You can be unconquerable, if you enter into no
combat in which it is not in your own power to conquer. When, therefore, you see any one eminent in
honors or power, or in high esteem on any other account, take heed not to be bewildered by appearances
and to pronounce him happy; for if the essence of
[p. 2224]
good consists in things within our own power, there
will be no room for envy or emulation. But, for your
part, do not desire to be a general, or a senator, or a
consul, but to be free; and the only way to this is
a disregard of things which lie not within our own
power.
The Works of Epictetus: His Discourses, in Four Books, the Enchiridion, and Fragments. Epictetus. Thomas Wentworth Higginson. translator. New York. Thomas Nelson and Sons. 1890.
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