own anger indeed does us more harm than the thing which makes us angry;
and we suffer much more from the anger and vexation which we allow acts to
rouse in us, than we do from the acts themselves at which we are angry and
vexed. How much most people, for instance, allow themselves to be
distracted and disturbed by quarrels and family disputes. Yet in nine
cases out of ten one ought not to suffer from being found fault with. If
the condemnation is just, it should be welcome as a warning; if it is
undeserved, why should we allow it to distress us?

Moreover, if misfortunes happen we do but make them worse by grieving over
them.

"I must die," again says Epictetus. "But must I then die sorrowing? I must
be put in chains. Must I then also lament? I must go into exile. Can I be
prevented from going with cheerfulness and contentment? But I will put you
in prison. Man, what are you saying? You may put my body in prison, but my
mind not even Zeus himself can overpower."

If, indeed, we cannot be happy, the fault is generally in ourselves.
Socrates lived under the Thirty Tyrants. Epictetus was a poor slave, and
yet how much we owe him!

"How is it possible," he says, "that a man who has nothing, who is naked,
houseless, without a hearth, squalid, without a slave, without a city, can
pass a life that flows easily? See, God has sent a man to show you that it
is possible. Look at me, who am without a city, without a house, without
possessions, without a slave; I sleep on the ground; I have no wife, no
children, no praetorium, but only the earth and heavens, and one poor
clock. And what do I want? Am I not without sorrow? Am I not without fear?
Am I not free? When did any of you see me failing in the object of my