Quote of the day

 "[The] man who insults me ... becomes my training partner; he trains me in patience, in abstaining from anger, in remaining gentle." - Epictetus, Discourses 3.20

Quote of the day

 "Do external things distract you? Then make time for yourself to learn something worthwhile; stop letting yourself be pulled in all directions." - Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

And he didn't even live in the age of social media, where everything is designed by social psychologists to deliberately shorten a person's attention span. 

Quote of the day

"Of all hatreds, there is none greater than that of ignorance against knowledge." - Galileo

Via The Cave and the Light: Plato Versus Aristotle, and the Struggle for the Soul of Western Civilization by Arthur Herman

Quote of the day

 "When people injure you, ask yourself what good or harm they thought would come of it. If you understand that, you'll feel sympathy rather than outrage or anger." - Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

It's important to remember when seeing quotes from Meditations that it is written for an audience of one: he is saying this to himself. He is telling himself to make an active, conscience effort not to bear ill will towards anyone, for any reason. Putting this into practice, "you will have no enemies," Epictetus taught. 

The less inclined we are to categorize people as "enemy" the better: it tends to tap into the part of human nature that wants to hate without limit.

Quote of the day

 "I am not in the right place - I am not a painter." - Michelangelo, Letter To Giovanni Da Pistoia When the Author Was Painting the Vault of the Sistine Chapel 1509 (Gail Mazur translation)

There is just something so humanistic about an artist over 500 years ago feeling perhaps not up to a task chosen outside of his comfort zone (Michelangelo considered himself a sculptor primarily) and second guessing himself even while creating one of the greatest artistic achievements in human history.

Quote of the day

 "'My brother shouldn't have treated me in this way.' Indeed, he shouldn't, but it's for him to see to that. For my part, however he treats me, I should conduct myself towards him as I ought. For that is my business, and the rest is not my concern. In this no one can hinder me, while everything else is subject to hindrance." - Epictetus, Discourses 3.10

This is something I attempt to put into practice but sometimes have difficulty with. I find that ego and pride can get in the way. What's ironic is that often when we feel wronged by someone we retaliate in such a way that we become like the person we feel wronged by. It's why Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius wrote in his journal that the best revenge is to be unlike the person who wronged you. This is quite a remarkable sentiment considering how many other Emperors were perfectly content to use their power to take the more traditional vindictive and violent revenge. 

Once one can get past the ego and follow this advice, a new kind of tranquility arises. What we commonly feel to be the slight at being "treated in this way" is what Epictetus calls being hindered because you're trying to control what is not in your power to control; but if you can learn to recognize what's not in your control and let go, peace of mind can be found.

Quote of the day

"[F]rom such crooked wood as a human is made can nothing quite straight ever be fashioned." - Immanuel Kant, "Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Rigor" (1784) 

In other words, no one is perfect. Or, more specifically, no one ever can be. 

Quote of the day

 "Take away thy opinion, and then there is taken away the complaint, 'I have been harmed.' Take away the complaint, 'I have been harmed,' and the harm is taken away." - Marcus Aurelius, Meditations (circa 171- 175 CE)

There are various translations of Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius's journal in which he practiced his Stoicism but the gist of what he is saying here is that it is not events in themself that cause us harm, but the judgements and opinions we form that cause the harm. If you can let go of the feeling that something harms you or has happened to you, and see it instead as just something that has happened, then, as Epictetus put it "you will not be harmed."* This seems like such an obvious truth but is often easier to say than do, which is why Marcus wrote this note to himself, he is reminding himself to put this psychological technique into practice.** And, more broadly, is why Meditations is such a remarkable text: it is the personal journal of someone who at the time was one of the most powerful people on the planet, and it reveals that what he was most concerned with was not riches, fame, power, or revenge, but training himself to be a better, kinder, wiser and more just person.

*This is no coincidence. Aurelius was heavily influenced by the teachings of Epictetus.

**He reminds himself again later in the journal: "It is in our power to have no opinion about a thing, and not to be disturbed in our soul, for things themselves have no natural power to form our judgements."

Quote of the day

"Science gives us knowledge, but only philosophy can give us wisdom." - Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy: The Lives and Opinions of the Greater Philosophers from Ptahhotep to Sartre

Quote of the day

 "Through doubting we question, and through questioning we perceive the truth." - Peter Abelard

Via The Cave and the Light: Plato Versus Aristotle, and the Struggle for the Soul of Western Civilization by Arthur Herman

Quote of the day

 So if you want to be beautiful for your own part, you should strive to achieve this, the excellence that characterizes a human being.

'But what is it?'

Consider who it is that you praise when you praise people dispassionately: is it those who are just, or unjust? - 'Those who are just.' - The temperate or the intemperate? - 'The temperate.' - The self-controlled or the dissolute? - 'The self-controlled.' - You should know, then, that if you make yourself a person of that kind, you'll be making yourself beautiful; but if you neglect these virtues, you're bound to be ugly, whatever techniques you adopt to make yourself appear beautiful.

- Epictetus, Discourses 3.1

Learning something new (about Plato)

I'm on a streak of reading books related to the most well known ancient Greek philosophers, having just finished The Gang of Three: Socrates, Plato, Aristotle by Neel Burton, and and now diving into
The Cave and the Light: Plato Versus Aristotle, and the Struggle for the Soul of Western Civilization by Arthur Herman which, as a partisan for Aristotle, I'm quite enjoying. (Next I will read Aristotle's Children: How Christians, Muslims, and Jews Rediscovered Ancient Wisdom and Illuminated the Middle Ages by Richard Rubenstein.)

While I knew about Plato having originated the myth of Atlantis in his Timaeus I did not know, or have forgotten if I ever knew previously, that, as Herman puts it in The Cave and the Light in a section detailing the influence of Plato's creation mythology, "the word Plato uses for his ordered creation, genesis, will become the title of the first book of the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible."

Quote of the day

"To compose our character is our duty, not to compose books, and to win, not battles and provinces, but order and tranquility in our conduct. Our great and glorious masterpiece is to live appropriately." - Montaigne, Essays (1580)

This quote comes via Sarah Bakewell in her magisterial book* on Montaigne, How to Live: Or A Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer, which is in a section of the book explaining how Montaigne drew upon the practical wisdom of the ancient Greek Stoics and Epicureans on how to live a life well. 

*There are very few books of nonfiction that I would more highly recommend than How to Live.

Quote of the day

“Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it." - Mathew 7:13, NKJB

Came across this quote via Wide is the Gate by Upton Sinclair, the fourth of his 11 book Lanny Budd historical fiction series. The title is fitting as the novel is set between 1934 - 1937 and deals with the rise of fascism in Europe. I also just appreciate the quote, which I choose to interpret as thus: there are many ways to do wrong or be wrong, but usually very few ways, or a specific way to be right or do well. And even when we may know the right thing to do, it's not necessarily easy to do it, or the choice we're inclined to make. As the character Morpheus tells Neo in the 1999 film The Matrix, "there's a difference between knowing the path, and walking the path."

Quote of the day

 "[Zeno] said that well-being is attained little by little, yet it is no little thing itself. Some attribute this saying to Socrates." - Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Eminent Philosophers (3rd century CE)

Putting it in perspective

"[E]ach sees what is present in their heart." - Goethe, Faust (1831)

“In spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart. I simply can’t build up my hopes on a foundation consisting of confusion, misery, and death. I see the world gradually being turned into a wilderness, I hear the ever approaching thunder, which will destroy us too, I can feel the sufferings of millions and yet, if I look up into the heavens, I think that it will all come right, that this cruelty too will end, and that peace and tranquility will return again.” - Anne Frank, The Diary of a Young Girl

In my mind I turn to this Anne Frank quote frequently. I use it as a talisman to ward off pessimistic thoughts about the state of humanity. If a 13/14 year old in hiding from genocidal fascists who would eventually cause her death in a concentration camp could find it in herself to maintain this sentiment, then I can certainly stand to look for the best in people; or, rather, do whatever small part I can to promote kindness over cruelty, justice over injustice, and tolerance over intolerance.

Quote of the day

From The Enchiridion by Epictetus:

Some things are in our control and others not. Things in our control are opinion, pursuit, desire, aversion, and, in a word, whatever are our own actions. Things not in our control are body, property, reputation, command, and, in one word, whatever are not our own actions.

The things in our control are by nature free, unrestrained, unhindered; but those not in our control are weak, slavish, restrained, belonging to others. Remember, then, that if you suppose that things which are slavish by nature are also free, and that what belongs to others is your own, then you will be hindered. You will lament, you will be disturbed, and you will find fault both with gods and men. But if you suppose that only to be your own which is your own, and what belongs to others such as it really is, then no one will ever compel you or restrain you. Further, you will find fault with no one or accuse no one. You will do nothing against your will. No one will hurt you, you will have no enemies, and you will not be harmed. 

This is the opening line of the text and demonstrates what a remarkable teacher Epictetus was, as this so succinctly cuts to the core bedrock principle of Stoicism. That he was a Roman slave (his true name is unknown, epictetus translates to "acquired one") who gained his freedom and then through his teaching (what we have of his is essentially lecture notes compiled by his student Arrian) was able to influence generations for thousands of years (and counting) makes it even more impressive and inspiring.

Quote of the day

"How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortune of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it, except the pleasure of seeing it." - Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759)

This is one of the all time great opening lines of any text I have encountered. 

Quote of the day

"Doubt grows with knowledge." - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe