And it depends upon men themselves whether in these respects they
will be free, pure, and good on the one hand; or enslaved, impure,
and miserable on the other.
Among the wise sayings of Epictetus we find the following: "We do
not choose our own parts in life, and have nothing to do with
those parts: our simple duty is confined to playing them well.
The slave may be as free as the consul; and freedom is the chief
of blessings; it dwarfs all others; beside it all others are
insignificant; with it all others are needless; without it no
others are possible.... You must teach men that happiness is not
where, in their blindness and misery, they seek it. It is not in
strength, for Myro and Ofellius were not happy; not in wealth, for
Croesus was not happy; not in power, for the Consuls were not
happy; not in all these together, for Nero and Sardanapulus and
Agamemnon sighed and wept and tore their hair, and were the slaves
of circumstances and the dupes of semblances. It lies in
yourselves; in true freedom, in the absence or conquest of every
ignoble fear; in perfect self-government; and in a power of
contentment and peace, and the even flow of life amid poverty,
exile, disease, and the very valley of the shadow of death." (3)
The sense of duty is a sustaining power even to a courageous man.
It holds him upright, and makes him strong. It was a noble saying
of Pompey, when his friends tried to dissuade him from embarking
for Rome in a storm, telling him that he did so at the great peril
of his life: "It is necessary for me to go," he said; "it is not
necessary for me to live.
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