“Crows pick out the eyes of the dead, when the dead have no longer need of them; but flatterers mar the soul of the living, and her eyes they blind.”

Fragment iv.
Golden Sayings of Epictetus, Fragments

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Aug. 12, 2022. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Crows pick out the eyes of the dead, when the dead have no longer need of them; but flatterers mar the soul of the livi…" by Epictetus?

Epictetus175

philosopher from Ancient Greece 50–138

Related quotes

“Let the apologists for communists acknowledge the dead, bury the dead, and atone for the dead. Otherwise, let them be forgiven only when they have put out their eyes and wandered blind, away from Thebes.”

Alan Charles Kors (1943) American academic

2010s, Socialism's Legacy (2011)

“It is better to fall in with crows than with flatterers; for in the one case you are devoured when dead, in the other case while alive.”

Antisthenes (-444–-365 BC) Greek philosopher

§ 4
From Lives and Opinions of the Eminent Philosophers by Diogenes Laërtius

“We should keep the dead before our eyes, and honor them as though still living”

Confucius (-551–-479 BC) Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher

“They who have put out the people's eyes reproach them of their blindness.”

John Milton (1608–1674) English epic poet

Apology for Smectymnuus (1642), section VIII
Source: An apology for Smectymnuus with the reason of church-government by John Milton ...
Context: So little care they of beasts to make them men, that by their sorcerous doctrine of formalities, they take the way to transform them out of Christian men into judaizing beasts. Had they but taught the land, or suffered it to be taught, as Christ would it should have been in all plenteous dispensation of the word, then the poor mechanic might have so accustomed his ear to good teaching, as to have discerned between faithful teachers and false. But now, with a most inhuman cruelty, they who have put out the people’s eyes, reproach them of their blindness; just as the Pharisees their true fathers were wont, who could not endure that the people should be thought competent judges of Christ’s doctrine, although we know they judged far better than those great rabbis: yet “this people,” said they, “that know not the law is accursed.”