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Monday, January 13, 2020

Epictetus, Golden Sayings 114


How can it be that one who has nothing, neither raiment, nor house, nor home, nor bodily tendance, nor servant, nor city, should yet live tranquil and contented? 

Behold God has sent you a man to show you in act and deed that it may be so. Behold me! I have neither house nor possessions nor servants; the ground is my couch; I have no wife, no children, no shelter—nothing but earth and sky, and one poor cloak. 

And what lack I yet? Am I not untouched by sorrow, by fear? Am I not free? . . . When have I laid anything to the charge of God or Man? When have I accused any? Have any of you seen me with a sorrowful countenance? And in what way treat I those of whom you stand in fear and awe? Is it not as slaves? Who when he sees me does not think that he beholds his Master and his King? 

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