Far from this, a base condition, when joined to elevated feelings, can become a source of the sublime. The master of Epictetus, who beat him, acted basely, and the slave beaten by him showed a sublime soul. True greatness, when it is met in a base condition, is only the more brilliant and splendid on that account: and the artist must not fear to show us his heroes even under a contemptible ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... in her bosom bred. By great examples daily fed, What in the best of books, her father's life, she read: And to be read herself she need not fear; Each test, and every light, her Muse will bear, Though Epictetus with his lamp were there. Even love (for love sometimes her Muse express'd) Was but a lambent flame which play'd about her breast: Light as the vapours of a morning dream, So cold herself, whilst she such warmth express'd, 'Twas Cupid bathing in ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... rather shadows, from the four corners of the earth and from the remotest ages of recorded history. Thus Diogenes talks with Plato, AEsop with a young slave girl in Egypt, Henry VIII with Anne Boleyn in prison, Dante with Beatrice, Leofric with Lady Godiva,—all these and many others, from Epictetus to Cromwell, are brought together and speak of life and love and death, each from his own view point. Occasionally, as in the meeting of Henry and Anne Boleyn, the situation is tense and dramatic; but as a rule the characters simply meet and converse in the same quiet ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... another life, by the moral virtue which he had practised before meeting with Peter, but by his penitence for sin and faith in Jesus Christ, whom Peter preached to him as the Saviour from sin (Acts x. 43). Good works can no more prepare a pagan for eternity than they can a nominal Christian. Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius could no more be justified by their personal character, than Saul of Tarsus could be. First, because the virtue is imperfect, at the best: and, secondly, it does not begin at the beginning of existence upon earth, and continue unintermittently to the end of it. A sense of sin ...
— Sermons to the Natural Man • William G.T. Shedd
... Captain Link's study—the bookcase, by the way, contains Burton's Thousand and One Nights, the Discourses of Epictetus, and President Eliot's tabloid classics—is the skull in question, surmounted by a Moro fez. Across the front of the fez is printed this ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell
... Greek scholar. The selection was hailed with relief. Frank hastened to the Taylor home, a trim, white dwelling on California street near Webster. He found a genial, curly-haired old gentleman sitting in a room about whose walls were thousands of books. He was reading Epictetus. ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... demonstrate to the widows of Scindiah the folly of suttee? Don't you know that it has been an expensive work to persuade the Khonds of Goomsoor to give up roasting each other in the name of Heaven? Very fine is Epictetus,—but wilt he be your bail? Will Diogenes bring home legs of mutton? Can you breakfast upon the simple fact that riches have wings and use them? Can you lunch upon vanitas vanitatum? Are loaves and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... amphitheatre by apes or foxes, with a vast audience looking on. Well, well, if any one does cast reflections of that sort upon us, we shall at least have a precedent to plead. Arrian himself, disciple of Epictetus, distinguished Roman, and product of lifelong culture as he was, had just our experience, and shall make our defence. He condescended, that is, to put on record the life of the robber Tilliborus. ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... know likewise," says Epictetus, "that you are a brother too; and that to this character it belongs to make concessions, to be easily persuaded, to use gentle language, never to claim for yourself any non-essential thing, but cheerfully to give up these to be repaid ...
— Why Worry? • George Lincoln Walton, M.D.
... reason and nature, and its self sufficiency to happiness, which many of them, especially the stoics,—the most rigid moralists among them,—carried to a very high degree. Cicero, in his Offices, and those excellent philosophers, Epictetus and Marcus Antoninus, in their works, which seem to be the best moral treatises pagan antiquity has left us, go upon this scheme. They were sensible, indeed that, in order to recommend virtue to the esteem of mankind, and engage them to pursue it, ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... had moments of repulsion against her own act, moments in which she could not help admiring the grandeur of such simplicity. This game of choicest coquetry attached her, insensibly, to her slave. At last, however, Diane grew impatient with an Epictetus of love; and when she thought she had trained him to the utmost credulity, she set to work to tie a thicker bandage still ...
— The Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan • Honore de Balzac
... admirably, therefore, than Platonically does Simplicius, in his Commentary of Epictetus, observe on this subject as follows: "The fountain and principle of all things is the good: for that which all things desire, and to which all things are extended, is the principle and the end of all things. The good also produces from ...
— Introduction to the Philosophy and Writings of Plato • Thomas Taylor
... great variety of topics. Mme. de Bregy, poet, dame d'honneur and femme d'esprit, who amused the little court of Mademoiselle with so many discreetly flattering pen-portraits, has left two badly written and curiously spelled notes upon the merits of Socrates and Epictetus, which throw a ray of light upon the tastes of this aristocratic and rather speculative circle. Mme. de Sable writes an essay upon the education of children, which is very much talked about, also a characteristic paper upon friendship. The latter is little more than a series of detached sentences, ...
— The Women of the French Salons • Amelia Gere Mason
... all you hearts Of beauty, and sweet righteous lovers large: Aurelius fine, oft superfine; mild Saint A Kempis, overmild; Epictetus, Whiles low in thought, still with old slavery tinct; Rapt Behmen, rapt too far; high Swedenborg, O'ertoppling; Langley, that with but a touch Of art hadst sung Piers Plowman to the top Of English songs, whereof 'tis dearest, now, And most adorable; Caedmon, in the morn A-calling angels with ...
— The Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier
... and admirable philosopher, Epictetus, discovered that "happiness is not in strength, or wealth, or power; or all three. It lies in ourselves, in true freedom, in the conquest of every ignoble fear, in perfect self-government, in a power of contentment and peace, and the even ...
— The Girl Wanted • Nixon Waterman
... Johnson, upon hearing a lady commended for her learning, said:—'A man is in general better pleased when he has a good dinner upon his table than when his wife talks Greek. My old friend, Mrs. Carter, could make a pudding as well as translate Epictetus.' Johnson's Works (1787), xi. 205. Johnson, joining her with Hannah More and Fanny Burney, said:—'Three such women are not to be found.' Post, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... rose to brave them: let them do their worst! he would be a man still! True, his courage had a cry at the heart of it; but there was not a little of the stoic in Richard, and if it was not the stoicism of Epictetus or of Marcus Aurelius, there was yet some timely, transient help in it. He was doing the best he could without God; and sure the Father was pleased to see the effort of his child! To suffer in patience was a step toward himself. No doubt self ...
— There & Back • George MacDonald
... who cannot take this view; who look upon the gospel as simply the best exposition of national religion ever given, without any other breath of inspiration upon the record than such as was breathed upon the pages of Plato or Epictetus. Now, if they went further, and disowned the very spirit of Jesus, rejected the very essence of the gospel, certainly they would not be Christians. But this they do not; on the contrary, they reverently and heartily ...
— Autobiography and Letters of Orville Dewey, D.D. - Edited by his Daughter • Orville Dewey
... pagan or agnostic, we were to remember that all men had one religion; when considering some mystic or spiritualist, we were only to consider what absurd religions some men had. We could trust the ethics of Epictetus, because ethics had never changed. We must not trust the ethics of Bossuet, because ethics had changed. They changed in two hundred years, but ...
— Orthodoxy • G. K. Chesterton
... and, by a natural reaction on years of vice and violence, there was a considerable growth of lofty and tender, and often impracticable, sentiments. Moralists urged men to avoid anger, to bear blows with dignity, to greet all men as brothers, even to love their enemies. Plato and Epictetus and Plutarch and Seneca and Marcus Aurelius urged these maxims as forcibly as Christ did. The Stoic religion or philosophy, which guided Emperors and lawyers, and had a very wide influence in the Roman world, was intensely and quite modernly humanitarian. Its principal exponents condemned ...
— The War and the Churches • Joseph McCabe
... or Plato and Xenophon. Marcus Aurelius Antoninus' Meditations. Epictetus Seneca. The Hitopadion and Dialogues of Krishna. St. Augustine's Confessions. Jeremy Taylor. Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. ...
— Life and Conduct • J. Cameron Lees
... soul, it appears to me that there can be little doubt, if we attend to the action of the mind for a moment: it is in perpetual activity. I used to doubt it, but reflection has taught me better. The stoics Epictetus and Aurelius call the present state 'a soul which draws a carcass'—a heavy chain, to be sure, but all chains, being material, may be shaken off. How far our future life will be individual, or, rather, how far it will at all resemble our ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... Monsieur Bayou's book-shelves, to bring away the volumes they had been accustomed to see their father read. This thought entered Aimee's mind when she saw him, busy as he was, carefully pocket the Epictetus he had been reading the night before. Monsieur Papalier was reading, while Therese was making packages of comforts for him. He observed the boy and girl, and when he found that the books they took were for their father, he muttered over the volume ...
— The Hour and the Man - An Historical Romance • Harriet Martineau
... with no armour save those which Nature provides. She was not specially an exile from civilisation; churches and philosophers had striven and demonstrated for thousands of years, and yet she was no better protected than if Socrates, Epictetus, and all ecclesiastical establishments from the time ...
— Miriam's Schooling and Other Papers - Gideon; Samuel; Saul; Miriam's Schooling; and Michael Trevanion • Mark Rutherford
... epicurean weakness. When he has killed a sparrow, he eats the brains first; after that, if he is still hungry, he devours the coarser and less savory parts. In this, however, he only shares the well-nigh universal inconsistency. There are never many thorough-going stoics in the world. Epictetus declared with an oath that he should be glad to see one.[7] To take everything as equally good, to know no difference between bitter and sweet, penury and plenty, slander and praise,—this is a great attainment, ...
— Birds in the Bush • Bradford Torrey
... an interview with M. de Saci (carefully reported by the latter), in which the conversation was on the subject of Montaigne and Epictetus contrasted,—these two authors Pascal acknowledged to be the ones most constantly in his hand,—said gently of Montaigne, "Montaigne is absolutely pernicious to those who have any inclination toward irreligion, or toward vicious indulgences." ...
— Classic French Course in English • William Cleaver Wilkinson
... there will rise up, by the side of us, a sect like that of Epictetus, you know him well; the philosopher of Hieropolis, he who called bread luxury, vegetables prodigality, and clear water drunkenness; he who, being beaten by his master, said to him, grumbling a little it is true, but without being angry, 'I will lay a wager you have ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... fulness—energy, variety, and choice of experience, including [152] noble pain and sorrow even, loves such as those in the exquisite old story of Apuleius, sincere and strenuous forms of the moral life, such as Seneca and Epictetus—whatever form of human life, in short, might be heroic, impassioned, ideal: from these the "new Cyrenaicism" of Marius took its criterion of values. It was a theory, indeed, which might properly be regarded ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume One • Walter Horatio Pater
... helpfulness for existence; not the new gospel of competition, but the old gospel of brotherhood. Tolstoy came to proclaim the gospel of God, the gospel of man, the gospel of Christ, the gospel of Socrates, the gospel of Epictetus, of Aurelius, of Carlyle, of Emerson,—the gospel of reverence before God and love to man, which is indeed ever old, but which, alas! the sons of Darkness see to it that it ...
— Lectures on Russian Literature - Pushkin, Gogol, Turgenef, Tolstoy • Ivan Panin
... who felt themselves cramped by it. Whatever in other respects might be their faults of style and matter, they were, at all events, in no point what some sermons were called—'Stoical Essays,' 'imitations from a Christian pulpit of Seneca and Epictetus.'[1206] There were many mannerisms, and there was much want of breadth of thought, but in heart and purpose it was a true preaching ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... of modern times, Goethe and Wordsworth, have won tranquillity. They, too, become his teachers. Arnold's chief guides for life are, then, these: two Greek poets, Sophocles and Homer; two ancient philosophers, Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus; two modern poets, Goethe ...
— Selections from the Prose Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... face the thought of danger, death, change, here in Rome than elsewhere. K. told me she felt it when we met at the Cemetery at her poor old aunt's grave. To die here might seem, one would think, more like re-entering into the world's outer existence, returning, as Epictetus has it, where one is wanted. The cypresses of the graveyard, there under the city walls, among the ruins, do not seem to unite folk with the terrible unity Death, so much as with the everlasting ...
— The Spirit of Rome • Vernon Lee
... degenerate tyrants would undoubtedly have been less complete than it now is; and Dio was quite enough of an egotist to believe that his own life and work were of paramount importance. If we compare him unfavorably with Epictetus, we must remember that the latter was obscure ...
— Dio's Rome, Volume 1 (of 6) • Cassius Dio
... that the source did not matter; that truth from Shakespeare, Epictetus, or Aristotle was quite as valuable as from the Scriptures. We were on common ground now. He mentioned Marcus Aurelius, the Stoics, and their blameless lives. I, still pursuing the thought ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine |
