Page:Discourses of Epictetus.djvu/471

 then? is the soul pleased and made tranquil by the pleasures of the body which are smaller, as Epicurus says; and is it not pleased with its own good things, which are the greatest? And indeed nature has given to me modesty, and I blush much when I think of saying any thing base (indecent). This motion (feeling) does not permit me to make (consider) pleasure the good and the end (purpose) of life.

In Rome the women have in their hands Plato's Polity (the Republic), because it allows (advises) the women to be common, for they attend only to the words of Plato, not to his meaning. Now he does not recommend marriage and one man to cohabit with one woman, and then that the women should be common but he takes away such a marriage, and introduces another kind of marriage. And in fine, men are pleased with finding excuses for their faults. Yet philosophy says that we ought not to stretch out even a finger without a reason.

Of pleasures those which occur most rarely give the greatest delight.

If a man should transgress moderation, the things which give the greatest delight would become the things which give the least.

It is just to commend Agrippinus for this reason, that though he was a man of the highest worth, he never praised himself; but even if another person praised him, he would blush. And he was such a man (Epictetus said) that he would write in praise of any thing disagreeable that befel him; if it was a fever, he would write of a fever; if he was disgraced, he would write of disgrace; if he were banished, of banishment. And on one occasion (he mentioned) when he was going to dine, a messenger