From Short Works:

│ Straightway then practise saying to every harsh appearance; You are an

│ appearance, and in no manner what you appear to be.

Harsh appearances are impressions that seem bad or negative in the traditional sense. He is suggesting a method to practice lessening the impact of negative impressions. Because nothing is as bad as it seems and in general it's the estimation of the thing and not so much the thing. Though that's probably also phrasing Epictetus has used.

Tags: epictetus

created: 2026-01-12

(re)generated: 2026-07-17