Not things, but opinions about things, trouble men
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"Not things, but opinions about things, trouble men" (tr. Nathan Haskell Dole) is a dictum by Epictetus from the Enchiridion.
Greek original:
- "Ταρασσει τοὐϚ Ἀνϑρώπους οὐ τὰ Πράγματα, αλλα τὰ περι τῶν Πραγμάτων, Δογματα" ("Tarassei tous anthropous ou ta pragmata, alla ta peri ton pragmaton dogmata.")
Alternative translation by David Auerbach:
- It is not events [pragmata] themselves that trouble people, but their judgements [dogmata] about those circumstances. Epictetus, Handbook 5
The dictum is found as epigraph in "This Too a Philosophy of History for the Formation of Humanity" (1774) by Herder, in The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (1759) by Laurence Sterne.
In Tristram Shandy the quotation alludes to a theme of the novel about how the suffering of many of its characters (above all Walter Shandy) is the result of the opinions and assumptions they make about reality. This is similar to Shakespeare's "There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so." (Hamlet: Act 2, Scene 2), and John Milton's "The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven."
It is also featured in Goethe's Botanical Writings (1952/1989) by Goethe, see Goethean science.
David Auerbach notes about this epigraph:
- Pretty funny in context. The other half of the joke is that Laurence Sterne uses Locke’s association of ideas to explain how his mother came to associate the sound of her husband’s clock-winding with sex, providing the motor for Tristram’s life and the whole book. [1]
Alternative translations
- "what disturbs men's minds is not things themselves but the interpretations placed upon them".
See also
