HKB
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Often appears with: the passions and the emotions · right opinions · opinions as burdens · natural law and higher law · logic, method, and demonstration · divine law
Usually: argument (1) · exhortation (1) · indignation (1)
“What is the divine law? To keep a man’s own, not to claim that which belongs to others, but to use what is given, and when it is not given, not to desire it; and when a thing is taken away, to give it up readily and immediately, and to be thankful for the time that a man has had the use of it.” Epictetus (translated by George Long), A Selection from the Discourses of Epictetus with th · precept
Epictetus says what weighs on people are opinions, advises training with “right opinions” tied to the divine law (own what’s yours, relinquish what’s taken), and criticizes people mourning lost places and pleasures.
Give (name) to me one that I may see the man whom I have long been looking for, who is truly noble and ingenuous, whether young or old; name him. What then are the things which are heavy on us and disturb us? What else than opinions? What else than opinions lies heavy upon him who goes away and leaves his companions and friends and places and habits of life? Now little children, for instance, when they cry on the nu…