Page:Discourses of Epictetus volume 2 Oldfather 1928.djvu/385

 serve you, how you are to wear conspicuous clothing, how to have many hunting dogs, citharoedes, and tragedians. I do not lay claim to any of these, do I? You, then, have never concerned yourself with judgements, have you? Or with your own reason, have you? You do not know, do you, what are its constituent parts, how it is composed, what its arrangement is, what faculties it has, and what their nature is? Why, then, are you disturbed if someone else, the man, namely, who has concerned himself with these matters, has the advantage of you therein?—But these are the most important things that there are.—And who is there to prevent you from concerning yourself with these matters, and devoting your attention to them? And who is better provided with books, leisure, and persons to help you? Only begin some time to turn your mind to these matters; devote a little time, if no more, to your own governing principle; consider what this thing is which you possess, and where it has come from, the thing which utilizes everything else, submits everything else to the test, selects, and rejects. But so long as you concern yourself with externals, you will possess them in a way that no one else can match, but you will have this governing faculty in the state in which you want to have it, that is, dirty and neglected. 



bestow either praise or blame upon a man for the things which may be either good or bad, nor 375