“The missing ear - ‘So long as one always lays the blame on others one still belongs to the mob, when one always assumes responsibility oneself one is on the path of wisdom; but the wise man blames no one, neither himself nor others’. - Who says this? - Epictetus, eighteen hundred years ago. - It was heard but forgotten. - No, it was not heard and forgotten: not everything gets forgotten. But there was lacking an ear for it, the ear of Epictetus. - So did he say it into his own ear? - Yes, this is how it is: wisdom is the whispering of the solitary to himself in the crowded marketplace.”