On Time

"On Time"

John Milton (1608-1674) 

Fly envious Time, till thou run out thy race,
Call on the lazy leaden-stepping hours,
Whose speed is but the heavy Plummets pace;
And glut thy self with what thy womb devours,
Which is no more then what is false and vain,
And meerly mortal dross;
So little is our loss,
So little is thy gain.
For when as each thing bad thou hast entomb'd,
And last of all, thy greedy self consum'd, 
Then long Eternity shall greet our bliss
With an individual kiss;
And Joy shall overtake us as a flood,
When every thing that is sincerely good
And perfectly divine,
With Truth, and Peace, and Love shall ever shine
About the supreme Throne
Of him, t'whose happy-making sight alone,
When once our heav'nly-guided soul shall clime,
Then all this Earthy grosnes quit,
Attir'd with Stars, we shall for ever sit,
Triumphing over Death, and Chance, and thee O Time. 

IMAGE: Giovanni Francesco Romanelli, Chronos (c. 1650) 

Sayings of Ramakrishna 282

A heron was slowly walking to catch a fish. 

Behind, there was a hunter aiming an arrow at it; but the bird was totally unmindful of this fact. 

The Avadhûta, saluting the heron, said, "When I sit in meditation let me follow your example, and never turn back to see who is behind me." 

Wisdom from the Early Cynics, Diogenes 41

Diogenes was returning from Olympia, and when somebody inquired whether there was a great crowd, "Yes," he said, "a great crowd, but few who could be called men." 

Libertines he compared to fig trees growing upon a cliff: whose fruit is not enjoyed by any man, but is eaten by ravens and vultures. 

When Phryne set up a golden statue of Aphrodite in Delphi, Diogenes is said to have written upon it: "From the licentiousness of Greece." 

Alexander once came and stood opposite him and said, "I am Alexander the Great King." 

"And I," said he, "am Diogenes the Hound." 

Being asked what he had done to be called a hound, he said, "I fawn on those who give me anything, I yelp at those who refuse, and I set my teeth in rascals." 

—Diogenes Laërtius, 6.60 

IMAGE: Gustave Doré, Diogenes (c. 1860) 

Wisdom from the Early Stoics, Zeno of Citium 81

It is the Stoic doctrine that there can be no question of right as between man and the lower animals, because of their unlikeness. Thus Chrysippus in the first book of his treatise On Justice, and Posidonius in the first book of his De Officio. 

Further, they say that the wise man will feel affection for the youths who by their countenance show a natural endowment for virtue. So Zeno in his Republic, Chrysippus in book 1 of his work On Modes of Life, and Apollodorus in his Ethics. 

—Diogenes Laërtius, 7.129 

IMAGE: Bartolomeo Passarotti, Portrait of a Man with a Dog (c. 1585) 

Songs of Innocence 11

A Cradle Song (1789)  

William Blake (1757-1827) 

Sweet dreams form a shade 
O’er my lovely infants head. 
Sweet dreams of pleasant streams, 
By happy silent moony beams. 

Sweet sleep with soft down, 
Weave thy brows an infant crown. 
Sweet sleep Angel mild, 
Hover o’er my happy child. 

Sweet smiles in the night, 
Hover over my delight. 
Sweet smiles Mothers smiles 
All the livelong night beguiles. 

Sweet moans, dovelike sighs, 
Chase not slumber from thy eyes. 
Sweet moans, sweeter smiles, 
All the dovelike moans beguiles. 

Sleep sleep happy child. 
All creation slept and smil’d. 
Sleep sleep, happy sleep, 
While o’er thee thy mother weep. 

Sweet babe in thy face, 
Holy image I can trace. 
Sweet babe once like thee, 
Thy maker lay and wept for me. 

Wept for me for thee for all, 
When he was an infant small. 
Thou his image ever see, 
Heavenly face that smiles on thee. 

Smiles on thee on me on all, 
Who became an infant small. 
Infant smiles are his own smiles, 
Heaven & earth to peace beguiles. 

Cicero, Stoic Paradoxes 1.1

Paradox 1: That Virtue is the Only Good   
 
I am apprehensive that this position may seem to some among you to have been derived from the schools of the Stoics, and not from my own sentiments. Yet I will tell you my real opinion, and that too more briefly than so important a matter requires to be discussed. 
 
By Hercules, I never was one who reckoned among good and desirable things, treasures, magnificent mansions, interest, power, or those pleasures to which mankind are most chiefly addicted. For I have observed, that those to whom these things abounded, still desired them most: for the thirst of cupidity is never filled or satiated. They are tormented not only with the lust of increasing, but with the fear of losing what they have. 
 
I own that I often look in vain for the good sense of our ancestors, those most continent men, who affixed the appellation of good to those weak, fleeting, circumstances of wealth, when in truth and fact their sentiments were the very reverse. Can any bad man enjoy a good thing? Or, is it possible for a man not to be good, when he lives in the very abundance of good things? And yet we see all those things so distributed that wicked men possess them, and that they are inauspicious to the good. 
 
Now let any man indulge his raillery, if he please; but right reason will ever have more weight with me than the opinion of the multitude. Nor shall I ever account a man, when he has lost his stock of cattle, or furniture, to have lost his good things. Nor shall I seldom speak in praise of Bias, who, if I mistake not, is reckoned among the seven wise men. 
 
For when the enemy took possession of Priene, his native country, and when the rest so managed their flight as to carry off with them their effects, on his being recommended by a certain person to do the same, “Why,” answered he, “I do so, for I carry with me all my possessions.” He did not so much as esteem those playthings of fortune, which we even term our blessings, to be his own. 
 
But someone will ask, what then is a real good? Whatever is done uprightly, honestly, and virtuously, is truly said to be done well; and whatever is upright, honest, and agreeable to virtue, that alone, as I think, is a good thing. 

—from Cicero, Stoic Paradoxes 1 
 
I’m afraid I still feel a bit annoyed whenever I venture to affirm a certain value, and I am then immediately told which school of thought I must have stolen it from. While I suspect there is really nothing new under the sun, we should give people credit for arriving at their own beliefs, for their own reasons, and not assume that everything is about a blind conformity to this or that “-ism”. 
 
Cicero was hardly a loyal disciple, and he came to some conclusions about virtue, regardless of whether anyone else happened to be preaching them. I found my life was falling apart, and I also came to some conclusions about virtue, not because I read about them in the Stoics, but because I realized I wound never be happy without them. 
 
Now deep down inside, I have always known why honor trumps gratification, though that didn’t stop me from chasing after some glittering prizes when I was listening to my gut in preference to my head. Even then, however, I wasn’t proud of my turpitude, and I tried to convince myself that I could somehow still disguise my lust under the appearance of love. 
 
Though I could try to ignore the sublime syllogisms, there remained one absolute and irrefutable proof of why avarice can never pay: despite their protests to the contrary, the grasping folks remain as miserable folks. Look behind the posturing, and an anxiety betrays their inner state. For all that they acquire and consume, they are in constant need of more and more, and as much as they build themselves up, they are forever in terror of being dragged back down. 
 
The most striking evidence in favor of the virtues is to closely observe the daily life of a scoundrel. Many will proclaim their greatness, but only a very few will live up to the name; you will notice how if anything good has come from wealth or rank, it is solely due to the guidance of character. If a worldly prosperity alone makes us blessed, then why do the wicked remain so cursed? And if a worldly poverty is itself a cause for grief, then how do the righteous continue to be happy? 
 
If I bother to reflect with any clarity, as opposed to just following the herd, I will recognize why I am at my best when I inform my conscience, and I am at my worst when I enslave myself to circumstances. Of all the things I know I could lose, do I honestly think that I should prefer to surrender my principles before I am parted from my property? 
 
I will always be a nerd, so I cannot begin to measure how much I have learned from losing myself in great books. Nevertheless, the most powerful lessons have always come from the example of noble deeds, far more powerful than the charm of any polished words. Plato makes me ponder, for example, while Socrates challenges me to act. We may have no brilliant treatises by Bias of Priene, but I feel ashamed of my petty attachments when I hear of his total satisfaction with simply owning himself. 
 
Has it been done with prudence, fortitude, temperance, and justice? Then you have your true good. The rest is an afterthought. 

—Reflection written in 5/1999 

IMAGE: Paulus Bor, Allegory of Avarice (c. 1650) 

Cosmos 24

Stoic Snippets 281

To those who ask, where have you seen the gods, or how do you comprehend that they exist and so worship them, I answer, in the first place, they may be seen even with the eyes. 

In the second place, neither have I seen even my own soul, and yet I honor it. 

Thus then with respect to the gods, from what I constantly experience of their power, from this I comprehend that they exist, and I venerate them. 

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 12.28 

Exploring Consciousness

Michael Leunig 83

Xenophon, Memorabilia of Socrates 44

But indeed, if chance brought Socrates into conversation with any one possessed of an art, and using it for daily purposes of business, he never failed to be useful to this kind of person. 

For instance, stepping one time into the studio of Parrhasius the painter, and getting into conversation with him: 

"I suppose," Parrhasius," said Socrates, "painting may be defined as 'a representation of visible objects,' may it not? That is to say, by means of colors and palette you painters represent and reproduce as closely as possible the ups and downs, lights and shadows, hard and soft, rough and smooth surfaces, the freshness of youth and the wrinkles of age, do you not?" 

"You are right," Parrhasius answered, "that is so." 

Socrates: "Further, in portraying ideal types of beauty, seeing it is not easy to light upon any one human being who is absolutely devoid of blemish, you cull from many models the most beautiful traits of each, and so make your figures appear completely beautiful?"  

Parrhasius: "Yes, that is how we do." 

"Well, but stop," Socrates continued; "do you also pretend to represent in similar perfection the characteristic moods of the soul, its captivating charm and sweetness, with its deep wells of love, its intensity of yearning, its burning point of passion? or is all this quite incapable of being depicted?"

"No," he answered, "how should a mood be other than inimitable, Socrates, when it possesses neither linear proportion nor color, nor any of those qualities which you named just now; when, in a word, it is not even visible?" 

Socrates: "Well, but the kindly look of love, the angry glance of hate at any one, do find expression in the human subject, do they not?" 

Parrhasius: "No doubt they do." 

Socrates: "Then this look, this glance, at any rate may be imitated in the eyes, may it not?" 

"Undoubtedly," he answered. 

Socrates: "And do anxiety and relief of mind occasioned by the good or evil fortune of those we love both wear the same expression?" 

"By no means," he answered; "at the thought of good we are radiant, at that of evil a cloud hangs on the brow." 

Socrates: "Then here again are the looks with it possible to represent?" 

Parrhasius: "Decidedly." 

Socrates: "Furthermore, as through some chink or crevice, there pierces through the countenance of a man, through the very posture of his body as he stands or moves, a glimpse of his nobility and freedom, or again of something in him low and groveling—the calm of self-restraint, and wisdom, or the swagger of insolence and vulgarity?" 

"You are right," he answered.

Socrates: "Then these too may be imitated?" 

"No doubt," he said. 

Socrates: "And which is the pleasanter type of face to look at, do you think—one on which is imprinted the characteristics of a beautiful, good, and lovable disposition, or one which bears the impress of what is ugly, and bad, and hateful?" 

Parrhasius: "Doubtless, Socrates, there is a vast distinction between the two." 

At another time Socrates entered the workshop of the sculptor Cleiton, and in course of conversation with him said: 

"You have a gallery of handsome people here, Cleiton, runners, and wrestlers, and boxers, and pancratiasts—that I see and know; but how do you give the magic touch of life to your creations, which most of all allures the soul of the beholder through his sense of vision?" 

As Cleiton stood perplexed, and did not answer at once, Socrates added: "Is it by closely imitating the forms of living beings that you succeed in giving that touch of life to your statues?" 

"No doubt," he answered. 

Socrates: "It is, is it not, by faithfully copying the various muscular contractions of the body in obedience to the play of gesture and poise, the wrinklings of flesh and the sprawl of limbs, the tensions and the relaxations, that you succeed in making your statues like real beings—make them 'breathe' as people say?" 

Cleiton: "Without a doubt." 

Socrates: "And does not the faithful imitation of the various affections of the body when engaged in any action impart a particular pleasure to the beholder?" 

Cleiton: "I should say so." 

Socrates: "Then the threatenings in the eyes of warriors engaged in battle should be carefully copied, or again you should imitate the aspect of a conqueror radiant with success?"

Cleiton: "Above all things." 

Socrates: "It would seem then that the sculptor is called upon to incorporate in his ideal form the workings and energies also of the soul?" 

Paying a visit to Pistias, the corselet maker, when that artist showed him some exquisite samples of his work, Socrates exclaimed: 

"By Hera! A pretty invention this, Pistias, by which you contrive that the corselet should cover the parts of the person which need protection, and at the same time leave free play to the arms and hands . . . but tell me, Pistias," he added, "why do you ask a higher price for these corselets of yours if they are not stouter or made of costlier material than the others?" 

"Because, Socrates, Pistias answered, "mine are of much finer proportion." 

Socrates: "Proportion! Then how do you make this quality apparent to the customer so as to justify the higher price—by measure or weight? For I presume you cannot make them all exactly equal and of one pattern—if you make them fit, as of course you do?" 

"Fit indeed! that I most distinctly do," he answered, "take my word for it: no use in a corselet without that." 

"But then are not the wearer's bodies themselves," asked Socrates, "some well proportioned and others ill?" 

"Decidedly so," he answered.

Socrates: "Then how do you manage to make the corselet well proportioned if it is to fit an ill-proportioned body?" 

Pistias: "To the same degree exactly as I make it fit. What fits is well proportioned." 

Socrates: "It seems you use the term 'well-proportioned' not in an absolute sense, but in reference to the wearer, just as you might describe a shield as well proportioned to the individual it suits; and so of a military cloak, and so of the rest of things, in your terminology? But maybe there is another considerable advantage in this 'fitting'?" 

Pistias: "Pray instruct me, Socrates, if you have got an idea." 

Socrates: "A corselet which fits is less galling by its weight than one which does not fit, for the latter must either drag from the shoulders with a dead weight or press upon some other part of the body, and so it becomes troublesome and uncomfortable; but that which fits, having its weight distributed partly along the collarbone and shoulder blade, partly over the shoulders and chest, and partly the back and belly, feels like another natural integument rather than an extra load to carry." 

Pistias: "You have named the very quality which gives my work its exceptional value, as I consider; still there are customers, I am bound to say, who look for something else in a corselet—they must have them ornamental or inlaid with gold." 

"For all that," replied Socrates, "if they end by purchasing an ill-fitting article, they only become the proprietors of a curiously-wrought and gilded nuisance, as it seems to me. 

"But," he added, "as the body is never in one fixed position, but is at one time curved, at another raised erect how can an exactly-modeled corselet fit?" 

Pistias: "It cannot fit at all." 

"You mean," Socrates continued, "that it is not the exactly-modeled corselet which fits, but that which does not gall the wearer in the using?"

Pistias: "There, Socrates, you have hit the very point. I see you understand the matter most precisely." 

—from Xenophon, Memorabilia 3.10 

Allegory of Advertising

Fernand Le Quesne, Allegory of Advertising (c. 1900) 

The Continence of Scipio 13

Giovanni Antonio Pellegrini, The Continence of Scipio (c. 1710) 

Cicero, Stoic Paradoxes, Introduction 2

As I have been accustomed to think thus, I have made a bolder attempt than he himself did of whom I am speaking. For Cato is accustomed to treat stoically of magnanimity, of modesty, of death, and of all the glory of virtue, of the immortal gods, and of patriotism, with the addition of the ornaments of eloquence. 
 
But I have, for amusement, digested into common places those topics which the Stoics scarcely prove in their retirement and in their schools. Such topics are termed, even by themselves, paradoxes, because they are remarkable, and contrary to the opinion of all men. I have been desirous of trying whether they might not come into publicity, that is before the forum, and be so expressed as to be approved; or whether learned expressions were one thing, and a popular mode of address another. 
 
I undertook this with the more pleasure, because these very paradoxes, as they are termed, appear to me to be the most Socratic, and by far the most true. Accept therefore this little work, composed during these shorter nights, since that work of my longer writings appeared in your name. You will have here a specimen of the manner I have been accustomed to adopt when I accommodate those things which in the schools are termed theses to our oratorical manner of speaking. 
 
I do not, however, expect that you will look upon yourself as indebted to me for this performance, which is not such as to be placed, like the Minerva of Phidias, in a citadel, but still such as may appear to have issued from the same studio. 

—from Cicero, Stoic Paradoxes, Introduction 
 
Sometimes a truth is best expressed with sophistication, and sometimes it is best expressed with simplicity. There are moments when I seek out a refined explanation, and there are moments when I desperately need a blunt pep talk. In the many aspects of our lives, these will rightly complement one another, not clash with one another. 
 
Any philosopher runs the risk of divorcing his profound thinking from his daily living, but this can be especially true for the Stoic, because his values appear so alien to the assumptions of a herd mentality. When push comes to shove, what sort of words will most inspire us to change our attitudes? Do not necessarily frown upon a “popular” style; to get anywhere, we need to start from where we’re at. 
 
In my own experience, the scholars have usually said the most, even as the rank and file have usually said it best. A dozen pages of Seneca would do me little good without some humble friend at my elbow, who pushes me ahead with one pithy saying. 
 
No, Cicero is not mocking Stoicism, or selling it short, but rather submitting an account of the philosophy that can make it more available to the man on the street. Once he can understand more of it, on his own terms, let him then use it as he sees fit. 
 
That Stoicism seems to depend upon paradoxes is surely an obstacle to taking it seriously, and we must learn why there is no contradiction within such principles, only a fitting irony: they will finally make sense once our priorities are no longer upside down. There is a great difference between saying that something is impossible and merely recognizing it as extraordinary.
 
I have long seen the Stoics as natural successors to Socrates, who so vigorously defended virtue as our defining good, so I am pleased that Cicero is approaching their dilemmas as a continuation of that noble tradition. In most every Socratic dialogue, I find myself realizing how what I had dismissed as ridiculous was actually quite sublime, and what I had believed to be the problem turned out to be the solution. 
 
The Stoic Paradoxes are not an intricate piece of work, nor do they contain any elaborate syllogisms to totally eradicate all of our doubts. Instead, they employ everyday observations and appeal to suitable analogies, in order that we might reconsider our usual opinions about what counts as good in this life. This should be enough to make them worthy of our attention. 

—Reflection written in 5/1999 

Dhammapada 416

Him I call indeed a Brahmana who, leaving all longings, travels about without a home, and in whom all covetousness is extinct. 

Man's Search for Meaning 20

In spite of all the enforced physical and mental primitiveness of the life in a concentration camp, it was possible for spiritual life to deepen. Sensitive people who were used to a rich intellectual life may have suffered much pain (they were often of a delicate constitution), but the damage to their inner selves was less. 

They were able to retreat from their terrible surroundings to a life of inner riches and spiritual freedom. Only in this way can one explain the apparent paradox that some prisoners of a less hardy makeup often seemed to survive camp life better than did those of a robust nature. 

In order to make myself clear, I am forced to fall back on personal experience. Let me tell what happened on those early mornings when we had to march to our work site.

There were shouted commands: "Detachment, forward march! Left-2-3-4! Left-2-3-4! Left-2-3-4! Left-2-3-4! First man about, left and left and left and left! Caps off!" These words sound in my ears even now. 

At the order "Caps off!" we passed the gate of the camp, and searchlights were trained upon us. Whoever did not march smartly got a kick. And worse off was the man who, because of the cold, had pulled his cap back over his ears before permission was given. 

We stumbled on in the darkness, over big stones and through large puddles, along the one road leading from the camp. The accompanying guards kept shouting at us and driving us with the butts of their rifles. Anyone with very sore feet supported himself on his neighbor’s arm. Hardly a word was spoken; the icy wind did not encourage talk. 

Hiding his mouth behind his upturned collar, the man marching next to me whispered suddenly: "If our wives could see us now! I do hope they are better off in their camps and don't know what is happening to us." 

That brought thoughts of my own wife to mind. And as we stumbled on for miles, slipping on icy spots, supporting each other time and again, dragging one another up and onward, nothing was said, but we both knew: each of us was thinking of his wife. 

Occasionally I looked at the sky, where the stars were fading and the pink light of the morning was beginning to spread behind a dark bank of clouds. But my mind clung to my wife's image, imagining it with an uncanny acuteness. I heard her answering me, saw her smile, her frank and encouraging look. Real or not, her look was then more luminous than the sun which was beginning to rise. 

A thought transfixed me: for the first time in my life I saw the truth as it is set into song by so many poets, proclaimed as the final wisdom by so many thinkers. The truth—that love is the ultimate and the highest goal to which man can aspire. 

Then I grasped the meaning of the greatest secret that human poetry and human thought and belief have to impart: the salvation of man is through love and in love. 

I understood how a man who has nothing left in this world still may know bliss, be it only for a brief moment, in the contemplation of his beloved. 

In a position of utter desolation, when man cannot express himself in positive action, when his only achievement may consist in enduring his sufferings in the right way—an honorable way— in such a position man can, through loving contemplation of the image he carries of his beloved, achieve fulfillment. 

For the first time in my life I was able to understand the meaning of the words, "The angels are lost in perpetual contemplation of an infinite glory." 

In front of me a man stumbled and those following him fell on top of him. The guard rushed over and used his whip on them all. Thus my thoughts were interrupted for a few minutes. But soon my soul found its way back from the prisoner's existence to another world, and I resumed talk with my loved one: I asked her questions, and she answered; she questioned me in return, and I answered. 

"Stop!" We had arrived at our work site. Everybody rushed into the dark hut in the hope of getting a fairly decent tool. Each prisoner got a spade or a pickaxe. 

"Can't you hurry up, you pigs?" Soon we had resumed the previous day's positions in the ditch. The frozen ground cracked under the point of the pickaxes, and sparks flew. The men were silent, their brains numb. 

My mind still clung to the image of my wife. A thought crossed my mind: I didn't even know if she were still alive. I knew only one thing—which I have learned well by now: love goes very far beyond the physical person of the beloved. It finds its deepest meaning in his spiritual being, his inner self. Whether or not he is actually present, whether or not he is still alive at all, ceases somehow to be of importance. 

I did not know whether my wife was alive, and I had no means of finding out (during all my prison life there was no outgoing or incoming mail); but at that moment it ceased to matter. There was no need for me to know; nothing could touch the strength of my love, my thoughts, and the image of my beloved. 

Had I known then that my wife was dead, I think that I would still have given myself, undisturbed by that knowledge, to the contemplation of her image, and that my mental conversation with her would have been just as vivid and just as satisfying. 

"Set me like a seal upon thy heart, love is as strong as death." 

—from Viktor Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning  

Bach 6, Easter Oratorio

Johann Sebastian Bach, Easter Oratorio, BWV 249, Netherlands Bach Society 

Cicero, Stoic Paradoxes, Introduction 1

Addressed to Marcus Brutus 
 
I have often observed, O Brutus, that your uncle Cato, when he delivered his opinion in the senate, was accustomed to handle important points of philosophy, inconsistent with popular and forensic usage; but that yet, in speaking, he managed them so that even these seemed to the people worthy of approbation; which was so much the greater excellency in him, than either in you or in me, because we are more conversant in that philosophy which has produced a copiousness of expression, and in which those things are propounded which do not widely differ from the popular opinion. 
 
But Cato, in my opinion a complete Stoic, both holds those notions which certainly do not approve themselves to the common people; and belongs to that sect which aims at no embellishments, and does not spin out an argument. He therefore succeeds in what he has purposed, by certain pithy and, as it were, stimulating questions. There is, however, nothing so incredible that it may not be made plausible by eloquence; nothing so rough and uncultivated that it may not, in oratory, become brilliant and polished. 

—from Cicero, Stoic Paradoxes, Introduction 
 
My colleagues have long insisted that Cicero isn’t a “real” philosopher, but I became the butt of even more jokes when I was caught reading these Stoic Paradoxes. It was a feeble text, I was told, at best a mediocre rhetorical exercise, and at worst a piece of lazy sophistry, which passes over complex distinctions in favor of facile cliches. Besides, don’t we all know how Cicero was an Academic skeptic, so this brief work can hardly be treated as sincere? 
 
I can only reply that Cicero’s opening offers us a helpful context for its purpose, and that his healthy eclecticism does not exclude any philosophy based upon mere dogmatic loyalties. To me, Cicero was first and foremost a disciple of common sense, and if this happened to touch on the teachings of the Stoics, then it was worth his time to learn something from their principles. To introduce an argument in an accessible manner is not to water it down, and to immerse oneself in a different point of view is not to be dishonest. 
 
While I don’t imagine that Cicero and Cato were friends, at least not in the usual sense, they both remained loyal to their principles, and they were united in a love for the values of the Republic. To Cicero, Cato probably seemed too headstrong, and to Cato, Cicero probably seemed too yielding. Yet for all their differences of personality, I would like to think that these two statesmen had very much in common when it came to their sense of right and wrong. 
 
At the risk of falling for a stereotype, I can see why the Stoics might have appeared as haughty and impractical, and why their teachings did not immediately appeal to the outlook of the everyman. Might it be possible to express the basic values of Stoicism in a more enticing package, with a bit more of an engaging style, and without the association of a high-minded obscurity? For all the power a chain of syllogisms may have for the sage, what could convince the average joe to seek a life of virtue as his highest good? 
 
In other words, it doesn’t need to sound snooty for it to be meaningful. The best truths will surely shine in the language of both the idealist and the pragmatist, just as there is no shame in tugging at the heartstrings in order to bring some clarity into the head. 

—Reflection written in 5/1999 

Stobaeus on Stoic Ethics 20

Again, of good things, some are worth choosing for their own sakes, whereas some are instrumental. 

All those which are subject to reasonable choice for the sake of nothing else are worth choosing for their own sakes, whereas those which are subject to reasonable choice because they produce other things are said to be worth choosing in the instrumental sense. 

IMAGE: John Everett Millais, The Pearl of Great Price (1864) 

Proverbs 4:7-9

[7] "The beginning of wisdom is this: Get wisdom,
and whatever you get, get insight.
[8] Prize her highly, and she will exalt you;
she will honor you if you embrace her.
[9] She will place on your head a fair garland;
she will bestow on you a beautiful crown." 

IMAGE: David Klöcker Ehrenstrahl, The Crown of Immortality (c. 1675)