"[H]ighly favorable to the development of a systematic natural science... first and foremost, the Stoics believed in 'determinism'... nothing willful... everything... according to law. The secret of human life was to fathom the general character of this universal order and to live in harmony with it. ...[A]strological divination... was justified by appealing to the harmony and interaction between celestial and terrestrial events. ...Greek atomists implied [that] atoms... by chance, happened to stay interlocked [in human bodies] for... seventy years... [T]he Stoics... preferred to start at... organized systems [having] 'integral properties'... not derived from the... parts. ...'This ...we call the '... a continuous dynamic agency... maintaining... cohesion... As we tighten a drum-head, the sound... rises in pitch. ...Now tension is not an additional ingredient... it is a state... The pneuma... exists in various... states of tension or 'tones'... In some respects... an extension of the Pythagorean theory of musical harmonies. ...Several kinds of pneuma existed... The 'cohesive...' responsible for the unity of a body, and for the fixed pattern of properties... the 'vital...' gave it animation; while... 'rational...' was only present in... thinking beings."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
, , The Architecture of Matter (1962)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Stoicism
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Stoicism
Stoicism is a school of Hellenistic philosophy founded in Athens by Zeno of Citium in the early 3rd century BC. The Stoics taught that destructive emotions resulted from errors in judgment, and that a sage, or person of "moral and intellectual perfection", would not suffer such emotions. They were profoundly concerned with the active relationship between notions of cosmic determinism and human freedom, and the belief that it is virtuous to maintain a form of will (called prohairesis) that is in
28 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Stoicism →
Related Quotes
"With what scientific stoicism he walks through the land of wonders, unwondering."
"This gentleman’s stoicism was of that not uncommon kind, which enables a man to bear with exemplary fortitude the aff…"
"I remember that she made me laugh more than I liked; for I was, at that time, an eager scholar of ethics, and had tas…"
"Cynicism … is a withdrawal from the world into blank isolation, while Stoicism is the withdrawal into an inner life, …"
"It is no accident that Stoicism figures so prominently in Foucault’s The Care of the Self. It is, in the most literal…"
"Some philosophers, and the ancient Stoics among the rest, derived a topic of consolation under all afflictions, while…"
"It makes a tremendous emotional and practical difference to one whether one accepts the universe in the drab discolor…"
"Both thought and feeling are determinants of conduct, and the same conduct may be determined either by feeling or by …"
"The Pythagoreans had found in the astral order the proportions of the concordant musical scale... a harmonia... There…"
"'Tis pride, rank pride, and haughtiness of soul: I think the Romans call it Stoicism."