How long,
then, will you delay to demand of yourself the noblest
improvements, and in no instance to transgress the
judgments of reason? You have received the philosophic principles with which you ought to be conversant; and you have been conversant with them.
For what other master, then, do you wait as an excuse
for this delay in self-reformation? You are no longer
a boy, but a grown man. If, therefore, you will be
negligent and slothful, and always add procrastination
to procrastination, purpose to purpose, and fix day
after day in which you will attend to yourself, you
will insensibly continue to accomplish nothing, and,
living and dying, remain of vulgar mind. This instant, then, think yourself worthy of living as a man
grown up and a proficient. Let whatever appears
to be the best, be to you an inviolable law. And if
any instance of pain or pleasure, glory or disgrace, be
set before you, remember that now is the combat,
now the Olympiad comes on, nor can it be put
off; and that by one failure and defeat honor may
be lost - or won. Thus Socrates became perfect,
improving himself by everything, following reason
alone. And though you are not yet a Socrates,
you ought, however, to live as one seeking to be a
Socrates.
[p. 2243]
The Works of Epictetus: His Discourses, in Four Books, the Enchiridion, and Fragments. Epictetus. Thomas Wentworth Higginson. translator. New York. Thomas Nelson and Sons. 1890.
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