Monday, December 16, 2024
Quote of the day
Via Think Least of Death: Spinoza on How to Live and How to Die by Steven Nadler
Saturday, December 14, 2024
Quote of the day
Sunday, December 08, 2024
Quote of the day
"The wise man looks to the purpose of all actions, not their consequences; beginnings are in our power but Fortune judges the outcome, and I do not grant her a verdict upon me." - Seneca
Via The Little Book of Stoicism: Timeless Wisdom to Gain Resilience, Confidence, and Calmness by Jonas SalzgeberTuesday, December 03, 2024
Quote of the day
"Kindness is a form of generosity we can always afford." - Ryan Holiday, Right Thing, Right Now: Good Values, Good Character, Good Deeds
Monday, December 02, 2024
Quote of the day
"If you took away the bond of goodwill from the world, no house or city could stand, nor would the fields any longer bear fruit. If that statement is difficult, then consider the power of friendship by looking at the effects of its opposites, dissension and discord. What house is so secure, what city so firmly established, that hatred and division cannot destroy them? By this fact you can judge the good of their opposite - friendship." - Cicero, How to be a Friend: An Ancient Guide to True Friendship
Friday, November 29, 2024
Wednesday, November 27, 2024
Quote of the day
From Right Thing, Right Now: Good Values, Good Character, Good Deeds by Ryan Holiday
[E]ach time we deceive or break faith, we undermine the public trust - we make it hard for people to trust each other.
But the converse is also true: Each time we keep our word, we make a deposit, we add a strand to the rope that binds the world together.
Tuesday, November 26, 2024
Quote of the day
"The habit of dwelling on victimhood dulls the impulse of self-correction. Since the nation is defined by its inherent virtue rather than by its future potential, politics becomes a discussion of good and evil rather than a discussion of possible solutions to real problems." - Timothy Snyder, On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century
Monday, November 25, 2024
Quote of the day
"[S]lowing down reactions and judgements leads to a response that is more rational than instinctive. This can be very much to our benefit, the benefit of the other person and the benefit of society as a whole. We need fewer angry, reactive people in the world, not more." - Brigid Delaney, Reasons Not to Worry: How to be a Stoic in Chaotic Times: A Practical Guide to Stoicism for Self-Improvement and Personal Growth
Tuesday, November 19, 2024
Quote of the day
Friday, October 25, 2024
Quote of the day
"Don't take yourself too seriously. People who cannot laugh at themselves become laughable." - Julian Baggini, How to Think like a Philosopher: Twelve Key Principles for More Humane, Balanced, and Rational Thinking
Sunday, October 06, 2024
Quote of the day
"I reread a great deal, but have lost count only with Dickens, Tolstoy, and Tolkien." - Ursula K. Le Guin, The Language of the Night: Essays on Writing, Science Fiction, and Fantasy
Tuesday, September 17, 2024
Quote of the day
"There is value in a single step toward justice, and one step leads to another." - Kieran Setiya, Life is Hard: How Philosophy Can Help Us Find Our Way
Monday, September 16, 2024
Quote of the day
"In the Republic, Plato argued that there is no prospect of psychic health without a kind of justice in the soul, and that we cannot be unjust to others if we're just within ourselves." - Kieran Setiya, Life is Hard: How Philosophy Can Help Us Find Our Way
Sunday, September 15, 2024
Quote of the day
"Remember Phil Connors [from the film Groundhog Day], trapped in a temporal loop. What liberates him is only in part his orientation to the process; it's also his selflessness, his love and respect for others. Is there a lesson there for us?"- Kieran Setiya, Life is Hard: How Philosophy Can Help Us Find Our Way
Thursday, September 12, 2024
Quote of the day
Monday, September 09, 2024
Quote of the day
"[I]n many traditions mental preparation has been a core intellectual exercise. For instance, the great Confucian philosopher of the Song Dynasty, Zhu Xi, wrote that 'if you want to read books, you must first settle the mind to make it like still water or a clear mirror.'" - Julian Baggini, How to Think like a Philosopher: Twelve Key Principles for More Humane, Balanced, and Rational Thinking
Sunday, September 08, 2024
Quote of the day
"Let it be impossible for anyone to say of you truthfully that you are not sincere, that you are not a good man; rather let him be a liar who supposes any such thing of you. And this is wholly within your power: for what can prevent you from being good and sincere?" - Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
Friday, September 06, 2024
Quote of the day
"It is as though we are so attached to how things seem superficially that we are unable to see how they really are, even when it only takes careful attending to reveal the truth." - Julian Baggini, How to Think like a Philosopher: Twelve Key Principles for More Humane, Balanced, and Rational Thinking
Tuesday, September 03, 2024
Quote of the day
"We seek to emulate the best without any illusion that we can equal them, just with the more realistic hope that we can become the best versions of ourselves." - Julian Baggini, How to Think like a Philosopher: Twelve Key Principles for More Humane, Balanced, and Rational Thinking
Sunday, September 01, 2024
Quote of the day
"The entirety of hell is contained in one word: solitude." - Victor Hugo
Via Life is Hard: How Philosophy Can Help Us Find Our Way by Kieran SetiyaFriday, August 30, 2024
Quote of the day
"Respect, compassion, and love are all ways of asserting that someone matters. They are melodies sung in the same key." - Kieran Setiya, Life is Hard: How Philosophy Can Help Us Find Our Way
Sunday, August 25, 2024
Quote of the day
"A perfect solitude is, perhaps, the greatest punishment we can suffer." - David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature (1739-40)
Via Life is Hard: How Philosophy Can Help Us Find Our Way by Kieran SetiyaThursday, August 22, 2024
Quote of the day
"We have to live in the world as it is, not the world as we wish it would be." - Kieran Setiya, Life is Hard: How Philosophy Can Help Us Find Our Way
Wednesday, August 21, 2024
Quote of the day
"We are creatures made as much by art as by experience and what we read in books is the sum of both." - Andy Miller, The Year of Reading Dangerously: How Fifty Great Books (And Two-Not-So-Great Ones) Saved My Life
Sunday, August 18, 2024
Quote of the day
"Never call yourself a philosopher, and don't talk among laymen for the most part about philosophical principles, but act in accordance with those principles ... And accordingly, if any talk should arise among laymen about some philosophical principle, keep silent for the most part, for there is a great danger that you'll simply vomit up what you haven't properly digested ... For sheep, too, don't vomit up their fodder to show the shepherds how much they've eaten, but digest their food inside them, and produce wool and milk on the outside. And so you likewise shouldn't show off your principles to laymen, but rather show them the actions that result from those principles when they've been properly digested." - Epictetus, Handbook
In other words: don't talk your philosophy, embody it. Live it.
Saturday, August 17, 2024
Quote of the day
"[W]hile the unjust may be happy, they do not live well." - Kieran Setiya, Life is Hard: How Philosophy Can Help Us Find Our Way
Wednesday, August 14, 2024
Baleful quote of the day
"If you think social media platforms are already doing all they can to avoid the victimization and exploitation of their most vulnerable users, you need to think again." - Laura Bates, Men Who Hate Women: From Incels to Pickup Artists: The Truth about Extreme Misogyny and How it Affects Us All
Monday, August 12, 2024
A thought experiment
A few months ago I began to draft a post in which I challenged myself to list the the character traits a role model would have, after which I was going to note that Donald Trump is almost the complete antithesis of everything I think an admirable person would be. I got this far:
List the qualities that you find admirable for a person to have.
For me: confidence humility kindness generosity intelligence discipline temperance honesty decency virtuous
If you were to build a person from scratch who did
I had intended to return to the draft and finish, but having come across this reposted essay from a few years ago, I think this already says everything I might have thought to have written.
Trump lacks certain qualities which the British traditionally esteem. For instance, he has no class, no charm, no coolness, no credibility, no compassion, no wit, no warmth, no wisdom, no subtlety, no sensitivity, no self-awareness, no humility, no honour and no graceOne thing I might still note, however, is that some people might see my list and say that Trump does, in fact, have a great deal of confidence. I beg to differ. My conception of confidence is Stoic: it is inwardly focused self-awareness that can not be affected by external circumstances. Trump does not have this: he has arrogance (false confidence) - and much of it.
Saturday, July 27, 2024
Quote of the day
"In the constitution of a rational creature I see no virtue that pits itself against justice; but I see one that can pit itself against pleasure: self-control." - Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
Friday, July 26, 2024
Quote of the day
"No one grows tired of receiving benefits, and to bestow benefits is to act according to nature; so never grow tired of receiving benefits by bestowing benefits on others." - Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
In other words: helping people is human nature and so we help ourselves when we help others. Or, as Seneca put it: "You must live for another if you would live for yourself."
Thursday, July 25, 2024
Quote of the day
"Pride's greatest secret is that it is always under threat." - Sabrina B. Little, The Examined Run: Why Good People Make Better Runners
Wednesday, July 24, 2024
Quote of the day
"The word compete means 'strive together' or 'strive in common.' It is a concept that is more collaborative than antagonistic, but this is not the sense we get when the word is used today." - Sabrina B. Little, The Examined Run: Why Good People Make Better Runners
Friday, July 19, 2024
Quote of the day
"Here is a running tip: You can't feel grateful and bad for yourself at the same time. Gratitude decreases negative affect." - Sabrina B. Little, The Examined Run: Why Good People Make Better Runners
Tuesday, July 16, 2024
Quote of the day
"There is clear guidance for how to develop a good character, and it is guidance that will especially resonate with an athlete: We develop good characters in the same way that we become better runners. We practice." - Sabrina B. Little, The Examined Run: Why Good People Make Better Runners
Monday, July 15, 2024
Quote of the day
"Adapt yourself to the circumstances in which your lot has cast you; and love these people among whom your lot has fallen, but love them in all sincerity." - Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
Sunday, July 14, 2024
Quote of the day
Saturday, July 13, 2024
Quote of the day
"We take a handful of sand from the endless landscape of awareness around us and call that handful of sand the world." - Robert Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values
Friday, July 12, 2024
Quote of the day
"History has a lot to teach us, but only if we are willing to listen and learn. If we see the same sort of things taking place now that happened in the past, including drought and famine, earthquakes and tsunamis, then I ask again, might it not be a good idea to look at the ancient world and learn from what happened to them?" - Eric H. Cline, 1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed
Thursday, July 11, 2024
Quote of the day
"[S]he changed her mind on a number of issues (e.g., using or refusing to use certain pronouns, and the significance thereof), and some of the things she once said she later preferred to say differently. And so she corrects herself, pushes herself, forgives herself - this is what a living understanding looks like, instead of dead dogma. We should all be so willing to collaborate with our old selves throughout our life journey." - Ken Liu, describing Ursula K. Le Guin in his introduction to her The Language of the Night: Essays on Writing, Science Fiction and Fantasy
Tuesday, July 09, 2024
Quote of the day
"They do not come to you, the objects whose pursuit or avoidance causes you such disquiet, but in a certain sense you go to them; so if you will only let your judgement about them remain at rest, they too will remain unmoved, and you will be seen neither to pursue them nor to avoid them." - Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
In other words, things/people do not force us to think or feel a certain way, it is our own judgements and thoughts about them that cause our distress - we do it to ourselves. Marcus is telling himself that if he doesn't form, accept or fixate on such thoughts in the first place the distress will not come; so don't go to those thoughts in your mind.
Monday, July 08, 2024
Sunday, July 07, 2024
Quote of the day
"What the idea of 'doing one's moral best' comes down to, when it is sincere and genuine, is something close to Aristotle's idea that, in effect, one lives an ethically good life by trying to do so. The trying is itself the succeeding" - A.C. Grayling, Thinking of Answers: Questions in the Philosophy of Everyday Life
Saturday, July 06, 2024
Quote of the day
"The rightful first subject of skepticism isn't others. It's ourselves." - Ward Farnsworth, The Socratic Method: A Practitioner's Handbook
Friday, July 05, 2024
Quote of the day
"So after you work a lifetime to get yourself all set up and then delude yourself into thinking that you have some kind of ownership claim on your station in life, you're riding for a fall. You're asking for disappointment. To avoid that, stop kidding yourself, just do the best you can on a commonsense basis to make your station in life what you want it to be, but never get hooked on it. Make sure in your heart of hearts, in your inner self, that you treat your station in life with indifference. Not with contempt, only with indifference." - James Stockdale, Thoughts of a Philosophical Fighter Pilot
I can say from (current) experience this is very good advice as your station in life is something that you can influence, but it is subject to vast other influences that are beyond your control, rendering itself beyond your own control. "What are we to do, then? To make the best of what lies within our power, and deal with everything else as it comes."*
*Epictetus, Discourses 1.1.17
Wednesday, July 03, 2024
Quote of the day
"[Socrates] was ... the first to show that life affords scope for philosophy at every moment, in every detail, in every feeling and circumstance whatsoever." - Plutarch, "On Old Men in Public Life"
Via The Socratic Method: A Practioner's Handbook by Ward FarnsworthTuesday, July 02, 2024
Quote of the day
"To the Stoic, the greatest injury that can be inflicted on a person is administered by himself when he destroys the good man within him. For the non-Stoics, almost all great injuries are based on deprivations of 'things' controlled by external persons or forces. To a Stoic, there is no such things as being a 'victim'; you can only be a 'victim' of yourself." - James Stockdale, Thoughts of a Philosophical Fighter Pilot
Crossing the Rubicon
I wake up today feeling the same. Except not. It has unofficially been the case for decades now that the President is above the law, as we have "looked forward, not backward" at crimes committed in office. But now we have the Supreme Court giving the presidency "absolute immunity" to commit crimes while in office. In a country where one person is set above the law we are all less safe, less free. So much for the Jeffersonian sentiment: "In questions of power, then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution."
This 4th of July we should not celebrate our liberty, but mourn its loss.
Monday, July 01, 2024
Baleful quotes of the day
"Surveillance capitalists work hard to camouflage their purpose as they master the uses of instrumentation power to shape our behavior while evading our awareness." - Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power
"I want you to imagine walking into a control room with a hundred people, hunched over a desk with little dials, and that that control room will shape the thoughts and feelings of a billion people. This might sound like science fiction, but this actually exists right now, today." - Tristan Harris, "How a handful of tech companies control billions of minds every day"*
*Via Infectious Generosity: The Ultimate Idea Worth Spreading by Chris Anderson
Sunday, June 30, 2024
Quote of the day
"A person often acts unjustly by what he fails to do, and not only by what he does." - Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
Saturday, June 29, 2024
Wrong even while being wrong
I'm watching rally footage of Donald Trump and I can't believe the staggering amount of falseness that he generates, almost constantly. Particularly struck that even within the realm of his misinformation, he misinforms about that: he is saying that global cooling, fear the Earth would freeze was once a supposed problem in the .... 1920s. And that there was a Time magazine cover about it.
Global cooling scare is a standard climate change denier trope: it was a Newsweek article that is the source of this myth, and it was during the 1970s, not 20s.
There was no consensus of impending global cooling in the 1970s, nor a panic. The majority of research papers were concerned with global warming, even then. And the Time magazine cover allusion is reference to a fraud generated by a climate denier.
Yet how many people in that rally audience will ever be confronted with this information?
Baleful quote of the day
Thursday, June 27, 2024
Quote of the day
"Whoever does wrong, wrongs himself; whoever acts unjustly, acts unjustly towards himself because he makes himself bad." - Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
Wednesday, June 26, 2024
Quote of the day
Tuesday, June 25, 2024
Quote of the day
"[Scientific thinking's] strength lies not in the certainties it reaches but in a radical awareness of the vastness of our ignorance. This awareness allows us to keep questioning our own knowledge, and thus, to continue learning." - Carlo Rovelli, Anaximander: And the Birth of Science
I actually prefer the title the book was originally released with (that edition is now out of print): The First Scientist: Anaximander and his Legacy.
Sunday, June 23, 2024
Baleful quote of the day
"Over the past two decades, influential figures in American and British public life have adopted an ever-more-tenuous connection to the truth - and a complete disregard for evidence, expert knowledge, or logical coherence - with no political consequences." - Cailin O'Connor & James Owen Weatherall, The Misinformation Age: How False Beliefs Spread
Saturday, June 22, 2024
Quote of the day
"[W]e are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit." - Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy: The Lives and Opinions of the Greater Philosophers from Ptahhotep to Sartre
This is Durant explaining Aristotle's conception of excellence of character.
Thursday, June 20, 2024
Quote of the day
'The first great distinction of Aristotle is that almost without predecessors, almost entirely by his own hard thinking, he created a new science - Logic." - Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy: The Lives and Opinions of the Greater Philosophers from Ptahhotep to Sartre
Wednesday, June 19, 2024
Quote of the day
"It is unjust to complain that what may happen to anyone has happened to someone." - Montaigne, "Of Experience" (1580)
Via The Practicing Stoic: A Philosophical User's Manual by Ward Farnsworth
In other words, there is no point in moaning, "why me?" when something we prefer not to happen has happened to us.
Sunday, June 16, 2024
Quote of the day
"The best way to avenge yourself is not to become as they are." - Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
Saturday, June 15, 2024
Quote of the day
I was once a fortunate man but at some point fortune abandoned me.
But true good fortune is what you make for yourself. Good fortune: good character, good intentions, good actions.
Wednesday, June 12, 2024
Quote of the day
"Aristotle had spent money lavishly in the collection of books (that is, in those printless days, manuscripts); he was the first, after Euripides, to gather a library; and the foundation of the principles of library classification was among his many contributions to scholarship. Therefore, Plato spoke of Aristotle's home as 'the house of the reader,' and seems to have meant the sincerest compliment" - Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy: The Lives and Opinions of the Greater Philosophers from Ptahhotep to Sartre
Tuesday, June 11, 2024
Quote of the day
"In our daily activities all of us are confronted with other people and often with those whom we would rather avoid. These are our challenges, lessons, and tests. If we consider them in that manner, we won't be so irritated by these experiences, nor will we be so apt to think, 'I wish this wasn't happening,' or 'I wish he'd go away,' or 'I wish he would never say another word,' thereby creating pain and grief for ourselves. When we realize that such a confrontation is exactly what we need at that moment in order to overcome resistance and negativity and to substitute loving-kindness for those emotions, then we will be grateful for the opportunity. Eventually we will find (mostly in retrospect, of course) that we can be very grateful to those people who have made life most difficult for us." - Ayya Khema, Know Where You're Going: A Complete Buddhist Guide to Meditation, Faith, and Everyday Transcendence
I'm reminded of Epictetus: "[The] man who insults me ... becomes my training partner; he trains me in patience, in abstaining from anger, in remaining gentle."
Monday, June 10, 2024
Quote of the day
Sunday, June 09, 2024
Quote of the day
"[W]hatever you do, do it with this in mind, that you should do it as a good person ought, according to the specific conception that you have formed of what it means to be good. And hold to this in all that you undertake." - Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
Saturday, June 08, 2024
Quote of the day
"Hasten, then, towards your goal, and dismissing idle hopes, come to your own rescue, if you have any care for yourself, while it is still possible." - Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
Friday, June 07, 2024
Quote of the day
"Here is the weakest point in Buddha's philosophy; he never quite faces the contradiction between his rationalistic psychology and his uncritical acceptance of reincarnation." - Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy: The Lives and Opinions of the Greater Philosophers from Ptahhotep to Sartre
Sunday, June 02, 2024
Quote of the day
"So other people hurt me? That's their problem. Their character and actions are not mine." - Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
Thursday, May 30, 2024
Quote of the day
"Fate guides the willing, but drags the unwilling." - Cleanthes, "Hymn to Zeus"
Cleanthes was the successor of Stoicism's founder Zeno.* This is one of those wonderful quotes that brings to our attention a truth that we already know and it seems so obvious but we still have a hard time accepting or living by it. No amount of frustration, lamentation or self-inflicted misery will ever be able to change things that are out of our control: the only reasonable option is to deal with whatever happens as best we can.
*See Lives of the Stoics by Ryan Holiday & Stephen Hanselman for a biography of Cleanthes.
Wednesday, May 29, 2024
Quote of the day
"We think that our discontent is due to exterior things because we have not yet realized that they originate from within."- Ayya Khema, Come and See for Yourself: The Buddhist Path to Happiness
Monday, May 27, 2024
Quote of the day
"'Best,' to the Stoics, did not mean winning battles. Superior did not mean accumulating the most honors. It meant, as it still does today, virtue. It meant excellence not in accomplishing external things - though that was always nice if fate allowed - but excellence in the areas that you controlled: Your thoughts. Your actions. Your choices." - Ryan Holiday & Stephen Hanselman, Lives of the Stoics: The Art of Living from Zeno to Marcus Aurelius
Sunday, May 26, 2024
Quote of the day
"A generous person does not wait until a gift is expected of them, such as a special occasion, or being asked for something, before they think of giving." - Ayya Khema, Come and See for Yourself: The Buddhist Path to Happiness
Saturday, May 25, 2024
Quote of the day
"[W]e should remind ourselves not to be unfriendly if someone is unfriendly towards us. In view of the fact that they are creating bad karma in that moment, we should feel compassionate rather than unfriendly. We should bear in mind that if we are unfriendly in turn we will be creating bad karma too. Most people act according to the mundane law of repaying unkindness with unkindness, and believe there is no reasonable alternative. As Buddhists, however, we are asked to undertake the course of action recommended by the Buddha: not to repay unkind and unpleasant behavior in the same coin, but to indicate through our behavior there is another way. This will be of benefit to ourselves, and perhaps to the other person as well." - Ayya Khema, Come and See for Yourself: The Buddhist Path to Happiness
Friday, May 24, 2024
Quote of the day
"Spreading negativity is always harmful, mostly to ourselves." - Ayya Khema, Come and See for Yourself: The Buddhist Path to Happiness
Thursday, May 23, 2024
Quote of the day
"Even while we remain mindful, our everyday behaviour should not be applied like a mask, or be based on an identification with some personality. It should come from the heart." - Ayya Khema, Come and See for Yourself: The Buddhist Path to Happiness
This is another instance of Buddhist teaching overlapping with Stoic exhortations to strive to be a sincere, good intentioned, honest person - constantly. Epictetus says to decide what kind of person you want to be and then act accordingly in all that you do, where as here Khema says not to pretend to be a person you're not or conduct yourself in a certain manner if it's insincere. These are like different sides of the same coin.
Wednesday, May 22, 2024
Quote of the day
"The time we actually have cannot be calculated; it is a question of making proper use of it." - Ayya Khema, Come and See for Yourself: The Buddhist Path to Happiness
This is similar to the sentiment Seneca expressed in On the Shortness of Life: "Life is long if you know how to use it." (There is much overlap between Buddhist and Stoic teachings; e.g. focus on mindfulness, that our thoughts are the origin of our suffering, that happiness can only be found within, the promotion of kindness to all, etc.)
Tuesday, May 21, 2024
Quote of the day
"The Socratic way seeks a different kind of comfort - with uncertainty, with fallibility, and with beliefs that are never more than provisional. On this view the good life isn't a result reached by winning the struggle. The struggle is the good life." - Ward Farnsworth, The Socratic Method: A Practioner's Handbook
Monday, May 20, 2024
Quote of the day
"We have built networks for the delivery of information - the internet, and especially social media. These networks, too, are a marvel. But they also carry a kind of poison with them. The mind fed from these sources learns to subsist happily on quick reactions, easy certainties, one-liners, and rage. It craves confirmation and resents contradiction. Attention spans collapse; imbecility propagates, then seems normal, then is celebrated. The capacity for rational discourse between people who disagree gradually rots." - Ward Farnsworth, The Socratic Method: A Practioner's Handbook
Farnsworth is here comparing the modern marvel of the internet to the ancient marvel of Rome's water network. Rome's pipes were made of lead, though, and transmitted lead through the system over time. The metaphor being that the way social media is structured is inherently toxic.
Sunday, May 19, 2024
Quote of the day
"Good maxims, if you keep them often in mind, will be just as beneficial as good examples." - Seneca, Epistles 94.42-43
Via The Practicing Stoic: A Philosophical User's Manual by Ward FarnsworthSaturday, May 18, 2024
Quote of the day
"[T]he Stoic believes that virtue gives rise to joy and peace of mind as well. Virtue produces these good consequences as side effects. The primary mission of the Stoics, in other words, is to be helpful to others and serve the greater good, and they don't do this to make themselves happy. They do it because it is the right and natural way to live. But doing it in that spirit, as it turns out, makes them happy." - Ward Farnsworth, The Practicing Stoic: A Philosophical User's Manual
Wednesday, May 15, 2024
Quote of the day
"Who are they, these people whose admiration you want to win? Aren't they the very people whom you're in the habit of describing as mad? What, do you want to be admired by madmen?" - Epictetus, Discourses 1.21.4
Via The Practicing Stoic: A Philosophical User's Manual by Ward FarnsworthI used the Oxford World's Classic edition translation which is linked above. Farnsworth uses another translation, which I'll offer here. It's mostly a matter of style, both say the same thing:
Who are these people whose admiration you seek? Aren't they the ones you are used to describing as mad, Well, then, is that what you want - to be admired by lunatics?
Tuesday, May 14, 2024
Quote of the day
"[Envy] is at once a vice and a source of misery. We should treat it as the enemy of our happiness, and stifle it like an evil thought. This is the advice given by Seneca; as he well puts it, we shall be pleased with what we have, if we avoid the self-torture of comparing our own lot with some other and happier one." - Arthur Schopenhauer, "Our Relation to Ourselves" (1851)
Via The Practicing Stoic: A Philosophical User's Manual by Ward FarnsworthMonday, May 13, 2024
Quote of the day
"Envy among human beings is a pernicious evil and most deadly scourge, as harmful to the envious as to those who are envied" - Fronto, letter to Marcus Aurelius
Via the Oxford World's Classic edition of Meditations
Fronto was a tutor of Marcus who became a lifelong friend and mentor, as evidenced by their surviving letters. I suspect Fronto meant this as a general principle, but it would have been particularly relevant (and perhaps literal) advice to someone who would become a Roman emperor, given their history.
Sunday, May 12, 2024
Quote of the day
"Not being able to govern events, I govern myself, and if they will not adapt to me, I adapt to them." - Montaigne, "Of Presumption" (1580)
Via The Practicing Stoic: A Philosophical User's Manual by Ward Farnsworth
Farnsworth notes that Montaigne is distilling and reiterating ideas he absorbed from the Stoics. I can't help but notice that this is almost exactly the same sentiment famously formulated by Victor Frankl several hundred years later.
Saturday, May 11, 2024
Quote of the day
"The internet is governed by incentives that make it impossible to be a full person while interacting with it." - Jia Tolentino, Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion
Wednesday, May 08, 2024
Quote of the day
"[Aristotle] would not have understood what good it does to discover 'the real me.' He thought that self-realization could not be achieved without service to the community, in his case, the city-state." - James Stockdale, Thoughts of a Philosophical Fighter Pilot
Sunday, May 05, 2024
Quote of the day
Does what's happened keep you from acting with justice, generosity, self-control, sanity, prudence, honesty, humility, straightforwardness, and all the other qualities that allow a person's nature to fulfill itself?
So remember this principle when something threatens to cause you pain: the thing itself was no misfortune at all; to endure it and prevail is great good fortune.
I'm currently facing some adversity in the form of physical disability and trying to look it at it this way. I won't say it's easy but the alternative is what: to be upset, to lament, or be depressed? What sense would that make to choose to feel that way?
Wednesday, May 01, 2024
Quote of the day
Tuesday, April 30, 2024
Quote of the day
"If someone handed over your body to somebody whom you encountered, you'd be furious; but that you hand over your mind to anyone who comes along, so that, if he abuses you, it becomes disturbed and confused, do you feel no shame at that?" - Epictetus, Handbook
Monday, April 29, 2024
Quote of the day
"Charitably put, I thought [the Handbook of Epictetus] irrelevant. Nevertheless, I read and remembered almost all of it - if for no other reason than that it was given to me by a man I respected as a human being, a scholar, and a teacher." - James Stockdale, Thoughts of a Philosophical Fighter Pilot
The teachings of Epictetus ended up helping Stockdale find the inner fortitude to survive 7 years in a prison camp where he experienced physical and psychological torture with his spirit unbroken.
Sunday, April 28, 2024
Quote of the day
Thursday, April 25, 2024
Quote of the day
"Be magnanimous: with a lofty mind, be above feeling injured by trivial things. Look down on them as being unworthy of your attention." - Seneca
Via Breakfast with Seneca: A Stoic Guide to the Art of Living by David FidelerMonday, April 22, 2024
Quote of the day
"When someone acts badly towards you, or speaks badly of you, remember that he is acting or speaking in that way because he regards that as being the proper thing for him to do. Now, it isn't possible for him to act in accordance with what seems right to you, but with only what seems right to him. So if he judges wrongly, he is the one who suffers the harm, since he is the one who has been deceived ... If you start out, then, from this way of thinking, you'll be gentle with someone who abuses you, for in each case you'll say, 'That is how it seemed to him.'" - Epictetus, Handbook
The Stoics believed that someone who perfectly put their beliefs into practice would be a Stoic Sage. For them, this wan't something that necessarily could be achieved, but could be strived towards. The Sage was a kind of hypothetical role model they would want to emulate. To me, anyone who can perfectly put into practice the sentiment Epictetus expresses above is not merely a Sage, but a saint.
It is such a beautiful, kind sentiment: to be able to forgive wrongdoing and not take offense. But it is something that I, at least, do not find always easy to implement. But wanting to feel that way, intending to feel that way - remembering that and reminding myself - is the first step.
Another step, or, really, habit of thought to practice is not to convince yourself you've been harmed in the first place.
Sunday, April 21, 2024
On why we are compelled by the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius
From The Inner Citadel: The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius by Pierre Hadot
Could we not say that if this book is still so attractive to us, it is because when we read it we get the impression of encountering, not the Stoic system, although Marcus constantly refers to it, but a man of good will, who does not hesitate to criticize and examine himself, who constantly takes up again the task of exhorting and persuading himself, and of finding the words which will help him to live, and to live well?
...
In world literature one finds lots of preachers, lesson-givers, and censors, who moralize to others with complacency, irony, cynicism, or bitterness; but it is extremely rare to find a person training himself to live and to think like a human being.
Hadot puts it perfectly. It is precisely because Aurelius was speaking to no one but himself that his exhortations and effort to be a better and kinder person are so powerful, impressive, touching, and inspiring; and still so resonant today.
Saturday, April 20, 2024
Quote of the day
"Ultimately, philosophy is about thinking for oneself, and making choices, and seeking to live according to them, with the aim of achieving something good." A.C. Grayling, Thinking of Answers: Questions in the Philosophy of Everyday Life
Friday, April 19, 2024
Quote of the day
The only way to really injure a Stoic would be to damage his virtue, goodness, or character.
To illustrate persistence, Seneca uses the example of someone at the Olympic games who wears out an opponent through sheer patience. (The Latin word patientia means "endurance.") Similarly, in terms of mental endurance, the wise person, through long training, acquires the patience to wear out, or simply ignore, any attack on his character.
Thursday, April 18, 2024
Quote of the day
"There are people who do not live their present life; it is as if they were preparing themselves, with all their zeal, to live some other life, but not this one. And while they do this, time goes by and is lost. We cannot put life back in play, as if we were casting another roll of the dice." - Antiphon, Sophist thinker, c. 450 BCE
Via the back cover of What is Ancient Philosophy? by Pierre Hadot
Wednesday, April 17, 2024
Quote of the day
"Well then, if it is necessary for both [women and men] to be proficient in the virtue which is appropriate to a human being, that is, for both to be able to have understanding, and self-control, and courage, and justice, the one no less than the other, shall we not teach them both alike the art by which a human being becomes good?" - Musonius Rufus, "Should daughters receive the same education as sons?"
Via That One Should Disdain Hardships: The Teachings of a Roman Stoic edited/translated by Cora Lutz
We often see variations of "it was a different time" to excuse or soften past injustices; but almost always there is someone in that era that already knew then that it was wrong. Rufus was born nearly 2000 years ago and already saw a gender equality of moral worth; while he also held a sexist belief that there were skills/jobs that were inherently better suited for men or women, he did note that "all human tasks ... are a common obligation ... and none is appointed for either one exclusively."
Tuesday, April 16, 2024
On being who you want to be
You need to avoid certain things in your train of thought: everything random, everything irrelevant. And certainly everything self-important or malicious. You need to get used to winnowing your thoughts, so that if anyone says, "What are you thinking about?" you can respond at once (and truthfully) that you are thinking this or thinking that. And it would be obvious at once from your answer that your thoughts were straightforward and considerate ones - the thoughts of an unselfish person, one unconcerned with pleasure and with sensual indulgence generally, with squabbling, with slander and envy, or anything you'd be ashamed to be caught thinking.
Monday, April 15, 2024
Quote of the day
Sunday, April 14, 2024
Quote of the day
"While his lifetime was incomplete, his life itself was perfect. Another man might seem to live for eighty years but only be around for eighty years - unless by 'live' you mean that way in which trees are said to live. I beg you, Lucilius: Let's carry on in this way, so our lives are measured like the most precious objects - not by their size, but by their worth. Let's measure our lives by their performance, not by their duration." - Seneca, Letters 93.4
Seneca wrote this letter in response to the death of a friend (Metronax) who died young, but had lived admirably.
Via Breakfast with Seneca: A Stoic Guide to the Art of Living by David Fideler
Saturday, April 13, 2024
Quote of the day
"[T]he existence of a time that is uniform, independent of things and of their movement that today seems so natural to us is not an ancient intuition that is natural to humanity itself. It's an idea of [Isaac] Newton's." - Carlo Rovelli, The Order of Time
Friday, April 12, 2024
Quote of the day
"I am aiming to live each day as if it is a complete lifetime." - Seneca, Letters 48.2-3
Via Breakfast with Seneca: A Stoic Guide to the Art of Living by David Fideler
Thursday, April 11, 2024
Finding wonder in the sense of time
Have been reading Carlo Rovelli's thoroughly enjoyable The Order of Time and early in the book Rovelli was able to achieve, in my estimation, an impressive feat: his description of the relativity of time and explanation of how the notion of a "Now" across the universe is non-sensical triggered me having an experience of awe and wonder, for a brief moment, that I would call borderline euphoric. I also believe this is the first time that I've truly experienced/appreciated the Stoic "View from Above." The last time I felt something similar would have been when I read Postcards from Mars back in 2006.
And, so, I'm writing this post simply to capture, now, my sense of gratitude for the experience. Thank you, Mr. Rovelli!
Quote of the day
"That kindness is invincible, provided it's sincere - not ironic or an act." - Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
Wednesday, April 10, 2024
Quote of the day
"Friendship creates between us a partnership in all things. Nothing is good or bad for us alone: we live in common. Nor can anyone live happily who only cares for his own advantage. You must live for another if you would live for yourself. This fellowship, maintained with special care and respect, unites humanity as a whole, and holds that we all have certain rights in common." - Seneca, Letters 48.2-3
Via Breakfast with Seneca: A Stoic Guide to the Art of Living by David Fideler
Tuesday, April 09, 2024
Quote of the day
"When you start to lose your temper, remember: There's nothing manly about rage. It's courtesy and kindness that defines a human being: and a man. That's who possesses strength and nerves and guts, not the angry whiners. To react like that brings you closer to impassivity - and so to strength. Pain is the opposite of strength, and so is anger. Both are things we suffer from, and yield to." - Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
On Stoic ethics
"Stoic ethics is a species of eudaimonism. Its central, organizing concern is about what we ought to do or be to live well - to flourish." - Lawrence Becker, A New Stoicism
Monday, April 08, 2024
Quote of the day
"Don't search outside yourselves for what is good; seek it within, or you will never find it." - Epictetus
Via Breakfast with Seneca: A Stoic Guide to the Art of Living by David FidelerSunday, April 07, 2024
Quote of the day
"Extreme anger will not increase justice or make the world a better place; it will only make the world more miserable, and more out of control. Anger, in the Stoic view, can only increase human suffering." - David Fideler, Breakfast with Seneca: A Stoic Guide to the Art of Living
Saturday, April 06, 2024
Quote of the day
"Forgive others, and even all of humanity, because you are not perfect either: the faults we find in others also exist within ourselves." - Seneca
Via Breakfast with Seneca: A Stoic Guide to the Art of Living by David FidelerFriday, April 05, 2024
Quote of the day
"Stoicism is a philosophy that focuses on teaching us how to excel, how to become better human beings, and how to live a good life." - Donald Robertson, Stoicism and the Art of Happiness: Practical wisdom for everyday life
Thursday, April 04, 2024
Quote of the day
"For no one will cause you harm if you don't wish it; you'll have been harmed only when you suppose that you've been harmed." - Epictetus, Handbook
I am particularly moved by the transcendence of shared human experience across the ages while reading this knowing that the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius tried to deal with the troubles he encountered daily by reading the same teachings and putting them into his own words and reminding himself in his journal to put them into practice.
Wednesday, April 03, 2024
Quote of the day
"Remember that what insults you isn't the person who abuses you or hits you, but your judgement that such people are insulting you. So whenever anyone irritates you, recognize that it is your opinion that has irritated you. Try above all, then, not to allow yourself to be carried away by the impression; for if you delay things and gain time to think, you'll find it easier to gain control of yourself." - Epictetus, Handbook
Tuesday, April 02, 2024
Quote of the day
"With regard to everything that happens to you, remember to look inside yourself and see what capacity you have to enable you to deal with it." - Epictetus, Handbook
Monday, April 01, 2024
Quote of the day
"So what would you wish to be doing when death overtakes you? For my part I'd like to be carrying out some deed worthy of a human being, something beneficent, something that serves the common good, something noble. But if I can't be caught doing anything as fine as that, I should at least like to be doing something that I can't be hindered from doing, something that is granted to me to accomplish, namely, putting myself right, striving to perfect the faculty that deals with impressions, and labouring to achieve peace of mind, while yet fulfilling my social duties, and if I should be so fortunate, pressing on the third area of study, the one that is concerned with the attainment of security in one's judgements." - Epictetus, Discourses 4.10
Sunday, March 31, 2024
Baleful quote of the day
Quote of the day
"The first promise of real philosophy is a feeling of fellowship, sympathy, and community with others." - Seneca (4 BCE - 65 CE)
Via Breakfast with Seneca: A Stoic Guide to the Art of Living by David Fideler
Saturday, March 30, 2024
Quote of the day
"Is this what you've been anxious to learn: how to be delivered from grief, disturbance, and humiliation, and be free? Haven't you heard, then, that there is only a single path that leads to that end: to give up things that lie outside the sphere of choice, and turn away from them, and acknowledge that they're not your own. The opinion that someone else holds about you, then, what kind of a thing is that? - 'Something that lies outside the sphere of choice.' - So isn't it nothing to you? - 'Nothing at all.' - So while you continue to be disturbed and nettled by the opinion of others, do you suppose that you're properly convinced about what is good and bad?" - Epictetus, Discourses 4.6
Friday, March 29, 2024
Quote of the day
"It takes very little to spoil and upset everything: just some slight deviation from reason ... Pay careful attention, then, to your impressions; watch over them unceasingly. For it is not something of little importance that you're trying to preserve, but self-respect, fidelity, impassibility, freedom from distress, fear, and anxiety, and, in a word, freedom. At what price will you sell that? Consider how much it is worth." - Epictetus, Discourses 4.3
Wednesday, March 27, 2024
Quote of the day
From Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
As those who try to stand in thy way when thou art proceeding according to right reason, will not be able to turn thee aside from thy proper action, so neither let them drive thee from thy benevolent feelings towards them, but be on thy guard equally in both matters, not only in the matter of steady judgement and action, but also in the matter of gentleness towards those who try to hinder or otherwise trouble thee. For this is also a weakness, to be vexed at them, as well as to be diverted from thy course of action and to give way through fear; for both are equally deserters from their post, the man who does it through fear, and the man who is alienated from him who is by nature a kinsman and a friend.
To me this is so profoundly remarkable to find this sentiment in the personal journal of a Roman emperor. The notion of seeing anger towards people who are negative or unfriendly or who attempt to hinder us as a weakness; and gentleness and kindness in response as a strength. I know from experience that whenever I let someone's negativity towards me divert me from the goal of being friendly towards everyone I always in the end felt like I had failed myself and the person, no matter how justified I may have felt in the moment of being angry or vexed. I always end up feeling like I had behaved as a person I do not want to be - and that it is a weakness to let negative emotions rule your conduct. Plus, it's unhealthy. If you're angry or troubled you're by definition not happy. Why would you do that to yourself? No one can hurt you or make you unhappy - it's your judgments and thoughts about things that do so.
Monday, March 25, 2024
Quote of the day
"Don't you know that someone who is virtuous and good never acts for the sake of appearances, but only for the sake of having acted rightly?" - Epictetus, Discourses 3.24
Sunday, March 24, 2024
Quote of the day
Saturday, March 23, 2024
Quote of the day
From Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
If you can cut yourself - your mind - free of what other people do and say, of what you've said or done, of the things that you're afraid will happen, the impositions of the body that contain you and the breath within, and what the whirling chaos sweeps in from outside, so that the mind is freed from fate, brought to clarity, and lives life on its own recognizance - doing what's right, accepting what happens, and speaking the truth -
If you can cut free of impressions that cling to the mind, free of the future and the past - can make yourself, as Empedocles says, "a sphere rejoicing in its perfect stillness," and concentrate on living what can be lived (which means the present) ... then you can spend the time you have left in tranquility. And in kindness. And at peace with the spirit within you.
Thursday, March 21, 2024
Quote of the day
"Surveillance capitalism found shelter in the neoliberal zeitgeist that equated government regulation of business with tyranny. This 'paranoid style' favored self-management regimes that imposed few limits on corporate practices." - Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power
Wednesday, March 20, 2024
What price do you set upon your soul?
The Stoics - particularly Roman Stoics - trained themselves to believe that maintaining the quality of their character, leading a life dedicated to virtue is of the highest value and nothing was worth compromising one's integrity. It's why Roman senator Cato committed suicide as a last act of protest rather than allow himself be captured by Julius Caesar and used as propaganda (See the excellent Rome's Last Citizen: The Life and Legacy of Cato, Mortal Enemy of Caesar for more on his life and conduct.) Cato was an inspiration to the founders of the United States, who attempted to emulate him in living a life of virtue.
I found myself thinking of the Stoics and their dedication to right conduct/character as the highest good as I read and finished Thank You for Your Servitude: Donald Trump's Washington and the Price of Submission by Mark Leibovich. The rise and empowerment of Donald Trump was made possible by person after person who did not value their character and integrity highly. It was people who valued access to power, prestige, a high ranking job etc more than doing the right thing or standing up to someone they knew was a horrible, corrupt person. Lindsey Graham particularly stands out for setting apparently no value whatsoever on his personal integrity.
I believe what we're now seeing and facing is the reality that a democracy can't work if a substantial amount of citizens do not believe in the principles of democracy and do not set a high value upon being citizens of virtue.
Thursday, March 14, 2024
Quote of the day
Sunday, March 10, 2024
Quote of the day
Thursday, March 07, 2024
Quote of the day
"[C]onsider how much more pain is brought on us by the anger and vexation caused by such acts than by the acts themselves, at which we are angry and vexed." - Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
Wednesday, March 06, 2024
Quote of the day
There are differences among various incarnations of "personalizations" and "assistance" offered by the tech giants, but these are trivial compared with the collective urge toward total knowledge - about your inner states, real-world context, and specific daily life activities - all in the service of successfully training the machines that they might better target market operations to each moment of life.
Tuesday, March 05, 2024
Quote of the day
"Tell yourself first of all what kind of person you want to be, and then act accordingly in all that you do." - Epictetus, Discourses 3.23
Monday, March 04, 2024
Quote of the day
Sunday, March 03, 2024
Quote of the day
"There was a time when you searched Google, but now Google searches you." - Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power
This is a book with profound importance, detailing the ways that our lives and inner selves are being gobbled up by corporations to further manipulate our behavior and make money doing so. As the Guardian review linked puts it
It describes how global tech companies such as Google and Facebook persuaded us to give up our privacy for the sake of convenience; how personal information (“data”) gathered by these companies has been used by others not only to predict our behaviour but also to influence and modify it; and how this has had disastrous consequences for democracy and freedom. This is the “surveillance capitalism” of the title, which Zuboff defines as a “new economic order” and “an expropriation of critical human rights that is best understood as a coup from above”.
But, unfortunately, the material has to be read carefully and digested to appreciate how insidious this age of surveillance capitalism is. And we have a generation of young adults for whom the norm is having their entire lives available on-line for data tracking, without seeing any problem with it or even realizing it's happening. (The extent to which these companies gather information about our lives is vaster than almost anyone imagines, and I'm certainly not exempting myself, as I didn't realize it, either, until reading this book.)
Our right to our inner selves is one of the most fundamental, necessary rights for living a fully realized human existence. And this is now being threatened by the almost entirely unregulated behemoth that is surveillance capitalism, which has annexed all human behavior/experience as substrate for predictative models of our lives. This is not right.