Every man who observes, must have seen what bad listeners most people are. Inability to attend carefully to what is spoken is a great defect, which l… - George Long

The deplorable condition of many of our people on whom much money has been spent is mainly owing to their wretched education, during which they have tasted of many things, but have relished nothing, learned nothing well, and have been turned out with the unhappy conceit in their heads that they have been educated, because they think that they have learned something.

The inability to listen and to attend is of course a mental defect; but habit may make the defect so great, that a man's ears may almost lose the faculty of hearing what another man says, and he may be able to hear only the sweet sound of his own voice. Such incapable people are generally great talkers, very tiresome, and bad companions. They cannot be debaters in public assemblies, and can only deliver themselves of their own words.

The doctrines of Epictetus and Antoninus are the same, and Epictetus is the best authority for the explanation of the philosophical language of Antoninus and the exposition of his opinions.