Jean Delville, Satan's Treasures (1895)
The Death of Marcus Aurelius
Thursday, April 30, 2026
_-_Jean_Delville.jpg)
Wednesday, April 29, 2026
_-_Jean_Delville.jpg)
_-_Jean_Delville.jpg)
Tuesday, April 28, 2026
Maxims of Goethe 86
Whether memoirs are written by masters of servants, or by servants of masters, the processes always meet.
IMAGE: Nicolaes Maes, The Idle Servant (1655)
Cicero, Stoic Paradoxes 3.2
Will any man call a person honest, who, having a deposit of ten pounds of gold made to him without any witness, so that he might take advantage of it with impunity, shall restore it, and yet should not do the same in the case of ten thousand pounds?
Can a man be accounted temperate who checks one inordinate passion and gives a loose to another?
Virtue is uniform, conformable to reason, and of unvarying consistency; nothing can be added to it that can make it more than virtue; nothing can be taken from it, and the name of virtue be left. If good offices are done with an upright intention, nothing can be more upright than upright is; and therefore it is impossible that anything should be better than what is good.
It therefore follows that all vices are equal; for the obliquities of the mind are properly termed vices. Now we may infer, that as all virtues are equal, therefore all good actions, when they spring from virtues, ought to be equal likewise; and therefore it necessarily follows, that evil actions springing from vices, should be also equal.
Can a man be accounted temperate who checks one inordinate passion and gives a loose to another?
Virtue is uniform, conformable to reason, and of unvarying consistency; nothing can be added to it that can make it more than virtue; nothing can be taken from it, and the name of virtue be left. If good offices are done with an upright intention, nothing can be more upright than upright is; and therefore it is impossible that anything should be better than what is good.
It therefore follows that all vices are equal; for the obliquities of the mind are properly termed vices. Now we may infer, that as all virtues are equal, therefore all good actions, when they spring from virtues, ought to be equal likewise; and therefore it necessarily follows, that evil actions springing from vices, should be also equal.
—from Cicero, Stoic Paradoxes 3
If I look at it from the side of my circumstances, then one crime can be radically different from another, either more or less severe, but if I look at it from the side of my character, then every crime does my soul an identical amount of harm. A virtue is the complete affirmation of my humanity, and thus it can become no better, while a vice is a complete rejection of my humanity, and thus it can become no worse.
This takes some getting used to. It is not a denial of our complexity, where both good and bad are at work within us, nor does it ignore the very real consequences of our choices. It rather asks us to measure our progress by the fulfillment of our whole being, instead of just subtracting some points over here, and then adding a few more over there.
Once again, I find both of Cicero’s examples to be extremely helpful. A man may commit fraud at the corner store for $10, or he may commit fraud on the stock market for $10 million, yet the duplicity itself is just the same. Another fellow may give up the booze for the new year, and he then starts to gorge himself on donuts, yet the gluttony itself is just the same.
When I worked in social services, it was common for the staff to lift their lunch money out of the petty cash box; the boss wasn’t looking, and surely no one would care about such a small amount. There was much outrage and pearl-clutching, however, when it turned out that a manager had paid for his vacation to San Francisco on the company credit card. Crucify him!
When I was in college, I found myself in a circle with unwritten rules about cheating on girlfriends or boyfriends. If you fooled around when you were drunk, this was considered a harmless amusement, but if you dared to go all the way when you were sober, you would face the wrath of the entire community. I was not surprised when so many of my peers later had failed marriages.
Over the years, I have grappled with countless temptations, some of which I mastered, many others which I allowed to master me. One of my greatest mistakes was to underestimate the little enticements, thinking it more important to take giant leaps instead of baby steps. I was forgetting how a man who cannot be good in small things cannot be good in big things, because any vice, at any scale, is equally an affront to his dignity. To sell myself for a trinket is as bad as selling myself for a kingdom.
As the perfection of our very nature, there is nothing higher than virtue. As the denial of our very nature, there is nothing lower than vice. Though the debts we owe to others may be greater or lesser, the debts we owe to ourselves are always absolute.
If I look at it from the side of my circumstances, then one crime can be radically different from another, either more or less severe, but if I look at it from the side of my character, then every crime does my soul an identical amount of harm. A virtue is the complete affirmation of my humanity, and thus it can become no better, while a vice is a complete rejection of my humanity, and thus it can become no worse.
This takes some getting used to. It is not a denial of our complexity, where both good and bad are at work within us, nor does it ignore the very real consequences of our choices. It rather asks us to measure our progress by the fulfillment of our whole being, instead of just subtracting some points over here, and then adding a few more over there.
Once again, I find both of Cicero’s examples to be extremely helpful. A man may commit fraud at the corner store for $10, or he may commit fraud on the stock market for $10 million, yet the duplicity itself is just the same. Another fellow may give up the booze for the new year, and he then starts to gorge himself on donuts, yet the gluttony itself is just the same.
When I worked in social services, it was common for the staff to lift their lunch money out of the petty cash box; the boss wasn’t looking, and surely no one would care about such a small amount. There was much outrage and pearl-clutching, however, when it turned out that a manager had paid for his vacation to San Francisco on the company credit card. Crucify him!
When I was in college, I found myself in a circle with unwritten rules about cheating on girlfriends or boyfriends. If you fooled around when you were drunk, this was considered a harmless amusement, but if you dared to go all the way when you were sober, you would face the wrath of the entire community. I was not surprised when so many of my peers later had failed marriages.
Over the years, I have grappled with countless temptations, some of which I mastered, many others which I allowed to master me. One of my greatest mistakes was to underestimate the little enticements, thinking it more important to take giant leaps instead of baby steps. I was forgetting how a man who cannot be good in small things cannot be good in big things, because any vice, at any scale, is equally an affront to his dignity. To sell myself for a trinket is as bad as selling myself for a kingdom.
As the perfection of our very nature, there is nothing higher than virtue. As the denial of our very nature, there is nothing lower than vice. Though the debts we owe to others may be greater or lesser, the debts we owe to ourselves are always absolute.
—Reflection written in 5/1999
IMAGE: Briton Riviere, The Temptation in the Wilderness (1898)
Monday, April 27, 2026
.jpg)
James Vila Blake, Sonnets from Marcus Aurelius 28
28.
Καταφρονήσει μού τις; ὄψεται. ἐγὼ δὲ ὄψομαι ἵνα μή τι καταφρονήσεως ἄξιον πράσσων ἣ λέγωνεὑρίσκωμαι. μισήσει; ὄψεται. ἀλλὰ ἐγὼ εὐμενὴς καὶ εὔνους παντὶ καὶ τούτῳ αὐτῷ ἕτοιμος τὸ παρορώμενον δεῖξαι, οὐκ ὀνειδιστικῶς οὐδὲ ὡς κατεπιδεικνύμενος ὅτι ἀνέχομαι, ἀλλὰ γνησίως καὶ χρηστῶς.
—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 11.13
28.
How recks it me to wrangle it at all?
My part it is to rule me so withal,
And live so, that no cynic mood can hoot.
Hath any hated me, let him look to ’t,
Have, if he will, a sole, ne’er double, brawl;
My part is to hate not, and know ’twill fall
That as the tree is trained so is the fruit.
If one have stripes, fangs, claws and fur,
As such there be among us human creatures
In spiritual mark, why, then we see
A tiger with the tiger manner stir,
And tiger thrift go with the tiger features.
But I, who am a man, must man-like be.
IMAGE: Hu Zaobin, Victory or Defeat (c. 1930)
Sunday, April 26, 2026
Sayings of Ramakrishna 283
In whatever direction it went the crowd of kites and crows followed it, screeching and cawing.
Getting tired of this annoyance, the kite let go the fish, when it was instantly caught by another kite, and at once the crowd of kites and crows transferred their kind attentions to the new owner of the fish.
The first kite was left unmolested, and sat calmly on the branch of a tree.
Seeing this quiet and tranquil state of the bird, the Avadhûta, saluting it, said, "You are my Guru, O Kite; for you have taught me that so long as man does not throw off the burden of the worldly desires he carries, he cannot be undisturbed and at peace with himself."
Cicero, Stoic Paradoxes 3.1
Paradox 3: That All Misdeeds Are in Themselves Equal, and Good Deeds the Same
The matter it may be said is a trifle, but the crime is enormous; for crimes are not to be measured by the issue of events, but from the bad intentions of men. The fact in which the sin consists may be greater in one instance and less in another, but guilt itself, in whatsoever light you behold it, is the same.
A pilot oversets a ship laden with gold or one laden with straw: in value there is some difference, but in the ignorance of the pilot there is none.
Your illicit desire has fallen upon an obscure female. The mortification affects fewer persons than if it had broken out in the case of some high-born and noble virgin; nevertheless it has been guilty, if it be guilty to overstep the mark.
When you have done this, a crime has been committed; nor does it matter in aggravation of the fault how far you run afterward; certainly it is not lawful for anyone to commit sin, and that which is unlawful is limited by this sole condition, that it is shown to be wrong.
If this guilt can neither be made greater nor less (because, if the thing was unlawful, therein sin was committed), then the vicious acts which spring out of that which is ever one and the same must necessarily be equal.
Now if virtues are equal among themselves, it must necessarily follow that vices are so likewise; and it is most easy to be perceived that a man cannot be better than good, more temperate than temperate, braver than brave, nor wiser than wise.
—from Cicero, Stoic Paradoxes 3
As if it weren’t shocking enough to hear that virtue is the only human good, the Stoics then proceed to claim that all virtues are equally good, and that all vices are equally bad. This is why I am plodding through this section even more slowly than usual.
I would like to think that I am sensitive to subtleties, and yet I also run the danger of piling on so many conditions that I end up erasing the original distinction. Initially, it didn’t sit right with me that good and evil could be so clearly delineated, although I eventually discovered why my confusion arose from my own vacillation, a desire for a convenient escape clause from my own responsibilities.
Even as we should rightly speak of more or less, this can only be gauged by first recognizing a simple state of presence or absence. However great the extent of the degrees, the identity always remains one and the same in kind, just as increasing or decreasing the quantity does not alter the underlying existence of a quality.
Furthermore, as much as the circumstances will vary, the intentions behind our human acts are either in accord with nature or contrary to nature, such that an offense may be viewed as big or small, narrow or broad, but it stands as an offense nonetheless, and it therefore serves to deny us a life of excellence. Fiddle with the accidents as much as you wish, the essence will stay constant.
If that comes across as too abstract, Cicero’s examples are refreshingly grounded in everyday experience. Regardless of the cargo, the captain was still careless at the helm. Regardless of her background, the playboy still treated the woman shamefully. The slacker is a slacker, and the scoundrel is a scoundrel.
I will never forget a nasty little fellow I once knew, who crashed my friend’s car, but refused to take the blame on the grounds that it was already such a wreck. I had to remind myself that beating him senseless could not be justified on the grounds that he was already such a selfish bastard.
A few years later, I watched in horror as a frat boy ridiculed a young lady until she burst into tears. I couldn’t find the words to put him in his place, so I merely stared at him in disbelief. “Chill out, dude,” he said. “It’s not like she’s a hottie or anything.” This is what happens when we grade our behavior on a sliding scale of utility.
Whether it is to save my hide or to avoid an awkward moment, to lie is to lie. Whether it is to win the big contract or to satisfy a whim, to steal is to steal. So too, any integrity is an act of courage, and any gift is an act of kindness, no matter the stakes. The true value of the deed is in the purity of the disposition, not in calculating the most favorable outcomes.
In other words, virtues and vices cannot be tabulated on a business ledger. One person can be richer than another, but all good people are equal to one another, whatever their other assets might be.
As if it weren’t shocking enough to hear that virtue is the only human good, the Stoics then proceed to claim that all virtues are equally good, and that all vices are equally bad. This is why I am plodding through this section even more slowly than usual.
I would like to think that I am sensitive to subtleties, and yet I also run the danger of piling on so many conditions that I end up erasing the original distinction. Initially, it didn’t sit right with me that good and evil could be so clearly delineated, although I eventually discovered why my confusion arose from my own vacillation, a desire for a convenient escape clause from my own responsibilities.
Even as we should rightly speak of more or less, this can only be gauged by first recognizing a simple state of presence or absence. However great the extent of the degrees, the identity always remains one and the same in kind, just as increasing or decreasing the quantity does not alter the underlying existence of a quality.
Furthermore, as much as the circumstances will vary, the intentions behind our human acts are either in accord with nature or contrary to nature, such that an offense may be viewed as big or small, narrow or broad, but it stands as an offense nonetheless, and it therefore serves to deny us a life of excellence. Fiddle with the accidents as much as you wish, the essence will stay constant.
If that comes across as too abstract, Cicero’s examples are refreshingly grounded in everyday experience. Regardless of the cargo, the captain was still careless at the helm. Regardless of her background, the playboy still treated the woman shamefully. The slacker is a slacker, and the scoundrel is a scoundrel.
I will never forget a nasty little fellow I once knew, who crashed my friend’s car, but refused to take the blame on the grounds that it was already such a wreck. I had to remind myself that beating him senseless could not be justified on the grounds that he was already such a selfish bastard.
A few years later, I watched in horror as a frat boy ridiculed a young lady until she burst into tears. I couldn’t find the words to put him in his place, so I merely stared at him in disbelief. “Chill out, dude,” he said. “It’s not like she’s a hottie or anything.” This is what happens when we grade our behavior on a sliding scale of utility.
Whether it is to save my hide or to avoid an awkward moment, to lie is to lie. Whether it is to win the big contract or to satisfy a whim, to steal is to steal. So too, any integrity is an act of courage, and any gift is an act of kindness, no matter the stakes. The true value of the deed is in the purity of the disposition, not in calculating the most favorable outcomes.
In other words, virtues and vices cannot be tabulated on a business ledger. One person can be richer than another, but all good people are equal to one another, whatever their other assets might be.
—Reflection written in 5/1999
IMAGE: Quentin Matsys, Ill-Matched Lovers (c. 1525)
Saturday, April 25, 2026
.jpg)
Friday, April 24, 2026
Thursday, April 23, 2026
Plutarch, The Life of Cato the Younger 29
Accordingly, Cato was in high repute for having relieved the tribunate of a great burden, and for having in a manner overthrown the power of Pompey in the person of Metellus.
But he won still more esteem by not allowing the senate to carry out its purpose of degrading Metellus and deposing him from his office, which course Cato opposed, and brought the senate over to his views.
For the multitude considered it a token of humanity and moderation not to trample on his enemy or insult him after prevailing completely over him, and prudent men thought it right and advantageous not to irritate Pompey.
After this, Lucullus, having come back from his expedition, the consummation and glory of which Pompey was thought to have taken away from him, was in danger of losing his triumph, since Gaius Memmius raised a successful faction against him among the people and brought legal accusations against him, more to gratify Pompey than out of private enmity.
But Cato, being related to Lucullus, who had his sister Servilia to wife, and thinking the attempt a shameful one, opposed Memmius, and thereby exposed himself to many slanderous accusations.
Finally, however, though he was on the point of being ejected from his office on the ground that he exercised tyrannical power, he so far prevailed as to compel Memmius himself to desist from his accusations and shun the contest.
Lucullus, accordingly, celebrated his triumph, and therefore clung still more closely to the friendship of Cato, finding in him a great bulwark of defense against the power of Pompey.
Cicero, Stoic Paradoxes 2.2
Do you threaten me with death, which is separating me from mankind? Or with exile, which is removing me from the wicked?
Death is dreadful to the man whose all is extinguished with his life; but not to him whose glory never can die. Exile is terrible to those who have, as it were, a circumscribed habitation; but not to those who look upon the whole globe but as one city.
Troubles and miseries oppress you who think yourself happy and prosperous. Your lusts torment you, day and night you are upon the rack; for whom that which you possess is not sufficient, and who are ever trembling lest even that should not continue; the consciousness of your misdeeds tortures you; the terrors of the laws and the dread of justice appall you; look where you will, your crimes, like so many furies, meet your view and suffer you not to breathe.
Therefore, as no man can be happy if he is wicked, foolish, or indolent, so no man can be wretched if he is virtuous, brave, and wise. Glorious is the life of that man whose virtues and practice are praiseworthy; nor indeed ought that life to be escaped from which is deserving of praise, though it might well be if it were a wretched one.
We are therefore to look upon whatever is worthy of praise as at once happy, prosperous, and desirable.
Death is dreadful to the man whose all is extinguished with his life; but not to him whose glory never can die. Exile is terrible to those who have, as it were, a circumscribed habitation; but not to those who look upon the whole globe but as one city.
Troubles and miseries oppress you who think yourself happy and prosperous. Your lusts torment you, day and night you are upon the rack; for whom that which you possess is not sufficient, and who are ever trembling lest even that should not continue; the consciousness of your misdeeds tortures you; the terrors of the laws and the dread of justice appall you; look where you will, your crimes, like so many furies, meet your view and suffer you not to breathe.
Therefore, as no man can be happy if he is wicked, foolish, or indolent, so no man can be wretched if he is virtuous, brave, and wise. Glorious is the life of that man whose virtues and practice are praiseworthy; nor indeed ought that life to be escaped from which is deserving of praise, though it might well be if it were a wretched one.
We are therefore to look upon whatever is worthy of praise as at once happy, prosperous, and desirable.
—from Cicero, Stoic Paradoxes 2
As children, we would often loudly protest against whatever tasks we were given, rallying around that mighty battle cry: “It’s no fun!” We stared back in confusion if a teacher suggested that things would only be as fun as we chose to make them. In hindsight, that right there was some brilliant philosophy.
Wherever I have discovered the meaning and the value in the work, there I have also found the satisfaction of a job well done. It only remains for me to decide whether I will seek out the benefit in every possible circumstance, or allow the immediate impressions to make my decisions for me.
This is true for both the mundane chores and the existential challenges. Doing the dishes or mowing the lawn becomes a pleasure when it is a labor of love, just as the threat of exile or of death loses its sting when our very honor is at stake. The more I understand the goodness within it, the more I will find my happiness in its eager pursuit.
If I merely view myself as a creature made to consume, my mortality will haunt me, because dying will mean an end to my shallow amusements. If I define my sense of worth through the fickle opinions of others, the prospect of banishment will terrify me, because I have no other measure for who I am.
If, however, I center my life around the simple practice of the virtues, I will no longer be so troubled by petty questions of duration or location. Such a peace of mind is complete at every moment, and it can be present in any place.
I often observe how a happy man might be rich and famous, but being rich and famous will never make a man happy. What use is there in possessing talent without wisdom? Strength without courage? Luxury without temperance? Prosperity without justice?
I recently read the biography of a legendary rock star, and my mind always came back to a single theme, running throughout the entire story: nothing the world could give him was able to compensate for what he had failed to be within himself. Indeed, as the perks constantly increased, his joys and hopes inevitably decreased. This is sadly a familiar tale for so many of our glitterati.
We become happy when we fulfill our human nature, and not by rearranging the furniture, so we will rise or fall through the content of our character. The only way to avoid being haunted by the Furies is to radically reform our own hearts and minds.
As children, we would often loudly protest against whatever tasks we were given, rallying around that mighty battle cry: “It’s no fun!” We stared back in confusion if a teacher suggested that things would only be as fun as we chose to make them. In hindsight, that right there was some brilliant philosophy.
Wherever I have discovered the meaning and the value in the work, there I have also found the satisfaction of a job well done. It only remains for me to decide whether I will seek out the benefit in every possible circumstance, or allow the immediate impressions to make my decisions for me.
This is true for both the mundane chores and the existential challenges. Doing the dishes or mowing the lawn becomes a pleasure when it is a labor of love, just as the threat of exile or of death loses its sting when our very honor is at stake. The more I understand the goodness within it, the more I will find my happiness in its eager pursuit.
If I merely view myself as a creature made to consume, my mortality will haunt me, because dying will mean an end to my shallow amusements. If I define my sense of worth through the fickle opinions of others, the prospect of banishment will terrify me, because I have no other measure for who I am.
If, however, I center my life around the simple practice of the virtues, I will no longer be so troubled by petty questions of duration or location. Such a peace of mind is complete at every moment, and it can be present in any place.
I often observe how a happy man might be rich and famous, but being rich and famous will never make a man happy. What use is there in possessing talent without wisdom? Strength without courage? Luxury without temperance? Prosperity without justice?
I recently read the biography of a legendary rock star, and my mind always came back to a single theme, running throughout the entire story: nothing the world could give him was able to compensate for what he had failed to be within himself. Indeed, as the perks constantly increased, his joys and hopes inevitably decreased. This is sadly a familiar tale for so many of our glitterati.
We become happy when we fulfill our human nature, and not by rearranging the furniture, so we will rise or fall through the content of our character. The only way to avoid being haunted by the Furies is to radically reform our own hearts and minds.
—Reflection written in 5/1999
IMAGE: Jacques Francois Ferdinand Lairesse, Orestes and the Furies (c. 1890)
Wednesday, April 22, 2026
Stoic Snippets 282
The safety of life is this, to examine everything all through, what it is itself, that is its material, what the formal part; with all your soul to do justice and to say the truth.
What remains, except to enjoy life by joining one good thing to another, so as not to leave even the smallest intervals between?
—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 12.29
IMAGE: Nicolas Beatrizet, The Triumph of Marcus Aurelius (1550)
Dhammapada 417
Him I call indeed a Brahmana who, after leaving all bondage to men, has risen above all bondage to the gods, and is free from all and every bondage.
IMAGE: Shigeru Aoki, Escape from the Land of the Dead (1903)
.jpg)
Tuesday, April 21, 2026
Michiel Sweerts, The Seven Works of Mercy
Michiel Sweerts, The Seven Works of Mercy (c. 1649)
Feeding the Hungry
Refreshing the Thirsty
Clothing the Naked
Harboring the Stranger
Visiting the Sick
Ministering to Prisoners
Burying the Dead
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)