The Golden Sayings of Epictetus by Epictetus
page 33 of 116 (28%)
page 33 of 116 (28%)
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no more a foot if detached from the body, so thou in like case art no
longer a Man? For what is a Man? A part of a City:--first of the City of Gods and Men; next, of that which ranks nearest it, a miniature of the universal City. . . . In such a body, in such a world enveloping us, among lives like these, such things must happen to one or another. Thy part, then, being here, is to speak of these things as is meet, and to order them as befits the matter. LVII That was a good reply which Diogenes made to a man who asked him for letters of recommendation.--"That you are a man, he will know when he sees you;--whether a good or bad one, he will know if he has any skill in discerning the good or bad. But if he has none, he will never know, though I write him a thousand times."--It is as though a piece of silver money desired to be recommended to some one to be tested. If the man be a good judge of silver, he will know: the coin will tell its own tale. LVIII Even as the traveller asks his way of him that he meets, inclined in no wise to bear to the right rather than to the left (for he desires only the way leading whither he would go), so should we come unto God as to a guide; even as we use our eyes without admonishing them to show us some |
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