Full Idea
If I really knew that it was ordained for me to be ill at this moment, I would aspire to be so.
Gist of Idea
If I know I am fated to be ill, I should want to be ill
Source
Epictetus (The Discourses [c.56], 2.06.10)
Book Reference
Epictetus: 'The Discourses, The Handbook, Fragments', ed/tr. Gill,C [Everyman 1995], p.87
A Reaction
The rub, of course, is that it is presumably impossible to know what is fated. Book 2.7 is on divination. I don't see any good in a mortally ill person desiring, for that reason alone, to die. Rage against the dying of the light, I say.