Crows pick out the eyes of the dead, when the dead have no longer need of them; but flatterers mar the soul of the living, and her eyes they blind.
EpictetusRead
Why, do you not know, then, that the origin of all human evils, and of baseness, and cowardice, is not death, but rather the fear of death?
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote suggests that the fear of death, rather than death itself, is the root of many human problems.
Epictetus, a Stoic philosopher, argues that human suffering, moral failures, and cowardice are primarily driven by the fear of death rather than death itself. This perspective invites individuals to confront their fears to overcome the anxieties and weaknesses that impede a virtuous life.
Themes
FearDeathCouragePhilosophyLife
In practice
Example use cases
During a motivational speech about overcoming fears.
More from Epictetus
All quotes βLearn to distinguish what you can and can't control. Within our control are our own opinions, aspirations, desires and the things that repel us. They are directly subject to our influence.
EpictetusRead
Men are disturbed not by the things that happen, but by their opinion of the things that happen.
EpictetusRead
Nothing truly stops you. Nothing truly holds you back. For your own will is always within your control. Sickness may challenge your body. But are you merely your body? Lameness may impede your legs. But you are not merely your legs. Your will is bigger than your legs. Your will needn't be affected by an incident unless you let it.
EpictetusRead
The people have a right to the truth as they have a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
EpictetusRead
Practice yourself, for heaven's sake, in little things, and thence proceed to greater.
EpictetusRead
Similar quotes
The monster does not need the hero. it is the hero who needs him for his very existence. When the hero confronts the monster, he has yet neither power nor knowledge, the monster is his secret father who will invest him with a power and knowledge that can belong to one man only, and that only the monster can give.
Roberto CalassoRead
You cannot put a rope around the neck of an idea: you can not put an idea up against a barracks-square wall and riddle it with bullets: you cannot confine it in the strongest prison cell that your slaves could ever build.
Sean O'CaseyRead
Thomas More: ...And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned around on you--where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country's planted thick with laws from coast to coast--man's laws, not God's--and if you cut them down...d'you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake.
Robert BoltRead
Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it.
ConfuciusRead
What seems to us but dim funeral tapers may be heaven's distant lamps.
Henry Wadsworth LongfellowRead
It is of itself that the divine thought thinks (since it is the most excellent of things), and its thinking is a thinking on thinking.
AristotleRead