Plutarch, The Life of Cato the Younger 30

And now Pompey returned with great prestige from his expedition,⁠ and since the splendor and warmth of his reception led him to believe that he could get whatever he wanted from his fellow citizens, he sent forward a demand that the senate postpone the consular elections, in order that he might be present in person and assist Piso in making his canvass. 

The majority of the senators were inclined to yield. Cato, however, who did not regard the postponement as the chief matter at issue, but wished to cut short the attempt and the expectations of Pompey, opposed the measure and changed the opinions of the senators, so that they rejected it. 

This disturbed Pompey not a little, and considering that Cato would be a great stumbling block in his way unless he were made a friend, he sent for Munatius, Cato's companion, and asked the elder of Cato's two marriageable nieces to wife for himself, and the younger for his son. Some say, however, that it was not for Cato's nieces, but for his daughters, that the suit was made. 

When Munatius brought this proposal to Cato and his wife and sisters, the women were overjoyed at thought of the alliance, in view of the greatness and high repute of Pompey; Cato, however, without pause or deliberation, but stung to the quick, said at once:

"Go, Munatius, go, and tell Pompey that Cato is not to be captured by way of the women's apartments, although he highly prizes Pompey's good will, and if Pompey does justice will grant him a friendship more to be relied upon than any marriage connection; but he will not give hostages for the glory of Pompey to the detriment of his country." 

At these words the women were vexed, and Cato's friends blamed his answer as both rude and overbearing. 

Afterwards, however, in trying to secure the consul­ship for one of his friends,⁠ Pompey sent money to the tribes, and the bribery was notorious, since the sums for it were counted out in his gardens. 

Accordingly, when Cato told the women that he must of necessity have shared in the disgrace of such transactions, they admitted that he had taken better counsel in rejecting the alliance.⁠ 

However, if we are to judge by the results, it would seem that Cato was wholly wrong in not accepting the marriage connection, instead of allowing Pompey to turn to Caesar and contract a marriage which united the power of the two men, nearly overthrew the Roman state, and destroyed the constitution. 

None of these things perhaps would have happened, had not Cato been so afraid of the slight transgressions of Pompey as to allow him to commit the greatest of all, and add his power to that of another. 

Justus Lipsius, On Constancy 1.17

We come to that necessity which is of destiny. First destiny itself avouched. That there has been a general consent therein of the common people and wise men; but different in part. How many ways destiny has been taken among the ancients.

Thus spoke Langius, and with his talk caused the tears to trickle down my cheeks; so clearly seemed he to behold the vanity of human affairs. 

With that lifting up my voice, "Alas," said I, "what are we or all these matters for which we thus toil? What is it to be somebody? Man is a shadow and a dream, as says the poet." 

Then spoke Langius to me, "But you, young man, do not only contemplate on these things, but condemn them. Imprint constancy in your mind amid this casual and inconstant variableness of all things. I call it inconstant in respect of our understanding and judgment; for that if you look unto God and his Providence, all things succeed in a steady and immovable order. 

"Now I cast aside my sword and come to my engines; neither will I any longer assault sorrow with handy weapons but with great ordnance, running against it with the strong and terrible ram which no power of man is able to put back nor policy to prevent. This place is somewhat slippery, yet I will enter into it, but warily, slowly, and, as the Grecians speak, with a quiet foot.

"And first that there is a kind of fatal destiny in things, I think neither yourself, Lipsius, nor any people or age has ever doubted of."

Here I interrupting him said, "I pray you pardon me if I hinder you a little in this course. What? Do you oppose destiny unto me? Alas, this is but a weak engine pushed on by the feeble Stoics. I tell you plainly I care not a rush for the destinies nor the ladies of them. And I say with the soldier in Plautus, I will scatter this troupe of old wives with one blast of breath, even as the wind does the leaves." 

Langius looking sternly on me, "Will you so rashly and unadvisedly," said he, "delude or deny utterly destiny? You are not able, except if you can at once take away the divine Godhead and the power thereof, for, if there be a God, there is also Providence; if it, a decree and order of things, and of that follows a firm and sure necessity of events. 

"How do you avoid this blow? Or with what axe will you cut off this chain? For God and that eternal spirit may not otherwise be considered of by us, than that we attribute unto it an eternal knowledge and foresight. We must acknowledge him to be stayed, resolute and immutable, always one, and like himself, not wavering or varying in those things which once he willed and foresaw. For the eternal God never changes his mind, says Homer. 

"Which if you confess to be true, as indeed you must if there be in you any reason or sense, this also must be allowed that all God's decrees are firm and immovable even from everlasting unto all eternity; of this grows necessity, and that same destiny which you deride. The truth whereof is so clear and commonly received, that there was never any opinion current among all nations. And whosoever had any light of God himself and his Providence, had the like of destiny. 

"The most ancient and wisest poet Homer, believe me, traced his divine muse in none other path than this of destiny. Neither did the other poets, his progeny, stray from the steps of their father. See Euripides, Sophocles, Pindar, and among the Latins Virgil. 

"Shall I speak of historiographers? This is the voice of them all, that such and such a thing came to pass by destiny, and that by destiny kingdoms are either established or subverted. 

"Would you hear the philosophers, whose chief care was to find out and defend the truth against the common people? As they jarred in many things through an ambitious desire of disputing, so it is a wonder to see how they agreed universally upon the entrance into this way which leads to destiny. 

"I say in the entrance of that way, because I do not deny that they follow some by pathways which may be reduced into these four kinds of destiny, namely, mathematical, natural, violent, and true. All of which I will expound briefly, only touching them a little, because from such matters commonly grows confusion and error." 

IMAGE: Alexander Rothaug, The Three Fates (c. 1910) 

Sayings of Ramakrishna 285

If you wish to thread the needle, make the thread pointed, and remove all extraneous fibers. Then the thread will easily enter into the eye of the needle. 

So if you wish to concentrate your heart on God, be meek, humble, and poor in spirit, and remove all filaments of desire. 

IMAGE: Jules Breton, Peasant Woman Threading a Needle (1861) 

Cicero, Stoic Paradoxes 6.4

But who can truly designate him as a rich man who needs all his earnings? For the advantage of riches consists in plenty, and this plenty declares the overflow and abundance of the means of life, which, as you can never attain, you can never be rich. 
 
I shall say nothing of myself, because as you (and that with reason) despise my fortune—for it is in the opinion of the generality middling, in yours next to nothing, and in mine sufficient—I shall speak to the subject. 
 
Now if facts are to be weighed and estimated by us, whether are we more to esteem—the money of Pyrrhus which he sent to Fabricius, or the continency of Fabricius for refusing that money?—the gold of the Samnites, or the answer of Manius Curius?—the inheritance of Lucius Paulus, or the generosity of Africanus, who gave to his brother Quintus his own part of that inheritance? 
 
Surely the latter evidences of consummate virtue are more to be esteemed than the former, which are the evidences of wealth. 
 
If, therefore, we are to rate every man rich only in proportion to the valuable things he possesses, who can doubt that riches consist in virtue, since no possession, no amount of gold and silver, is more to be valued than virtue? 

—from Cicero, Stoic Paradoxes 6 
 
Despite my philosophical aspirations, which call one me to seek out a man’s greatness within his soul, I am ashamed by how often I still catch myself being impressed when someone is rich, in a pathetic mix of awe and envy. Before I know it, I am ready to grovel, which only goes to show how deeply the assumptions of a secular and consumer society can creep their way into my habits. 
 
It is one thing to admire someone’s technical skills at reading the market, or his personal charm in sealing the deal, but I should never confuse the content of a bank account with the content of character. 
 
If the wealthy have the benefit of a financial surplus, why is it that so many of them remain dissatisfied with their lot, forever seeking more lucrative investments, willing to borrow what they don’t yet have, in order to secure what they don’t really need? The only sane limit to acquisition is the moral sense to know when enough is enough. 
 
While I am not educated enough to argue with an economist, I can respect that he understands how people can become richer, as long as he is willing to grant that it takes a philosopher to understand why a state of plenty actually turns out to be state of mind. 
 
If I compared my own assets to those of Cicero, he would seem to be so much betters off, and yet Cicero would appear like a pauper when compared to Crassus. Saying “It’s all relative!” can sound like a cheap way of avoiding a commitment, unless we have the wisdom to discern the absolute standing behind it, the measure by which the degrees of “more” or “less” can be judged. Any amount of money is good when joined to virtue, and no amount of money is good when joined to vice. 
 
Look to those who can resist a bribe over those who try to get ahead with a payoff. Take note of those who are not flattered by gifts, because they are happy with what they already possess. Honor those who look at an inheritance as something to share, not as something to hoard. 
 
If I can manage to increase my virtues, I will no longer be so worried about increasing my fortune. 

—Reflection written in 5/1999 

IMAGE: Mattia Preti, The Banquet of the Rich Glutton (c. 1665) 

Storm on the Sea 32

Ivan Aivazovsky, The Wrath of the Seas (1886) 

Ruins 22

Karl Friedrich Lessing, Rocky Landscape: Gorge with Ruins (1830) 

Memento Mori 15

Hendrick Goltzius, Quis Evadet? (1594) 

"Who will be spared?" 

Vanitas 100

Simon Renard de St. André, Vanitas Still Life (c. 1650) 

Chuang Tzu 6.12

Yen Hui asked Kung-nì, saying, "When the mother of Mang-sun Tshâi died, in all his wailing for her he did not shed a tear; in the core of his heart he felt no distress; during all the mourning rites, he exhibited no sorrow. 

"Without these three things, he was considered to have discharged his mourning well—is it that in the state of Lû one who has not the reality may yet get the reputation of having it? I think the matter very strange." 

Kung-nì said, "That Mang-sun carried out his views to the utmost. He was advanced in knowledge; but in this case it was not possible for him to appear to be negligent in his ceremonial observances, but he succeeded in being really so to himself. 

"Mang-sun does not know either what purposes life serves, or what death serves; he does not know which should be first sought, and which last. If he is to be transformed into something else, he will simply await the transformation which he does not yet know. This is all he does.

"And moreover, when one is about to undergo his change, how does he know that it has not taken place? And when he is not about to undergo his change, how does he know that it has taken place? Take the case of me and you—are we in a dream from which we have not begun to awake? 

"Moreover, Mang-sun presented in his body the appearance of being agitated, but in his mind he was conscious of no loss. The death was to him like the issuing from one's dwelling at dawn, and no more terrible reality. 

"He was more awake than others were. When they wailed, he also wailed, having in himself the reason why he did so. And we all have our individuality which makes us what we are as compared together; but how do we know that we determine in any case correctly that individuality? 

"Moreover, you dream that you are a bird, and seem to be soaring to the sky; or that you are a fish, and seem to be diving in the deep. But you do not know whether we that are now speaking are awake or in a dream. 

"It is not the meeting with what is pleasurable that produces the smile; it is not the smile suddenly produced that produces the arrangement of the person. When one rests in what has been arranged, and puts away all thought of the transformation, he is in unity with the mysterious Heaven." 

IMAGE: Zhu Da, Fish and Birds (17th century) 

Vivekachudamani 136-153

BONDAGE AND FREEDOM 

Then, holding firmly mind, with knowing soul at rest, know your self within yourself face to face saying, "This am I." The life-ocean, whose waves are birth and dying, is shoreless; cross over it, fulfilling the end of being, resting firm in the Eternal. 

Thinking things not self are "I"—this is bondage for a man; this, arising from unwisdom, is the cause of falling into the weariness of birth and dying; this is the cause that he feeds and anoints and guards this form, thinking it the Self; the unreal, real; wrapping himself in sensuous things as a silkworm in his own threads. 

The thought that what is not That is That grows up in the fool through darkness; because no discernment is there, it wells up, as the thought that a rope is a snake; thereupon a mighty multitude of fatuities fall on him who accepts this error, for he who grasps the unreal is bound; mark this, my companion. 

By the power of wakefulness, partless, external, secondless, the Self wells up with its endless lordship; but this enveloping power wraps it round, born of Darkness, as the dragon of eclipse envelops the rayed sun. 

When the real Self with its stainless light recedes, a man thinking "this body is I," calls it the Self; then by lust and hate and all the potencies of bondage, the great power of Force that they call extension greatly afflicts him. 

Torn by the gnawing of the toothed beast of great delusion; wandered from the Self, accepting every changing mood of mind as himself, through this potency, in the shoreless ocean of birth and death, full of the poison of sensuous things, sinking and rising, he wanders, mean-minded, despicable-minded. 

As a line of clouds, born of the sun's strong shining, expands before the sun and hides it from sight, so self-assertion, that has come into being through the Self, expands before the Self and hides it from sight. 

As when on an evil day the lord of day is swallowed up in thick, dark clouds, an ice-cold hurricane of wind, very terrible, afflicts the clouds in turns; so when the Self is enveloped in impenetrable Darkness, the keen power of extension drives with many afflictions the man whose soul is deluded. 

From those two powers a man's bondage comes; deluded by them he errs, thinking the body is the Self. 

Of the plant of birth and death, the seed is Darkness, the sprout is the thought that body is Self, the shoot is rage, the sap is deeds, the body is the stem, the life-breaths are the branches, the tops are the bodily powers, sensuous things are the flowers, sorrow is the fruit, born of varied deeds and manifold; and the Life is the bird that eats the fruit. 

This bondage to what is not Self, rooted in unwisdom, innate, made manifest without beginning or end, gives life to the falling torrent of sorrow, of birth and death, of sickness and old age. 

Not by weapons nor arms, not by storm nor fire nor by a myriad deeds can this be cut off, without the sword of discernment and knowledge, very sharp and bright, through the grace of the guiding power. 

He who is single-minded, fixed on the word divine, his steadfast fulfillment of duty will make the knowing soul within him pure; to him whose knowing soul is pure, a knowing of the Self supreme shall come; and through this knowledge of the Self supreme he shall destroy this circle of birth and death and its root together. 

Cicero, Stoic Paradoxes 6.3

For as we see that they who make an honest livelihood by commerce, by industry, by forming the public revenue, have occasion for their earnings; so, whoever sees at your house the crowds of accusers and judges together; whoever sees rich and guilty criminals plotting the corruption of trials with you as their adviser, and your bargainings for pay for the distribution of patronage, your pecuniary interventions in the contests of candidates, your dispatching your freedmen to fleece and plunder the provinces; whoever calls to mind your dispossessing your neighbors, your depopulating the country by your oppressions, your confederacies with slaves, with freedmen, and with clients; the vacating of estates; the proscriptions of the wealthy; the corporations massacred, and the harvest of the times of Sylla; the wills you have forged, and the many men you have made away with; in short, that all things were venal with you in your levies, your decrees, your own votes, and the votes of others; the forum, your house, your speaking, and your silence; who must not think that such a man confesses he has occasion for all he has acquired? 

—from Cicero, Stoic Paradoxes 6 

Even though I have learned to live with very little, I would not necessarily object to becoming rich, as long as it was the fruit of my own labors, and as long as I could maintain such a lifestyle with a clear conscience. I will respectfully refuse, however, once you ask me to profit from another’s work, or to treat my neighbor unfairly so I can get ahead. 
 
You laugh, of course, because it sounds like a pipe dream. Perhaps you will have to look a little harder before you find a man of integrity who also happens to be prosperous, but never say that money is the problem—how we choose to earn it, and what we choose to do with it, is what will make or break us. Judge by the measure of integrity, not by that of property, whether the pot is overflowing with gold or turns out to be completely empty. 
 
Though I have seen enough of corruption in business and in government, I have the most experience of graft in the lofty institutions of the Church, which has become expert at paying out the most to those who achieve the least, all under the guise of holiness. Yet whether they are bankers, lawyers, or bishops, those who are consumed by avarice are fairly easy to recognize, if only you look past the clever marketing. 
 
What they all share in common is the tragic state of affairs that Cicero describes: their lives are filled with all sorts of intrigue, deceit, exploitation, and betrayal. I could surely go on for pages and pages, describing the nastiness I have seen behind closed doors, where the schemers believe no one can expose their offenses, but I can hardly top Cicero’s biting account of a day in the life of Crassus. I find a good number of passages from Charles Dickens have much the same rousing effect. 
 
You might say that the moneygrubber doesn’t deserve all the benefits he receives, and yet perhaps we should pity him, since whatever fortune he claims to acquire still leaves him in abject misery. Instead of having everything he needs, he will never have enough to meet his demands. The proof is in that constant conniving, a crippling anxiety that never gives him a moment’s rest. 

—Reflection written in 5/1999 

IMAGE: Quentin Matsys, The Purchase Agreement (1515) 

Wisdom from the Early Cynics, Diogenes 42

Diogenes was gathering figs, and was told by the keeper that not long before a man had hanged himself on that very fig tree. 

"Then," said he, "I will now purge it." 

Seeing an Olympian victor casting repeated glances at a courtesan, "See," he said, "yonder ram frenzied for battle, how he is held fast by the neck fascinated by a common minx." 

Handsome courtesans he would compare to a deadly honeyed potion. 

He was breakfasting in the marketplace, and the bystanders gathered round him with cries of "dog!"

"It is you who are dogs," cried he, "when you stand round and watch me at my breakfast." 

When two cowards hid away from him, he called out, "Don't be afraid, a hound is not fond of beetroot." 

—Diogenes Laërtius, 6.61 

IMAGE: John Charles Dollman, Table d'Hote at a Dogs' Home (1879) 

Wisdom from the Early Stoics, Zeno of Citium 82

The Stoic definition of love is an effort toward friendliness due to visible beauty appearing, its sole end being friendship, not bodily enjoyment. 

At all events, they allege that Thrasonides, although he had his mistress in his power, abstained from her because she hated him. 

By which it is shown, they think, that love depends upon regard, as Chrysippus says in his treatise Of Love, and is not sent by the gods. 

And beauty they describe as the bloom or flower of virtue. 

—Diogenes Laërtius, 7.130 

IMAGE: Alessandro Rosi, Love of Virtue (c. 1660) 

Owls 18

The Building and Loan

As a reference for Cicero, Stoic Paradoxes 6.2: 

Cicero, Stoic Paradoxes 6.2

It is the mind, and not the coffers of a man, that is to be accounted rich. For though the latter be full, when I see yourself empty, I shall not think you rich; because men measure the amount of riches by that which is sufficient for each individual. 
 
Has a man a daughter? then he has need of money. But he has two, then he ought to have a greater fortune; he has more, then he ought to have more fortune still; and if, as we are told of Danaus, he has fifty daughters, so many fortunes require a great estate. 
 
For, as I said before, the degree of wealth is dependent on how much each individual has need of. He therefore who has not a great many daughters, but innumerable passions, which are enough to consume a very great estate in a very short time, how can I call such a man rich, when he himself is conscious that he is poor? 
 
Many have heard you say, that no man is rich who cannot with his income maintain an army; a thing which the people of Rome some time ago, with their so great revenues, could scarcely do. 
 
Therefore, according to your maxim, you never can be rich, until so much is brought in to you from your estates, that out of it you can maintain six legions, and large auxiliaries of home and foot. 
 
You therefore, in fact, confess yourself not to be rich, who are so far short of fulfilling what you desire; you, therefore, have never concealed your poverty, your neediness, and your beggary. 

—from Cicero, Stoic Paradoxes 6 
 
The Greeks had their Croesus, and the Romans had their Crassus, as I am sure that the people of any time or place can identify the moguls in their midst who are obsessed with hoarding money. 
 
While my students will sometimes challenge me to openly condemn our contemporary billionaires, I refuse to bite. I do not know what goes on inside their heads, even if I have a few sneaking suspicions, and I always remain hopeful that those to whom much is given might still work out how much will be required. 
 
I cannot be certain how to separate the fact from the fiction, but I have long found a sobering lesson in the story of Croesus and Solon. The wealthy king was hoping for the wise statesman to name him as the happiest man on earth, only to discover that Solon was far more impressed by the virtues of the humble. Croesus would remember this a few years later, after fortune had turned against him, and he finally understood where genuine happiness could be found. 
 
In the end, how much property should a fellow really have? If I say that he should limit his wants to however much he truly needs, the covetous crowd will just take this as an excuse to consume more and more, because their desires know no limit. No, an accurate judgment about the necessities of life must begin with an honest appreciation of our human nature, where character comes before convenience. 
 
I am also suspicious of anyone who dabbles in social engineering, convinced that he can dictate a universal budget for the rank and file. We all have certain gifts, and so we all have various degrees of responsibilities; I do not begrudge the landlord more money, not because he deserves to be pampered, but because he has a special duty to care for his tenants. Cicero’s example of raising a family is a wonderful one: if it can be within your means to have many children, no one should deny you this glorious opportunity. 
 
What made Crassus different, however, was an enslavement to his passions, to the point where nothing the world had to offer could every satisfy him. Once someone says he requires a personal army in order to be significant, you may safely conclude that he has a seriously distorted sense of self-worth. 
 
In my own peculiar way of looking at things, I often think of why George Bailey was the richest man in town, and why Mr. Potter was just a warped, frustrated old man. 

—Reflection written in 5/1999 

IMAGE: Johann Georg Platzer, Croesus and Solon (c. 1750) 

Stoic Snippets 284

How does the ruling faculty make use of itself? For all lies in this. 

But everything else, whether it is in the power of your will or not, is only lifeless ashes and smoke. 

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 12.33 

IMAGE: David Roberts, The Siege and Destruction of Jerusalem (1850) 

Songs of Innocence 12

The Divine Image (1789) 

William Blake (1757-1827) 

To Mercy Pity Peace and Love,
All pray in their distress; 
And to these virtues of delight
Return their thankfulness.

For Mercy Pity Peace and Love,
Is God our father dear; 
And Mercy Pity Peace and Love,
Is Man his child and care.

For Mercy has a human heart
Pity, a human face; 
And Love, the human form divine,
And Peace, the human dress.

Then every man of every clime,
That prays in his distress,
Prays to the human form divine
Love Mercy Pity Peace.

And all must love the human form,
In heathen, turk or jew.
Where Mercy, Love & Pity dwell,
There God is dwelling too. 

Cosmos 25

Cicero, Stoic Paradoxes 6.1

Paradox 6: That the Wise Man Alone Is Rich 

 
[Translator's note: This paradox is addressed to Marcus Crassus.] 
 
What means this unbecoming ostentation in making mention of your money? 
 
You are the only rich man! Immortal gods! Ought I not to rejoice that I have heard and learned something? 
 
You the only rich man! What if you are not rich at all? What if you even are a beggar? For whom are we to understand to be a rich man? 
 
To what kind of a man do we apply the term? To the man as I suppose, whose possessions are such that he may be well contented to live liberally, who has no desire, no hankering after, no wish for more. 
 
It is your own mind, and not the talk of others, nor your possessions, that must pronounce you to be rich; for it ought to think that nothing is wanting to it, and care for nothing beyond. 
 
Is it satiated, or even contented with your money? I admit that you are rich; but if for the greed of money you think no source of profit disgraceful (though your order cannot make any honest profits), if you every day are cheating, deceiving, craving, jobbing, poaching, and pilfering; if you rob the allies and plunder the treasury; if you are forever longing for the bequests of friends, or not even waiting for them, but forging them yourself, are such practices the indications of a rich or a needy man? 

—from Cicero, Stoic Paradoxes 6 
 
I regularly get myself into trouble when I talk about money, such that those on the right call me a bleeding-heart socialist, and those on left call me a running dog of capitalism. I am neither, however, since I do not believe that this or that system for distributing property can ever redeem us. 
 
Let a man be as rich or as poor as he wishes, but it is the content of his character that will define him. Crassus was flawed because of his insatiable greed, not because he happened to be so immensely wealthy. This is why the story has it that the Parthians poured molten gold down his throat. 
 
Remember, money is not the root of all evil; it is the love of money that is the root of all evil. All the problems of economics would instantly disappear if we could just manage to be virtuous first and foremost. 
 
A proper understanding of being rich would involve being content with what we have, instead of constantly wanting more and more. By such a definition, Crassus was downright impoverished, since he was never satisfied with what his abundance, and was always looking to increase his fortune. 
 
I have noticed much the same in so many of the affluent people I have known, who work on the assumption that something is wrong is their profits aren’t constantly increasing. While it may sound naïve, why can’t a business be considered a success if it manages to break even by providing a useful service? That way one man makes a living by helping another man to make his living, with no further bells and whistles required. 
 
I would further suggest that any problems in the disparity of wealth will arise from people being so desperately confused about how much is enough, and I will probably shock you when I say that the prevalent practice of usury, the act of making money from money, is at the root of so many of our social evils. No, Mr. Gekko, greed is not good. If we are modest in our desires, we can always make certain there is enough to go around. 
 
What is the use in having so much property, if I lack the wisdom to use it well? Indeed, it turns out that the more I understand about my nature, the more I also realize how little is necessary to live with excellence. If I can become richer in spirit, I will not demand to have such a fat wallet, or feel the urge to divert myself with so many superfluous luxuries. 

—Reflection written in 5/1999