That talents are treacherous for the uneducated

Epictetus – Discourses Book 1
I.8. That talents are treacherous for the uneducated

We must not concentrate on learning about argumentation before sufficiently improving our character. In other words, we should not be distracted from the business of improving our character by dividing our attention for other studies at this point in our education.

Proof and persuasion are important skills, but they become dangerous for the morally weak. They make people with weak character conceited and full of themselves.

Being a philosopher means, first and foremost, having the right kind of moral character.

Being good at arguing is a fine trait, but it is not the primary trait you have to master on the path of the philosopher.

How a person can preserve their proper character in any situation

Epictetus – Discourses Book 1
I.2. How a person can preserve their proper character in any situation

As a rule,

1. Humans can tolerate what is reasonable, and
2. They cannot tolerate what is unreasonable.

Education is needed to align our preconceptions of reasonable and unreasonable with nature.

But this alignment requires knowing your own individual nature, as much as it requires appraising the value of externals.

A person’s character, and its value, can only be estimated by the person himself. In taking account of the valuations of others’, which are externals, we risk mistaking the value of our own character.

1. Only a person himself can know how to keep with his own character.
2. Only a person himself can realise his own strengths.
3. So only I can know what is in keeping with my own Character.
4. Only I can realise my own strengths.

No one becomes a hero overnight, one has to train many winters. But not everyone has in his individual nature what takes to be a hero.

This is inconsequential. This should not keep us from trying to do our best, according to our nature. “We do not abandon any discipline for despair of ever being the best in it.”