Page:Discourses of Epictetus.djvu/460



life which is implicated with fortune (depends on fortune) is like a winter torrent: for it is turbulent, and full of mud, and difficult to cross, and tyrannical, and noisy, and of short duration.

A soul which is conversant with virtue is like an ever flowing source, for it is pure and tranquil and potable and sweet and communicative (social), and rich and harmless and free from mischief.

If you wish to be good, first believe that you are bad.

It is better to do wrong seldom and to own it, and to act right for the most part, than seldom to admit that you have done wrong and to do wrong often.

Check (punish) your passions, that you may not be punished by them.

Do not so much be ashamed of that (disgrace) which proceeds from men's opinion as fly from that which comes from the truth.

If you wish to be well spoken of, learn to speak well (of others) and when you have learned to speak well of them, try to act well, and so you will reap the fruit of being well spoken of.

Freedom and slavery, the one is the name of virtue, and the other of vice: and both are acts of the will. But where there is no will, neither of them touches (affects)