Quote of the day

"The payment for having done a virtuous deed is that you have done it." - Seneca

Via How to Give: An Ancient Guide to Giving and Receiving by James Romm 

Quote of the day

"Everyone helps themselves when they help another ... because the reward of all virtues is in the virtues themselves." - Seneca, "Epistle 81"

Via How to Give: An Ancient Guide to Giving and Receiving by James Romm

Quote of the day

"Here's the mark of great and good hearts: To seek good deeds for their own sake, not for the profits that flow from them, and to look for good people even after meeting bad ones." - Seneca

Via How to Give: Ancient Guide to Giving and Receiving by James Romm

Quote of the day

"Wherever I go, I will be fine, because I was already fine here - not on account of the place but as a result of my principles, and I am going to take them with me. No one can take them away from me; they are my only possessions, irremovable ones that are enough for me wherever I am and whatever I do." - Epictetus

Via How to Be Free: An Ancient Guide to the Stoic Life by A. A. Long

Quote of the day

"If you ever find yourself looking for outside approval in order to curry favor, you can be sure that you have lost your way." - Epictetus

Via How to Be Free: An Ancient Guide to the Stoic Life by A. A. Long

Quote of the day

 "[B]y making happiness conditional on circumstance, we surrender autonomy and equanimity, and put ourselves at risk of failure and disappointment." - A. A. Long, How to Be Free: An Ancient Guide to the Stoic Life

Quote of the day

 "[Anger] betrays the nature of humankind, since that nature urges us to love, but anger urges us to hate; human nature bids us to help others, but anger, to harm." - Seneca, "On Anger"

Via How to Keep Your Cool: An Ancient Guide to Anger Management  by James Romm

Quote of the day

"If you are a good person, you stand in the same relation to your friend as to yourself, since a friend is another self. You value your friend's existence in the same way as you value your own, or almost." - Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics

Via How to Flourish: An Ancient Guide to Living Well by Susan Suavé Meyer

Something about this passage, a sentiment expressed thousands of years ago in a place and time so different than now yet speaking to the universality of human experience is just overwhelmingly heartwarming. It brings a tear to my eye.

Quote of the day

 "You see, whoever looks upon a true friend looks, in a sense, at an image of himself." - Cicero 

Via How to be a Friend: An Ancient Guide to True Friendship by Philip Freeman

Quote of the day

 "[D]oing well is rare, praiseworthy, and splendid." - Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics

Via How to Flourish: An Ancient Guide to Living Well by Susan Suavé Meyer

Quote of the day

"You might describe the Nicomachean Ethics as a pagan version of the Beatitudes. Aristotle asks what makes a person happy or blessed, and he answers that a happy life is a flourishing one: a life in which we realize our full potential as rational, emotional, and social beings." - Susan Sauvé Meyer, How to Flourish: An Ancient Guide to Living Well

Quote of the day

"There is no fate that can not be surmounted by scorn." - Albert Camus, "The Myth of Sisyphus"

Quote of the day

"Observing human behavior confirms that for some among us, the perfidious lust for unbridled power and the imposition of cruelty in its quest know no bounds and are bereft of human decency. And the rule of law be damned." - US District Judge Fred Biery, decision ordering the release of a 5 year old detained by ICE

It is remarkable. Judges across the nation, across the political spectrum are telling us that we are witnessing government tyranny on the level of grievances listed in the Declaration of Independence (this judge literally makes that point in his decision.)

Quote of the day

"In your statement you assert that our actions, even though peaceful, must be condemned because they precipitate violence. But is this a logical assertion? Isn't this like condemning a robbed man because his possession of money precipitated the evil act of robbery? Isn't this like condemning Socrates because his unswerving commitment to truth and his philosophical inquiries precipitated the act by the misguided populace in which they made him drink hemlock? Isn't this like condemning Jesus because his unique God-consciousness and never-ceasing devotion to God's will precipitated the evil act of crucifixion? We must come to see that, as the federal courts have consistently affirmed, it is wrong to urge an individual to cease his efforts to gain his basic constitutional rights because the quest may precipitate violence. Society must protect the robbed and punish the robber." - Martin Luther King Jr, "Letter from Birmingham Jail" (April 16, 1963)

Quote of the day

"There is no evil under the sun but what is to be dreaded from men, who may do what they please with impunity: They seldom or never stop at certain degrees of mischief when they have power to go farther; but hurry on from wickedness to wickedness, as far and as fast as human malice can prompt human power." - Thomas Gordon, "Cautions Against the Natural Encroachments of Power" (June 17, 1721)

If only we had managed to create a system of government where leaders are held accountable for lawbreaking; not least of which: murdering people in international water, invading another country and kidnapping their president to steal that nation's resources.