Epictetus · Complete work
Chapter 5
Chapter 5 of 53. Read it here for reference, or continue through the entire work without leaving the reader.
Open the complete readerOriginal Ancient Greek
[5.1] ταράσσει τοὺς ἀνθρώπους οὐ τὰ πράγματα, ἀλλὰ τὰ περὶ τῶν πραγμάτων δόγματα· οἷον ὁ θάνατος οὐδὲν δεινόν (ἐπεὶ καὶ Σωκράτει ἂν ἐφαίνετο), ἀλλὰ τὸ δόγμα τὸ περὶ τοῦ θανάτου, διότι δεινόν, ἐκεῖνο τὸ δεινόν ἐστιν. ὅταν οὖν ἐμποδιζώμεθα ἢ ταρασσώμεθα ἢ λυπώμεθα, μηδέποτε ἄλλον αἰτιώμεθα, ἀλλʼ ἑαυτούς, τοῦτʼ ἔστι τὰ ἑαυτῶν δόγματα. ἀπαιδεύτου ἔργον τὸ ἄλλοις ἐγκαλεῖν, ἐφʼ οἷς αὐτὸς πράσσει κακῶς· ἠργμένου παιδεύεσθαι τὸ ἑαυτῷ· πεπαιδευμένου τὸ μήτε ἄλλῳ μήτε ἑαυτῷ.
Mouseia
Mouseia’s complete machine-assisted Musean translation, made directly from all 53 Ancient Greek chapters and 105 sections for fidelity, Stoic precision, clarity, structure, and cadence.
[5.1] People are troubled not by things, but by their judgments about things. Death, for example, is nothing terrible, or else it would have appeared so even to Socrates. Rather, the judgment that death is terrible—that is what is terrible. Therefore, whenever we are hindered, troubled, or distressed, let us never blame anyone else, but ourselves—that is, our own judgments. It is the act of an uneducated person to blame others for his own bad condition; of one who has begun his education, to blame himself; and of one whose education is complete, to blame neither another nor himself.
Mouseia
Mouseia’s complete Plain English edition, made independently and directly from all 53 Ancient Greek chapters and 105 sections.
[5.1] People are disturbed not by things, but by their judgments about things. For example, death is nothing terrible, since otherwise it would have appeared terrible to Socrates as well. Rather, the judgment about death—that it is terrible—is what is terrible. So whenever we are obstructed, disturbed, or distressed, we should never blame anyone else, but ourselves—that is, our own judgments. It is the mark of an uneducated person to blame others for what he himself does badly; the mark of someone whose education has begun to blame himself; and the mark of an educated person to blame neither another nor himself.