Discourses 3.23 ¶4 — Epictetus

Epictetus, Discourses 3.23 ¶4

Does a philosopher invite people to hear him? As the sun himself draws men to him, or as food does, does not the philosopher also draw to him those who will receive benefit? What physician invites a man to be treated by him? Indeed I now hear that even the physicians in Rome do invite patients, but when I lived there, the physicians were invited. I invite you to come and hear that things are in a bad way for you, and that you are taking care of everything except that of which you ought to take care, and that you are ignorant of the good and the bad and are unfortunate and unhappy. A fine kind of invitation: and yet if the words of the philosopher do not produce this effect on you, he is dead, and so is the speaker. Rufus was used to say: “If you have leisure to praise me, I am speaking to no purpose.” Accordingly he used to speak in such a way that every one of us who were sitting there supposed that someone had accused him before Rufus: he so touched on what was doing, he so placed before the eyes every man’s faults.