A life at odds with Fortune resembles a wintry torrent, for it is turbulent, muddy, difficult to pass, violent, noisy and brief; A soul conversant with virtue resembles a perpetual fountain; for it is clear, gentle, agreeable, sweet, serviceable, rich, harmless and innocent. They who have a good constitution of body can bear heat and cold; and so they who have a right constitution of soul can meet anger and […]
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“The Discourses of Epictetus” by Epictetus
A critic like Nietzsche might say that Stoicism is the philosophy of the slaves, just as religion is the opiate of the masses, or that a Stoic desperately rationalizes to make his miserable life more endurable, just as an Existentialist tries desperately to justify his own existence. However, reading the Discourses of Epictetus, who was born a slave and crippled later in life, I didn’t detect any baseness, slavishness, self-pity […]
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