Although a disciple of Rufus, the great Stoic teacher of the time, Epictetus himself claiming no superiority to his teacher whom he lovingly quotes, the conviction forces itself upon one that the latter bathed in a wider ocean of truth than that of Stoicism as a doctrine. He quotes Socrates, Plato, Diogenes, far more than Zeno; he had no part in the tolerance of many Stoics to the idea of suicide. And we hear him down the ages fulminating against the Academics, the Epicureans, the Skeptics; declaring the Godhood, the Divinity, of man; immortality, the higher law, man's obligation to study human nature _in its duality_; Karma, the power of the Spiritual Will, the royal road to happiness; and man's obligation to integrity, fidelity, compassion, reverence, gratitude, trust, love, wisdom and a noble use of power. What was he banished for? what is it that he said? If Caesar should adopt you, no one could endure your arrogance; to know, then, that you are the son of Zeus--will you not be elated?... You are a superior thing; you are a portion separated from the Deity; you have in yourself a certain portion of Him. Why then are you ignorant of your own noble descent? When you are in social intercourse, when you are exercising yourself, when you are engaged in discussion, _know you not that you are nourishing a god, that you are exercising a god_? But give me directions, you say. Why should I give you directions? Has not Zeus given you directions? What directions, what kind of orders, did you bring _when you came from Him_? To keep what is your own; not to desire what is not your own. Fidelity is your own, and integrity, and modesty and virtue; for who can take these things from you? who, excepting yourself, can hinder you from using them? Having such promptings and commands from Zeus, what kind do you still ask from me? Am I more powerful than he, am I more worthy of confidence? If you would make anything a habit, do it; if you would not make it a habit, do not do it.... So with respect to the soul: when you have been angry you must know that not only has this evil befallen you, but that you have also increased the habit, and in a manner increased the habit thrown fuel on the fire.... For he who has had a fever, and has been relieved from it, is not in the same state that he was before, unless he has been completely cured. _Something of the kind happens also in diseases of the soul. Certain traces and blisters are left in it, and unless a man shall completely efface them, when he is again lashed in the same places, the lash will produce not welts but sores._