Stoic Meditations

Socrates was the first who brought down philosophy from the heavens, placed it in cities, introduced it into families, and obliged it to examine into life and morals, and good and evil.

Cicero tells us that Pythagoras was the first to use the word philosopher and to explain what philosophy consists of. The Stoics will partially agree with Pythagoras' definition, but the disagreement is crucial.

We, who increase every approaching evil by our fear, and every present one by our grief, choose rather to condemn the nature of things than our own errors.

If virtue were but the slave of fortune, I am afraid that it would seem desirable rather to offer up prayers, than to rely on our own confidence in virtue as the foundation for our hope of a happy life.

Where, then, are they who say that anger has its use? Can madness be of any use? But still it is natural. Can anything be natural that is against reason?

Whenever we catch ourselves being too focused on trivial or unimportant things, we can willfully redirect our attention on the sort of activities that are truly good for us and for other people.

The Stoics, in truth, say, not only that their wise person may be a lover, but they even define love itself as an endeavor to originate friendship out of the appearance of beauty.

One thing alone seems to embrace the question of all that relates to the perturbations of the mind—the fact, namely, that all perturbations are in our own power; that they are taken up upon opinion, and are voluntary.

Cicero advocates a standard Stoic technique: when facing adversity, remind yourself that many others have experienced something similar and have endured it. So can you.

Certainly the most effectual cure is to be achieved by showing that all perturbations are of themselves vicious, and have nothing natural or necessary in them.

We should not take sorrows on ourselves upon another’s account; but we ought to relieve others of their grief if we can. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/support

Anger is in no wise becoming in an orator, though it is not amiss to affect it. Do you imagine that I am angry when in pleading I use any extraordinary vehemence and sharpness? --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/support

What is Chrysippus’s definition? Fortitude, says he, is the knowledge of all things that are bearable, or an affection of the mind which bears and supports everything in obedience to the chief law of reason without fear. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/support

Take care how you make courage to depend in the least on rage. For anger is altogether irrational, and that is not courage which is void of reason. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/support

For whoever prescribes bounds to vice admits a part of it, which, as it is odious of itself, becomes the more so as it stands on slippery ground, and, being once set forward, glides on headlong, and cannot by any means be stopped. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/support

There is an important distinction to be made between instrumental reason, which is morally neutral, and what the Stoics call "right" reason, or virtue, which comes with a built-in moral prescription. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/support

Cicero says that our mind becomes sick when our opinions and judgments are not coherent with each other, just like our body becomes sick when one of its parts is in disharmony with the rest. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/support

Money, fame, and sexual pleasure are not problematic per se. They may be preferred or dispreferred, so long as they don’t control us and lead us away from a virtuous life. Own your desires and pleasures, do not be own by them. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/support

Intemperance, which is in opposition to reason, inflames, confounds, and puts every state of the mind into a violent motion. Thus, grief and fear, and every other perturbation of the mind, have their rise from intemperance. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/support

Cicero continues his classification of the emotions as seen by the Stoics. Envy, for instance, is a type of grief generated by the mistaken belief that the prosperity of another is an injury to ourselves. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/support