Discourses 2.15 ¶2 — Epictetus

Epictetus, Discourses 2.15 ¶2

Now this man was with difficulty persuaded to change his mind. But it is impossible to convince some persons at present; so that I seem now to know what I did not know before, the meaning of the common saying: That you can neither persuade nor break a fool. May it never be my lot to have a wise fool for my friend: nothing is more untractable, “I am determined,” the man says. Madmen are also; but the more firmly they form a judgment on things which do not exist, the more hellebore they require. Will you not act like a sick man and call in the physician?—“I am sick, master, help me; consider what I must do: it is my duty to obey you.” So it is here also: I know not what I ought to do, but I am come to learn. “Not so; but speak to me about other things: upon this I have determined.” What other things? for what is greater and more useful than for you to be persuaded that it is not sufficient to have made your determination and not to change it. This is the tone (energy) of madness, not of health. “I will die, if you compel me to this.” Why, man? What has happened? “I have determined.” I have had a lucky escape that you have not determined to kill me. “I take no money.” Why? “I have determined.” Be assured that with the very tone (energy) which you now use in refusing to take, there is nothing to hinder you at some time from inclining without reason to take money and then saying, “I have determined.” As in a distempered body, subject to defluxions, the humor inclines sometimes to these parts, and then to those, so too a sickly soul knows not which way to incline: but if to this inclination and movement there is added a tone (obstinate resolution), then the evil becomes past help and cure.