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CHAPTER XXI.: OF THE DESIRE OF ADMIRATION. - Epictetus, The Works of Epictetus. Consisting of His Discourses, in Four Books, The Enchiridion, and Fragments [100 AD]

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The Works of Epictetus. Consisting of His Discourses, in Four Books, The Enchiridion, and Fragments. A Translation from the Greek based on that of Elizabeth Carter, by Thomas Wentworth Higginson (Boston: Little, Brown, and Co., 1865).

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CHAPTER XXI.

OF THE DESIRE OF ADMIRATION.

WHEN one maintains his proper attitude in life, he does not long after externals. What would you have, O man?

“I am contented, if my desires and aversions are conformable to nature; if I seek and shun that which I ought, and thus regulate my purposes, my efforts, and my opinions.”

Why, then, do you walk as if you had swallowed a ramrod?

“Because I could wish moreover to have all who meet me, admire me, and all who follow me, cry out, what a great philosopher!”

Who are those, by whom you would be admired? Are they not the very people, who, you used to say, were mad? What, then, would you be admired by madmen?