March 2012
54 posts
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‘For who that is pleased by virtue can please the crowd? It takes trickery to win popular approval; and you must needs make yourself like unto them; they will withhold their approval if they do not recognize you as one of themselves. However, what you think of yourself is much more to the point than what others think of you. The favour of ignoble men can be won only by ignoble...
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‘… “I myself have for a long time tested death.” “When?” you ask. Before I was born. Death is non-existence, and I know already what that means. What was before me will happen again after me.’
~ Seneca, Letters, LIV
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De Stoicorum: The heart of Stoicism
Wherever we betake ourselves, two things that are most admirable will go with us—universal nature and our own virtue.
—Seneca, De Consolatione Ad Marciam
At the heart of Stoicism lies a radical revaluation of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ that depends not on particular external things and events, but instead arises from the realisation of one’s own intimate participation in the Universal. From this vision of...
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‘Those who reckon life by number, or by measure, or by parts, rob it of its distinctive quality. Now, in the happy life, what is the distinctive quality? It is its fulness.’
~ Seneca, Letters, LXXXV
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‘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, XCII
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‘Therefore I pray you, my dearest Lucilius, do the one thing that can render you really happy: cast aside and trample under foot all those things that glitter outwardly and are held out to you by another or as obtainable from another; look toward the true good, and rejoice only in that which comes from your own store. And what do I mean by “from your own store”? I mean from...
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‘I am not born for any one corner of the universe; this whole world is my country.’
~ Seneca, Letters, XXCIII
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‘Form a proper conception of the image of virtue, a thing of exceeding beauty and grandeur; this image is not to be worshipped by us with incense or garlands, but with sweat and blood.’
~ Seneca, Letters, LXVII
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‘You will deserve respect from everyone if you start by respecting yourself.’
~ Musonius Rufus
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‘Philosophy calls for plain living, but not for penance.’
~ Seneca, Letters, V
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‘There are more things, Lucilius, likely to frighten us than there are to crush us; we suffer more often in imagination than in reality.’
~ Seneca, Letters, XIII
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‘We let ourselves drift with every breeze; we are frightened at uncertainties, just as if they were certain.’
~ Seneca, Letters, XIII
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‘Kings soon perish who make a habit of justifying their actions to their subjects by saying “I have the power” rather than “It is my duty.”’
~ Musonius Rufus
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‘A woodman went into the forest and begged of the trees the favour of a handle for his axe. The principal trees at once agreed to so modest a request, and unhesitatingly gave him a young ash sapling, out of which he fashioned the handle he desired. No sooner had he done so than he set to work to fell the noblest trees in the wood. When they saw the use to which he was putting their gift,...
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‘A man does not fall from the best state into the worst; even a bad man must necessarily retain some traces of good; virtue is never so wholly extinguished as not to leave upon the mind indelible imprints that no change can ever erase.’
~ Seneca, On Benefits, Book VII
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‘Only the educated are free.’
~ Epictetus, Discourses, Book II.1
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‘Surely luxurious living fosters injustice because it also fosters greed. A person who lives extravagantly cannot help but spend a lot and therefore cannot want to spend little. Furthermore, because he wants many things, he can’t refrain from trying to acquire them, and when he sets out to acquire them, he can’t help grabbing for too much and being unjust. No one can acquire...
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‘The service of a good citizen is never useless; by being heard and seen, by his expression, by his gesture, by his silent stubbornness, and by his very walk he helps.’
~ Seneca, On Tranquillity of Mind
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‘We are in agony for a true expression; we are talking of the untellable; we name, only to indicate for our own use as best we may. And this name, The One, contains really no more than the negation of plurality: under the same pressure the Pythogoreans found their indication in the symbol “Apollo” (a = not; pollôn = of many) with its repudiation of the multiple. If we are led...
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‘[M]oney… ever since it began to be regarded with respect, has caused the ruin of the true honour of things; we become alternatively merchants and merchandise, and we ask, not what a thing truly is, but what it costs…’
~ Seneca, Letters to Lucilius, Letter CXV
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De Stoicorum: About
I’ve added a very brief bio to my De Stoicorum blog HERE.
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De Stoicorum: Mortality and the cultivation of...
…The existential realisation of one’s own mortality simply puts all things into proper perspective, with the aim of focusing the individual’s cultivation of virtue, which only takes place in the present moment…
More here at De Stoicorum.
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‘Why do you wait? Wisdom comes haphazard to no man. Money will come of its own accord; titles will be given to you; influence and authority will perhaps be thrust upon you; but virtue will not fall upon you by chance.’
~ Seneca, Letters to Lucilius, Letter LXXVI
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‘What do I owe life other than to encourage it as it leaves and to dispatch it with good wishes? “Go bravely, go happily! Do not hesitate at all; you are being given back to Nature…”’
~ Seneca, Natural Questions, Book VI.32
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New book arrivals
Arrived in the mail today to put on the shelf for reading in the near future:
(1) The Art of Living: The Stoics on the Nature and Function of Philosophy by John Sellars. This study was originally published in 2003. This author also wrote a wonderful introduction to Stoic philosophy, simply titled Stoicism, which I highly recommend. A scholarly writer, but with clarity and concision.
(2) The...
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‘[Y]ou are a citizen of the world… What then is the profession of a citizen? To treat nothing as a matter of private profit, not to plan about anything as though he were a detached unit, but to act like the foot or the hand, which, if they had the faculty of reason and understood the constitution of nature, would never exercise choice or desire in any other way but by reference to the...
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‘Our confidence ought, therefore, to be turned toward death, and our caution toward the fear of death; whereas we do just the opposite—in the face of death we turn to flight, but about the formation of a judgement on death we show carelessness, disregard, and unconcern.’
~ Epictetus, Discourses, Book II.1
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‘Wherever we betake ourselves, two things that are most admirable will go with us—universal Nature and our own virtue.’ ~ Seneca, To Helvia On Consolation
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‘[N]o one was ever injured by the truth, whereas he is injured who continues in his own self-deception and ignorance.’
~ Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book VI.21
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‘Believe that each new day that dawns will be the last for you: then each unexpected hour shall come to you as a delightful gift.’
~ Horace, Letters
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‘Not what you endure, but how you endure, is important.’
~ Seneca, On Providence
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‘But those who forget the past, neglect the present, and fear for the future have a life that is very brief and troubled; when they have reached the end of it, the poor wretches perceive too late that for such a long while they have been busied doing nothing.’
~ Seneca, On the Shortness of Life
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‘Life is neither a Good nor an Evil; it is simply the place where good and evil exist.’
~ Seneca, Letters to Lucilius, Letter XCIX
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‘There exists only one true account of inquiry: Is. Along this inquiry stand many signs: uncreated, imperishable, whole, singular, unchanging and complete. Is never was nor will become, since Is remains ever-present, whole, one and indivisible. Of what beginning or end of Is could one inquire? Do not speak or think of the creation of Is from something other-than-Is: of this, one can...
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‘It is not that we have a short space of time, but that we waste much of it.’
~ Seneca, On the Shortness of Life
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‘The very reason for our magnanimity in not shutting ourselves up within the walls of one city, in going forth into intercourse with the whole earth, and in claiming the world as our country, was that we might have a wider field for our virtue.’
~ Seneca, On Tranquillity of Mind
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‘For, in fact, it is foolish and superfluous to try to obtain from another that which one can get from oneself. Since, therefore, I am able to get greatness of soul and nobility of character from myself, am I to get a farm, and money, or some office, from you?’
~ Epictetus, Discourses, Book I.9
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‘When the happy life is under debate, there will be no use for you to reply to me, as if it were a matter of votes: “This side seems to be in a majority.” For that s just the reason it is the worst side. Human affairs are not so happily ordered that the majority prefer the better things; a proof of the worst choice is the crowd. Therefore let us find out what is best to do,...
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‘As each reasonable creature receives the rest of his abilities from the Nature as a Whole, so we have received this ability, too, from her. Just as she converts every obstacle and resistance, puts it into its place in the order of necessity and makes it a part of herself, so too the reasonable creature can make every obstacle material for himself and employ it for whatever kind of purpose...
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‘Nature has bestowed upon us an inquisitive disposition, and being well aware of her own skill and beauty, has begotten us to be spectators of her mighty array…’
~ Seneca, On Leisure
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‘“Earth loves the rain”: “the glorious ether loves to fall in rain.” The Universe too loves to create what is to be. Therefore I say to the Universe: “Your love is mine.” Is not that also the meaning of the phrase: “This loves to happen”?’
~ Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book X.21
