EpictetusDawnstone

Epictetus · Discourses 3.1

Two things are mingled in us: body, which we share with the animals, and reason, which we share with the gods. Most people incline toward the body — the mortal, miserable kinship. Few choose the divine.
Epictetus, Discourses and Selected Writings (Discourses 3.1)

What this means

Epictetus splits human nature in two: the body we share with animals and the reason we share with the divine. Most people, he says, drift toward the lower kinship by default. The whole of Stoic practice is the deliberate, daily choice to live from the higher one.

On nature, reason, judgment.

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Discourses and Selected Writings

Epictetus · trans. Robert Dobbin · Penguin Classics

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