Skip to content
What Would Stoics Do

Epictetus · c. 50 – c. 135 CE

Discourses 1.22 ¶3 — Epictetus

From “On Precognitions”

Translation by George Long (1877)

Epictetus, Discourses 1.22 ¶3

Let us then transfer the notion of good to these things. Is it possible then, when a man sustains damage and does not obtain good things, that he can be happy? It is not possible. And can he maintain towards society a proper behavior? He cannot. For I am naturally formed to look after my own interest. If it is my interest to have an estate in land, it is my interest also to take it from my neighbour. If it is my interest to have a garment, it is my interest also to steal it from the bath. This is the origin of wars, civil commotions, tyrannies, conspiracies. And how shall I be still able to maintain my duty towards Zeus? for if I sustain damage and am unlucky, he takes no care of me; and what is he to me if he cannot help me; and further, what is he to me if he allows me to be in the condition in which I am? I now begin to hate him. Why then do we build temples, why set up statues to Zeus, as well as to evil demons, such as to Fever; and how is Zeus the Saviour, and how the giver of rain, and the giver of fruits? And in truth if we place the nature of Good in any such things, all this follows.
— Epictetus, Discourses 1.22 ¶3 · tr. George Long (1877)Read in context →

Cite this passage

Epictetus, Discourses 1.22 ¶3, tr. George Long (1877)

https://whatwouldstoicsdo.com/passage/discourses/1.22.3

Epictetus, Discourses (as recorded by Arrian), tr. George Long (1877). Text: Standard Ebooks (CC0). Sources and licences

Read Book I, Chapter 22 in context →

In plain English

AI-written notes

If you treat health, property and other outside things as the real goods, then losing them makes happiness impossible and your own advantage will push you to take from others. That would explain wars, plots and tyranny, and even turn you against the gods who failed to protect you, so the good must lie elsewhere.

Older wording

“civil commotions”
— riots and civil unrest

Themes and situations

  • Virtue and character
  • Justice and fairness
  • Community and our duty to others
  • Desire and craving
  • An ethical dilemma
  • Money, status and wanting more

Quote cards

The opening line of this passage as an image, with its citation — for sharing or keeping.

Epictetus, Discourses 1.22 ¶3, tr. George Long (1877)