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.

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

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

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

"I can't call these things social networks anymore. I call them behavior modification empires." - Jaron Lanier 

 Via Infectious Generosity: The Ultimate Idea Worth Spreading by Chris Anderson

Quote of the day

 "Whoever does wrong, wrongs himself; whoever acts unjustly, acts unjustly towards himself because he makes himself bad." - Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

Quote of the day

"[I]t is proper to take alarm at the first experiment on our liberties. We hold this prudent jealousy to be the first duty of citizens, and one of the noblest characteristics of the late Revolution. The freemen of America did not wait till usurped power had strengthened itself by exercise, and entangled the question in precedents. They saw all the consequences in the principle, and they avoided the consequences by denying the principle. We revere this lesson too much, soon to forget it. Who does not see that the same authority which can establish Christianity, in exclusion of all other Religions, may establish with the same ease any particular sect of Christians, in exclusion of all other Sects?" - James Madison, "Memorial and Remonstrance" (1785)

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.

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

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.

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

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.

Quote of the day

 "The best way to avenge yourself is not to become as they are." - Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

Quote of the day

From Meditations by Marcus Aurelius

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.

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

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."

Quote of the day

"Any form of contempt, if it occurs in politics, prepares or establishes fascism."- Albert Camus, The Rebel

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

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

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

Quote of the day

 "So other people hurt me? That's their problem. Their character and actions are not mine." - Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

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.

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

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

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

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

Quote of the day

 "Spreading negativity is always harmful, mostly to ourselves." - Ayya Khema, Come and See for Yourself: The Buddhist Path to Happiness

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.

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.)

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

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.

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 Farnsworth

Montaigne took this to heart: he had quotes he found inspiring engraved into the support beams of his library. (Reading Montaigne's Essays one can't help but picture him wandering his library, perusing the quotes and using them to help his mind roam.)

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

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 Farnsworth

I 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?

Epictetus is telling his students the same thing that Marcus Aurelius was constantly reminding himself: not to worry about the opinion of others so long as you are doing the right thing. The Stoics emphasized, strongly emphasized, not looking outside yourself for external approval. Epictetus recognized our human tendency to worry or be upset about the opinion of people whose opinion we already know we shouldn't be worrying about but do anyway.* 

*I picture Epictetus saying this to someone who is upset about having received negative comments on social media from strangers.

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 Farnsworth

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.

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.

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 

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

Quote of the day

From Meditations by Marcus Aurelius

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?

Quote of the day

 "Wash yourself clean. With simplicity, with humility, with indifference to everything but right and wrong. Care for other human beings." - Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

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

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.

Quote of the day

"And if you provide your country with another citizen who is trustworthy and self-respecting, would you bring it no benefit? 'Indeed I would.' Well then, in that case you wouldn't be of no use to it. 'What place shall I hold in the state, then?', he asks. Whatever place you can hold while maintaining your trustworthiness and self-respect. But if, out of a wish to help the state, you sacrifice those qualities, what use could you be to it, when you've turned out to be shameless and untrustworthy?" - Epictetus, Handbook

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 Fideler

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.

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.

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

Quote of the day

From Breakfast with Seneca: A Stoic Guide to the Art of Living by David Fideler

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.