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Epictetus · Discourses

Discourses, "How from the Fact That We Are Akin to God a Man May Proceed to the Consequences" (§1)

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I indeed think that the old man ought to be sitting here, not to contrive how you may have no mean thoughts nor mean and ignoble talk about yourselves, but to take care that there be not among us any young men of such a mind, that when they have recognized their kinship to God, and that we are fettered by these bonds, the body, I mean, and its possessions, and whatever else on account of them is necessary to us for the economy and commerce of life, they should intend to throw off these things as if they were burdens painful and intolerable, and to depart to their kinsmen. But this is the labor that your teacher and instructor ought to be employed upon, if he really were what he should be.
Epictetus·Discourses, "How from the Fact That We Are Akin to God a Man May Proceed to the Consequences" (§1)·trans. Long
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