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Discourses · Fragment 28a
Epictetus · Fragments

Fragment 28a

1

Socrates used to say, "What do you want? To have souls of rational or irrational animals?" "Of rational animals." "Of what kind of rational animals? Sound or vicious?" "Sound." "Why, then, do you not try to get them?" "Because we have them." "Why, then, do you strive and quarrel?"

Epictetus, Discourses, Fragment 28a, translated by W. A. Oldfather (1925–1928). The Stoic Library.