Page:Discourses of Epictetus volume 2 Oldfather 1928.djvu/321

 spent to no purpose, and all the pains you are now taking with yourself you are sure to spill out utterly and upset. Little is needed to ruin and upset everything, only a slight aberration from reason. For the helmsman to upset his ship he does not need the same amount of preparation that he does to keep it safe; but if he heads it a little too much into the wind, he is lost; yes, even if he does nothing by his own deliberate choice, but merely falls to thinking about something else for a moment, he is lost. In life also it is very much the same; if you doze but for a moment, all that you have amassed hitherto is gone. Pay attention, therefore, to your sense-impressions, and watch over them sleeplessly. For it is no small matter that you are guarding, but self-respect, and fidelity, and constancy, a state of mind undisturbed by passion, pain, fear, or confusion—in a word, freedom. What are the things for which you are about to sell these things? Look, how valuable are they?—But, you say, I shall not get anything of that kind in return for what I am giving up.—Observe also, when you do get something in the exchange, just what it is you are getting for what you give up. "I have a modest behaviour, he has a tribuneship; he has a praetorship, I have self-respect. But I do not shout where it is unseemly; I shall not stand up where I ought not; for I am a free man and a friend of God, so as to obey Him of my own free will. No other thing ought I to claim, not body, or property, or office, or reputation—nothing, in short; nor does 311