* * * * *

“A life entangled with accident is like a wintry torrent, for it is turbulent, and foul with mud, and impassable, and tyrannous, and loud, and brief.”

“A soul that dwells with virtue is like a perennial spring; for it is pure, and limpid, and refreshful, and inviting, and serviceable, and rich, and innocent, and uninjurious.”

* * * * *

“If you wish to be good? first believe that you are bad.”

Compare Matt. ix. 12, “They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick;” John ix. 41, “Now ye say, We see, therefore your sin remaineth;” and 1 John i. 8, “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.”

* * * * *

“It is base for one who sweetens that which he drinks with the gifts of bees, to embitter by vice his reason, which is the gift of God.”

* * * * *

“Nothing is meaner than the love of pleasure, the love of gain, and insolence:  nothing nobler than high-mindedness, and gentleness, and philanthropy, and doing good.”

* * * * *

“The vine bears three clusters:  the first of pleasure; the second of drunkenness; the third of insult.”

“He is a drunkard who drinks more than three cups; even if he be not drunken, he has exceeded moderation.”

Our own George Herbert has laid down the same limit:—­

     “Be not a beast in courtesy, but stay,
      Stay at the third cup, or forego the place,
      Wine above all things doth God’s stamp deface.”

* * * * *

“Like the beacon-lights in harbours, which, kindling a great blaze by means of a few fagots, afford sufficient aid to vessels that wander over the sea, so, also, a man of bright character in a storm-tossed city, himself content with little, effects great blessings for his fellow-citizens.”

The thought is not unlike that of Shakespeare: 

     “How far yon little candle throws its beams,
      So shines a good deed in a naughty world.”

But the metaphor which Epictetus more commonly adopts is one no less beautiful.  “What good,” asked some one, “did Helvidius Priscus do in resisting Vespasian, being but a single person?” “What good,” answers Epictetus, “does the purple do on the garment?  Why, it is splendid in itself, and splendid also in the example which it affords.”

* * * * *

“As the sun does not wait for prayers and incantations that he may rise, but shines at once, and is greeted by all; so neither wait thou for applause, and shouts, and eulogies, that thou mayst do well;—­but be a spontaneous benefactor, and thou shalt be beloved like the sun.”

* * * * *

“Thales, when asked what was the commonest of all possessions, answered, ‘Hope; for even those who have nothing else have hope.’”