12 Dec The road that leads to freedom (EPICTETUS)
He is free, whom none can hinder, the man who can deal with things as he wishes. But the man who can be hindered or compelled or fettered or driven into anything against his will, is a slave. And who is he whom none can hinder? The man who fixes his aim on nothing that is not his own. And what does ‘not his own’ mean? All that it does not lie in our power to have or not to have, or to have of a particular quality or under particular conditions. The body then does not belong to us, its parts do not belong to us, our property does not belong to us. If then you set your heart on one of these as though it were your own, you will pay the penalty deserved by him who desires what does not belong to him. The road that leads to freedom, the only release from slavery is this, to be able to say with your whole soul:
Whither ordainèd is by your decree.
[Cleanthes]
But, what say you, my philosopher, suppose the tyrant call on you to say something unworthy of you? Do you assent or refuse? Tell me.
‘Let me think it over.’
You will think it over now, will you? And what, pray, did you think over when you were at lecture? Did you not study what things are good and what are evil, and what are neither?
‘Yes, I did.’
What conclusion did you approve then?
‘That things right and noble were good, things wrong and shameful bad.’
Is life a good thing?
‘No.’
Is death evil?
‘No.’
Is prison?
‘No.’
And what did you think of ignoble and faithless speech, and treachery to a friend and flattery of a tyrant?
‘We thought them evil.’
Why do you ask the question now, then? You should have asked it and made up your mind long ago.
SOURCE : sacred-texts.com
IMAGE : bookpress.gr