Discourses 1.29 ¶5–6 — Epictetus

Epictetus, Discourses 1.29 ¶5–6

Then sitting in prison I say: The man who cries out in this way neither hears what words mean, nor understands what is said, nor does he care at all to know what philosophers say or what they do. Let him alone. But now he says to the prisoner, “Come out from your prison.”—If you have no further need of me in prison, I come out: if you should have need of me again, I will enter the prison.—“How long will you act thus?”—So long as reason requires me to be with the body: but when reason does not require this, take away the body, and fare you well. Only we must not do it inconsiderately, nor weakly, nor for any slight reason; for, on the other hand, God does not wish it to be done, and he has need of such a world and such inhabitants in it. But if he sounds the signal for retreat, as he did to Socrates, we must obey him who gives the signal, as if he were a general.