dots-menu
×

Home  »  On Friendship  »  XCIV

Epictetus. (c.A.D. 50–c.A.D. 138). The Golden Sayings of Epictetus.
The Harvard Classics. 1909–14.

XCIV

Whether you will or no, you are poorer than I!

“What then do I lack?”

What you have not: Constancy of mind, such as Nature would have it to be: Tranquillity. Patron or no patron, what care I? but you do care. I am richer than you: I am not racked with anxiety as to what Cæsar may think of me; I flatter none on that account. This is what I have, instead of vessels of gold and silver! your vessels may be of gold, but your reason, your principles, your accepted views, your inclinations, your desires are of earthenware.