Discourses 3.26 ¶2 — Epictetus

Epictetus, Discourses 3.26 ¶2

“Yes: but my wife and children also suffer hunger.”—Well then, does their hunger lead to any other place? Is there not the same descent to some place for them also? Is not there the same state below for them? Do you not choose then to look to that place full of boldness against every want and deficiency, to that place to which both the richest and those who have held the highest offices, and kings themselves, and tyrants must descend? or to which you will descend hungry, if it should so happen, but they burst by indigestion and drunkenness. What beggar did you hardly ever see who was not an old man, and even of extreme old age? But chilled with cold, day and night, and lying on the ground, and eating only what is absolutely necessary, they approach near to the impossibility of dying. Cannot you write? Cannot you teach (take care of) children? Cannot you be a watchman at another person’s door?—“But it is shameful to come to such a necessity.”—Learn then first what are the things which are shameful, and then tell us that you are a philosopher: but at present do not, even if any other man call you so, allow it.