[186] ‘Socrates in this way became perfect, in all things improving himself, attending to nothing except to reason. But you, though you are not yet a Socrates, ought to live as one who wishes to be a Socrates’ Epict. Manual 50. Epictetus did not however ignore failures: ‘we [Stoics] say one thing, but we do another; we talk of the things which are beautiful, but we do what is base’ Disc. iii 7, 18.
[189] This is again a Socratic paradox: βασιλεῖς δὲ καὶ ἄρχοντας οὐ τοὺς τὰ σκῆπτρα ἔχοντας ἔφη εἶναι ἀλλὰ τοὺς ἐπισταμένους ἄρχειν Xen. Mem. iii 9, 10.
[190] Cic. Fin. iii 22, 75 and 76.
[191] ‘eorum, qui dolorem in malis non habent, ratio certe cogit, uti in omnibus tormentis conservetur beata vita sapienti’ ib. iii 13, 42; Arnim iii 585, 586; ‘shew me a man who is sick and happy, in danger and happy, in exile and happy, in disgrace and happy. Shew him; I desire, by the gods, to see a Stoic’ Epict. Disc. ii 19, 24.
[192] See below, §§ [431], [439].
[193] ‘bonus tempore tantum a deo differt’ Sen. Dial. i 1, 5; ‘sapiens excepta mortalitate similis deo’ ib. ii 8, 2; and see above, § [274].