A Guide to Stoicism 4 ¶49–50 — St. George Stock (modern guide)

St. George Stock (modern guide), A Guide to Stoicism 4 ¶49–50

As to the absence of pity in the sage, the Stoics themselves must have felt some difficulty there since we find Epictetus recommending his hearers to show grief out of sympathy for another, but to be careful not to feel it. The inexorability of the sage was a mere consequence of his calm reasonableness, which would lead him to take the right view from the first. Lastly, the sage would never be stirred to anger. For why should it stir his anger to see another in his ignorance injuring himself? One more touch has yet to be added to the apathy of the sage. He was impervious to wonder. No miracle of nature could excite his astonishment--no mephitic caverns, which men deemed the mouths of hell, no deep-drawn ebb tides--the standing marvel of the Mediterranean dweller, no hot springs, no spouting jets of fire.