ΓΝΩΘΙ ΣΕΑΥΤΟΝ

‘I have inquired into myself.’

~ Heraclitus of Ephesus

The primary texts for the quotes here in The Examined Life are the Stoic philosophers Seneca, Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius in the Loeb editions published by Harvard University:

Marcus Aurelius, C.R. Haines (translator), Meditations, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1916. [often modified]

Epictetus, W.A. Oldfather (translator), Discourses; Fragments; The Handbook, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1925. [2 volumes]

Lucius Annaeus Seneca, Richard M. Gummere (translator), Epistles, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1917. [3 volumes]

Lucius Annaeus Seneca, John W. Basore (translator), Moral Essays, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1928. [3 volumes]

Lucius Annaeus Seneca, Thomas H. Corcoran (translator), Natural Questions, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1971. [2 volumes]

In addition, I use the following translation for Marcus Aurelius, since I find Haines’ translation to be rather antiquated:

Marcus Aurelius, A.S.L. Farquharson (translator), Meditations, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1946.

…though I do not find the introduction and commentary in Farquharson trustworthy.

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Also, for those interested in exploring Greco-Roman philosophy in general, and Stoicism in particular, I highly recommend these three books:

Pierre Hadot, Michael Chase (translator), The Inner Citadel: The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998.

Pierre Hadot, Michael Chase (translator), What Is Ancient Philosophy? Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2002.

John Sellars, Stoicism, Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006.

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ADDENDUM:

Villy Sørensen, W. Glyn Jones (translator), Seneca: The Humanist at the Court of Nero, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984.

SECUNDUM NATURAM VIVERE. 

‘Live according to Nature.’

~ Stoic motto

‘Always remember the following: what the nature of the Whole is; what is my own nature; the relation of this nature to that; what kind of part it is of what kind of Whole; and that no man can hinder your saying and doing at all times what is in accordance with that Nature whereof you are a part.’

~ Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book II.9

‘For it is dangerous to attach one’s self to the crowd in front, and so long as each one of us is more willing to trust another than to judge for himself, we never show any judgement in the matter of living, but always a blind trust, and a mistake that has been passed on from hand to hand finally involves us and works our destruction.’

~ Seneca, On the Happy Life

‘What need is there to weep over parts of life?  The whole of it calls for tears.’

~ Seneca, On Consolation to Marcia

‘If you ever want to find out what a thing really is, entrust it to time; you can see nothing clearly in the midst of the billows.’

~ Seneca, On Anger, Book III

‘Don’t live as though you were going to live a myriad years.  Fate is hanging over your head; while you have life, while you may, become good.’

~ Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book VI.17

‘You cannot step twice into the same river.’

~ Heraclitus of Ephesus

‘Now what is the chief thing in virtue?  It is the quality of not needing a single day beyond the present, and of not reckoning up the days that are ours; in the slightest possible moment of time virtue completes an eternity of good.’

~ Seneca, Letters to Lucilius, Letter XCII

‘The luxurious have made frugality and affliction.’

~ Diogenes of Sinope

‘I was composed of a formal and a material substance; and of these neither will pass away into nothingness, just as neither came to exist out of nothingness.  Thus every part of me will be assigned its place by change into some part of the universe, and that again into another part of the universe, and so on to infinity.  By a similar change both my parents and I came to exist, and so on to another infinity of regression.’

~ Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book V.13

‘If there is any good in philosophy, it is this,—that it never looks into pedigrees.  All men, if traced back to their original source, spring from the gods… [A] noble mind is free to all men; according to this test, we may all gain distinction.  Philosophy neither rejects not selects anyone; its light shines for all.’

~ Seneca, Letters to Lucilius, Letter XLIV

‘While all excesses are hurtful, the most dangerous is unlimited good fortune.  It excites the brain, it evokes vain fancies in the mind, and cloud in deep fog the boundary between falsehood and truth.’

~ Seneca, On Providence

‘Nothing in the world is so sacred that it will not find some one to profane it, but holy things are none the less exalted, even if those do exist who strike at a greatness that is set far beyond them, and which they will never damage.’

~ Seneca, On Firmness

‘We are not born, we do not live for ourselves alone; our country, our friends, have a share in us.’

~ Cicero, On Duties

‘From everything that happens in the universe it is easy for a man to find occasion to praise providence, if he has within himself these two qualities: the faculty of taking a comprehensive view of what has happened in each individual instance, and a sense of gratitude.’

~ Epictetus, Book I.6, Discourses

‘To any vision must be brought an eye adapted to what is to be seen, and having some likeness to it.  Never did eye see the sun unless it had first become sun-like, and never can the Soul have vision of the First Beauty unless itself be beautiful.’

~ Plotinus, Enneads, Book I.6

‘Just as there is no use in medical study unless it leads to the health of the human body, so there is no use to philosophical doctrine unless it leads to the virtue of the human soul.’

~ Musonius Rufus, Lectures

‘One wrong will not balance another: to be honourable and just is our only defence against men without honour or justice.’

~ Diogenes of Sinope