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Epictetus (55-135 CE) Enchiridion
A manual for living a contented life
Rendered by Charles Scamahorn (1935- ) 2014

Paragraph 9

Illness is a challenge to the comfort of the body but not to the will of the mind. The mind can choose how it is going to respond to the illness. Lameness interferes with a leg and its operation, but not with an individual’s choice of how to respond to its behavior. You may say to anything that happens to you, this is happening to it, but not to me.


Almost everything that happens in the world is outside of my personal control, and sometimes even those things that happen to my body are outside of my personal control, but I am in control of how I think about those things and how I respond to them. I am in control of my essence and that is important to me.