stoics

"Nay, men, if any of you had heeded what I was ever foretelling and advising, ye would now neither be fearing a single man nor putting your hopes in a single man."

"Victrix causa deis placuit, sed vieta Catoni."

"It is worth observing, how we feel ourselves affected in reading the characters of Cæsar, and Cato, as they are so finely drawn and contrasted in Salust. In one, the ignoscendo, largiundo; in the other, nil largiundo. In one, the miseris perfugium; in the other, malis perniciem. In the latter we have much to admire, much to reverence, and perhaps something to fear; we respect him, but we respect him at a distance. The former makes us familiar with him; we love him, and he leads us whither he pleases."

"I will begin to speak when I am not going to say what were better left unsaid."

"Bear in mind, that if through toil you accomplish a good deed, that toil will quickly pass from you, the good deed will not leave you so long as you live; but if through pleasure you do anything dishonourable, the pleasure will quickly pass away, that dishonourable act will remain with you for ever."

"Unconquer’d Cato, virtuous in extreme."

"When men were scattered over the earth, protected by eaves or by the dug-out shelter of a cliff or by the trunk of a hollow tree, it was philosophy that taught them to build houses."

"Things which bestow upon the soul no greatness or confidence or freedom from care are not goods. But riches and health and similar conditions do none of these things; therefore, riches and health are not goods. Things which bestow upon the soul no greatness or confidence or freedom from care, but on the other hand create in it arrogance, vanity, and insolence, are evils. But things which are the gift of Fortune drive us into these evil ways. Therefore these things are not goods."

"The sun is pure fire: so Posidonius in the seventh book of his Celestial Phenomena. And it is larger than the earth, as the same author says in the sixth book of his Physical Discourse. Moreover it is spherical in shape like the world itself according to this same author and his school."

"Riches are a cause of evil, not because, of themselves, they do any evil, but because they goad men on so that they are ready to do evil."

"There are never any occasions when you need think yourself safe because you wield the weapons of Fortune; fight with your own! Fortune does not furnish arms against herself; hence men equipped against their foes are unarmed against Fortune herself."

"A single day among the learned lasts longer than the longest life of the ignorant."

"Virtue is the health of the soul."

"Ἀρίστων ὁ Χῖος ὁ Φάλανθος, ἐπικαλούμενος Σειρήν, τέλος ἔφησεν εἶναι τὸ ἀδιαφόρως ἔχοντα ζῆν πρὸς τὰ μεταξὺ ἀρετῆς καὶ κακίας μηδ᾿ ἡντινοῦν ἐν αὐτοῖς παραλλαγὴν ἀπολείποντα, ἀλλ᾿ ἐπίσης ἐπὶ πάντων ἔχοντα· εἶναι γὰρ ὅμοιον τὸν σοφὸν τῷ ἀγαθῷ ὑποκριτῇ, ὃς ἄν τε Θερσίτου ἄν τε Ἀγαμέμνονος πρόσωπον ἀναλάβῃ, ἑκάτερον ὑποκρινεῖται προσηκόντως."

"Being good is the same as being a philosopher. If you obey your father, you will follow the will of a man; if you choose the philosopher's life, the will of God. It is plain, therefore, that your duty lies in the pursuit of philosophy."

"We then had read to us a book by Quintus Sextius the Elder. He is a great man, if you have any confidence in my opinion, and a real Stoic, though he himself denies it. Ye Gods, what strength and spirit one finds in him! This is not the case with all philosophers; there are some men of illustrious name whose writings are sapless. They lay down rules, they argue, and they quibble; they do not infuse spirit simply because they have no spirit. But when you come to read Sextius you will say: "He is alive; he is strong; he is free; he is more than a man; he fills me with a mighty confidence before I close his book." I shall acknowledge to you the state of mind I am in when I read his works: I want to challenge every hazard; I want to cry: "Why keep me waiting, Fortune? Enter the lists! Behold, I am ready for you!" I assume the spirit of a man who seeks where he may make trial of himself where he may show his worth … I want something to overcome, something on which I may test my endurance. For this is another remarkable quality that Sextius possesses: he will show you the grandeur of the happy life and yet will not make you despair of attaining it; you will understand that it is on high, but that it is accessible to him who has the will to seek it."

"It is not death; but a bad life, which destroys the soul."

"He who is worthy of God is also a god among men."

"You should not dare to speak of God to the multitude."

"He best honors God who makes his intellect as like God as possible."

"To live, indeed, is not in our power; but to live rightly is."

"Sotion used to tell me why Pythagoras abstained from animal food, and why, in later times, Sextius did also. In each case, the reason was different, but it was in each case a noble reason. Sextius believed that man had enough sustenance without resorting to blood, and that a habit of cruelty is formed whenever butchery is practised for pleasure. Moreover, he thought we should curtail the sources of our luxury; he argued that a varied diet was contrary to the laws of health, and was unsuited to our constitutions."

"Consider lost all the time in which you do not think of divinity."

"Be not anxious to please the multitude"

"There is danger, and no negligible one, to speak of God even the things that are true."

"You have in yourself some thing similar to God, and therefore use yourself as the temple of God, on account of that which in you resembles God."

"The sage and the contemner of wealth most resemble God."

"Accustom your soul after (it has conceived all that is great of) divinity, to conceive something great of itself."

"A good intellect is the choir of divinity."

"The greatest honor which can be paid to God is to know and imitate him."

"Nothing is so peculiar to wisdom as truth."

"Nostrum est quod vivis, cinis et manes et fabula fies. vive memor leti, fugit hora."

"Tecum habita: noris quam sit tibi curta supellex."

"Ut nemo in sese tentat descendere! nemo! Sed praecedenti spectatur mantica tergo."

"Cum lux altera venit, iam cras hesternum consumpsimus; ecce aliud cras egerit hos annos et semper paulum erit ultra."

"At pulchrum est digito monstrari et dicier "hic est"."

"Usque adeone scire tuum nihil est, nisi te scire hoc sciat alter?"

"She knows her man, and when you rant and swear, Can draw you to her with a single hair."

"Nec nocte paratum, plorabit qui me volet incurvasse querella."

"Quis leget haec?"

"Magister artis ingenique largitor venter."

"Nec te quaesiveris extra."

"Virtutem videant intabescantque relicta."

"Shall I show you the sinews of a philosopher? "What sinews are those?" — A will undisappointed; evils avoided; powers daily exercised, careful resolutions; unerring decisions."

"Although life is a matter of indifference, the use which you make of it is not a matter of indifference."

"Who are those people by whom you wish to be admired? Are they not these about whom you are in the habit of saying that they are mad? What then? Do you wish to be admired by the mad?"

"Materials are indifferent, but the use which we make of them is not a matter of indifference."

"Show that you know this only—how you may never either fail to get what you desire or fall into what you avoid."

"It is unlikely that the good of a snail should reside in its shell: so is it likely that the good of a man should?"

"When you close your doors, and make darkness within, remember never to say that you are alone, for you are not alone; nay, God is within, and your genius is within. And what need have they of light to see what you are doing?"