How to Handle Loss
Epictetus
- "If you kiss your child or your wife, say that you are kissing a
human being. Then if they die you will not be upset." (P 507a)
- "Never say about anything that you have `lost it,' but that you have
`given it back.' Your child has died? It has been given back. Your wife
has died? She has been given back." (P 507b)
- "A little oil has been spilled, a little wine has been swiped: say to
yourself, `This is the price of peace, that of serenity.'" (P 507b)
- "[W]hen it is your [cup] that gets broken, you ought to behave the
same way you did when it was someone else's. Apply this to more important
matters as well." (P 509b)
Richard Lee,
rlee@uark.edu,
last modified: 1 December 2002
