Epictetus · c. 50 – c. 135 CE
Discourses 3.26 ¶7 — Epictetus
From “To Those Who Fear Want”
Translation by George Long (1877)
Epictetus, Discourses 3.26 ¶7
“What then, if I shall be sick?” You will be sick in such a way as you ought to be.—“Who will take care of me?”—God; your friends—“I shall lie down on a hard bed.”—But you will lie down like a man.—“I shall not have a convenient chamber.”—You will be sick in an inconvenient chamber—“Who will provide for me the necessary food?”—Those who provide for others also. You will be sick like Manes.—And what also will be the end of the sickness? Any other than death?—Do you then consider that this the chief of all evils to man and the chief mark of mean spirit and of cowardice is not death, but rather the fear of death? Against this fear then I advise you to exercise yourself: to this let all your reasoning tend, your exercises, and reading; and you will know that thus only are men made free.
Cite this passage
Epictetus, Discourses 3.26 ¶7, tr. George Long (1877)
https://whatwouldstoicsdo.com/passage/discourses/3.26.7
Epictetus, Discourses (as recorded by Arrian), tr. George Long (1877). Text: Standard Ebooks (CC0). Sources and licences
In plain English
AI-written notesIf you fall ill, you will be ill in whatever bed and conditions you have, like countless others, with food and care coming from those who look after everyone else too. The thing to train against is not death but fear of death, which is the real mark of cowardice, and only by facing that fear do people become free.
Older wording
- “Manes”
- — a common slave's name, standing for an ordinary person
- “mean spirit”
- — a small-minded, ungenerous attitude
Themes and situations
- Illness and the body
- Fear and anxiety
- Death and mortality
- Courage
- Resilience and endurance
- Illness or diagnosis
- Fear of death
- Anxiety about the future
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