Maxims of Goethe 11

It is not always needful for truth to take a definite shape; it is enough if it hovers about us like a spirit and produces harmony; if it is wafted through the air like the sound of a bell, grave and kindly. 

IMAGE: Thomas Moran, Mist in Kanab Canyon, Utah (1892) 

Tidbits from Montaigne 54

Malice sucks up the greatest part of its own venom, and poisons itself. 

—Michel de Montaigne, Essays 3.2 

Epictetus, Discourses 2.1.1

Book 2

Chapter 1: That there is no conflict between confidence and caution. 
 
Perhaps the contention of philosophers that it is possible in everything we do to combine confidence with caution may appear a paradox, but nevertheless we must do our best to consider whether it is true. 
 
In a sense, no doubt, caution seems to be contrary to confidence, and contraries are by no means compatible. But I think that what seems to many a paradox in this subject depends on a confusion, and it is this: 
 
If we really called upon a man to use caution and confidence in regard to the same things, they might fairly find fault with us as uniting qualities which cannot be united. 
 
But as a matter of fact there is nothing strange in the statement: for if it is true, as has often been said and often proved, that the true nature of good and also of evil depends on how we deal with impressions, and if things outside the will's control cannot be described as good or bad, we cannot surely call it a paradoxical demand of the philosophers if they say, “Be confident in all that lies beyond the will's control, be cautious in all that is dependent on the will.” 
 
For if evil depends on evil choice, it is only in regard to matters of will that it is right to use caution; and if things outside the will's control, which do not depend on us, concern us in no way, we should use confidence in regard to these. 
 
And in that way, we shall be at once cautious and confident and indeed confident because of our caution. For because we are cautious as to things which are really evil, we shall get confidence to face things which are not so. 

—from Epictetus, Discourses 2.1 
 
Most anywhere I look, I see people insisting upon false dichotomies, basing their points of view on the assumption that contradictions exist where none need be present. I am regularly told that justice cannot admit of mercy, or freedom is incompatible with duty, or a state of poverty excludes the possibility of happiness. 
 
Observe any contemporary debate, and you will find that the exclusion of the “other” is taken for granted, and there is little patience for moving from an “either/or” to a “both/and”. 
 
Some of this has to do with our attachment to conflict, since aggression, like lust, has a peculiar way of stifling reason. We forget that in order to be right, it doesn’t necessarily mean that someone else has to be wrong. We manufacture contradictions when they are gratifying, and we overlook them when they are inconvenient. 
 
Yet a deeper problem is the rush to judgment that comes from lazy thinking. We wish to dash ahead to the conclusion, like a reader who skips to the end of a whodunit novel, and so we neglect to consider the actual argument, or even define our terms with any clarity. 
 
Furthermore, we don’t take the time to examine the subtleties of context, and the particular senses in which a term can be employed. This leaves us full of narrow opinions at the expense of an open understanding. 
 
For example, aren’t some people confident, while other people are cautious, and they stand in sharp opposition to one another? Let me be picky—how are they being confident or cautious, and with regard to what sorts of things?
 
I may feel quite optimistic about cycling for 26 miles, though rather apprehensive about my ability to run for 26 miles. I should be fearless in cuddling a kitten, leery of petting an alligator. These are distinctions, not contradictions.
 
Where we choose to be most careful in life depends on what we think to be the most decisive measure. Now while the person who defines his worth by the arrangement of his circumstances might be extremely cautious about how to invest his money, he is also tempted to become causally confident about any matters of character. After all, he believes, losing money could be catastrophic, but morals are really just about whims. 
 
The Stoic, or any person who looks behind the impressions, will reverse the priorities; this is one of the reasons why he appears insane to the followers of the herd. He cares first for being a good man, and so he is extremely cautious in his principles, and about discerning right from wrong in his actions. Knowing this, he is able to be evenly confident about whatever may or may not happen to him, since he cares less about being a rich man. 
 
Do you see what Epictetus just did there? He flipped it. Be judicious about what is within your power, and be carefree about what is beyond your power. Attend meticulously to the formation of the will, and accept the unfolding of events with ease. Indeed, it is precisely because of the former that the latter is possible. 
 
Where do I find the good? That is where I ought to be cautious. How do I face what is indifferent? That is where I can accordingly be confident. 

—Reflection written in 5/2001 

Epictetus, Golden Sayings 168

Take what relates to the body as far as the bare use warrants—as meat, drink, raiment, house, and servants. 

But all that makes for show and luxury reject. 

IMAGE: Frontispiece to Ellis Walker, The Morals of Epictetus in Poetical Paraphrase (1692) 

The Labors of Hercules 10

Attic amphora, Heracles Fighting Geryon (6th century BC) 

Lucas Cranach the Elder, Hercules and the Cattle of Geryon (c. 1537)  

Francisco de Zurbaran, Hercules Defeats King Geryon (1634) 

Delphic Maxims 22

Δόξαν δίωκε 

Pursue honor 

IMAGE: Jules Joseph Lefebvre, An Allegory of Victory (c. 1880) 

Aesop's Fables 66

The One-Eyed Doe 

A doe had had the misfortune to lose one of her eyes, and could not see anyone approaching her on that side. 

So to avoid any danger she always used to feed on a high cliff near the sea, with her sound eye looking towards the land. By this means she could see whenever the hunters approached her on land, and often escaped by this means. 

But the hunters found out that she was blind of one eye, and hiring a boat rowed under the cliff where she used to feed and shot her from the sea. 

"Ah," cried she with her dying voice, 

"You cannot escape your fate." 

Epictetus, Discourses 1.30.1

Chapter 30: What a man should have ready to hand in the crises of life.
 
When you appear before one of the mighty of the earth, remember that Another looks from above on what is happening and that you must please Him rather than this man. He that is above inquires of you: 
 
“What did you say in the school about exile and prison and bonds and death and dishonor?” 
 
I said they were “indifferent”. 
 
“What do you call them now, then? Have they changed?” 
 
No. 
 
“Have you changed then?” 
 
No. 
 
“Tell me then what things are indifferent.” 
 
Things which lie outside the will's control. 
 
“Tell me what follows.” 
 
Things indifferent concern me not at all. 
 
“Tell me also what you thought were ‘good things’.”
 
A right will and a faculty of dealing rightly with impressions. 
 
“And what did you think was the end?”
 
To follow You.
 
“Do you still say that?”
 
Yes. I say the same now as before.
 
Go on then into the palace in confidence and remember these things, and you shall see how a young man who has studied what he ought compares with men who have had no study. By the gods, I imagine that you will feel thus: 
 
“Why do we make these many and great preparations for nothing? Is this what authority meant? Are the vestibule, the chamberlains, the guards no more than this? Was it for this that I listened to those long discourses? These terrors were nothing, and I made ready for them all the time as though they were great matters." 

—from Epictetus, Discourses 1.30 
 
Just as a bubbly teenager calls everyone she likes her “best friend”, so I find myself accumulating more and more Stoic passages I call my favorites. I assure you, however, that this one is definitely in my top ten . . . or maybe twenty. 
 
I can only offer the excuse that I have found Stoicism to be an eminently practical philosophy, and so the content and tone of different texts will speak to me at different hours of the day, depending upon the sort of demons I happen to be grappling with at the moment. 
 
When I am working on the principles, Marcus Aurelius usually comes to my aid, but when I am fighting in the trenches, Epictetus is regularly passing the ammunition. 
 
How often has it made sense from the comfort of my room, and then I seem to lose my resolve when I am put on the spot? This chapter does wonders for me at such times, for if I can make that critical connection between the values I cherish and the hardships I now face, then I can begin to embody that invincibility the Stoics keep talking about. 
 
I will most likely never enter an imperial palace, but I must cross paths with at least one petty tyrant each day. How shall I approach him, knowing full well that he could take away my money, ruin my reputation, or even lock me up at his leisure? This is where the rubber meets the road. 
 
While I have not yet heard a literal voice from God, the Divine is constantly speaking through the order of Nature. Whenever I must decide to act, there being no more room for equivocation, I can recite these questions, and my answers can serve as a stiff shot of courage. 
 
Does a man snatch away my property, or threaten me with pain? Now is the time to remember why I believe that the circumstances don’t define me, and that discomfort is preferable to wickedness. 
 
Do I really claim to be indifferent to what happens to me? Let me prove it by focusing on what I choose to do with what happens to me. Virtue is the only human good, vice the only human evil, and everything else stands or falls with them. 
 
So what am I going to do now? I am going to find peace in the integrity of my character, a sound mind and a loving will. I will not permit the impressions to rule over me. 
 
What possible purpose could I have in all of this? By improving my own nature, I contribute to the whole of Nature, and by finding my place in creation I am in service to the Creator. 
 
If I can do this, the things that frightened me won’t look so big and nasty after all. The book learning must become life learning. 
 
I’m not terribly good at forcing myself to memorize a passage, so I wrote this chapter out in the little notebook I carry around with me. In just a month, I have turned to it far more often than I ever expected, and I’m sure I will soon know it by heart. 

—Reflection written in 5/2001 

IMAGE: The Emperor Domitian, who banished all philosophers from Rome. 

Sayings of Ramakrishna 210

Instead of preaching to others, if one worships God all that time, that is enough preaching. 

He who strives to make himself free is the real preacher. Hundreds come from all sides, no one knows whence, to him who is free, and are taught. 

When a flower opens the bees come from all sides, uninvited and unasked. 

Abandoned Places 45

Romain Veillon, A Scene at the Sea 

Nature 47

Seneca, Moral Letters 50.6

But although virtues, when admitted, cannot depart and are easy to guard, yet the first steps in the approach to them are toilsome, because it is characteristic of a weak and diseased mind to fear that which is unfamiliar. 
 
The mind must, therefore, be forced to make a beginning; from then on, the medicine is not bitter; for just as soon as it is curing us it begins to give pleasure. One enjoys other cures only after health is restored, but a draught of philosophy is at the same moment wholesome and pleasant. Farewell. 

—from Seneca, Moral Letters 50 
 
I can no longer count the number of times I felt the powerful urge to change my ways, or I finally swallowed my pride to listen to some friendly advice, and I then made a commitment to starting all over again. The next day was going to be different, I told myself, because I would break ground on building a whole new me. 
 
And then, quite frankly, I found out that it hurt. I also wasn’t getting those instant results I was somehow expecting. Suddenly my head was filled with excuses, a variety of reservations, conditions, and extensions. If it didn’t come painlessly and immediately, I would call it a regrouping, when it was actually a rout. 
 
Beyond an initial excitement, how much I want something is in a direct proportion to how deeply I understand its meaning and value, and if it is important enough to me, I will find the endurance and the patience to see it through. When happiness is on the line, the worldly hardships will now seem trivial. 
 
Just as eyes accustomed to darkness are distressed by any light, or limbs atrophied by years of neglect burn at the slightest exertion, so the mind meets resistance when challenged by the prospect of the virtues. There will be a shock to the system as something broken is bent back into shape. 
 
A child does not like the taste of the medicine, while he is later relieved when the fever breaks. It is all the more important for me to grasp why the pain now is a mark of healing that will soon set me free. 
 
In any endeavor, there comes a wonderful point where the balance has tipped, the burden is lifted, and a sense of purpose flows through the soul. For our human nature, it is the love of wisdom that provides such a fulfillment. 
 
Your broker promises you riches, and your publicist promises you fame, but only philosophy, in daily practice, can truly grant you peace of mind. 
 
Is there a food that is both tasty and healthy? I do at least know I am beginning to experience a way of life that brings me joy by doing good. 

—Reflection written in 3/2013 

The Four Freedoms

Norman Rockwell, The Four Freedoms (1943) 

Freedom of Speech

Freedom of Worship 

Freedom from Want 

Freedom from Fear 

Stoic Snippets 198

Both man and God and the Universe produce fruit; at the proper seasons each produces it. 

But if usage has especially fixed these terms to the vine and like things, this is nothing. 

Reason produces fruit both for all and for itself, and there are produced from it other things of the same kind as reason itself. 

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 9.10 

IMAGE: Norman Rockwell, Fruit of the Vine (1930) 

Stockdale on Stoicism 34

Epictetus drew the same sort of audience Socrates had drawn 500 years earlier—young aristocrats destined for careers in finance, the arts, public service. The best families sent him their sons in their middle 20's—to be told what the good life consisted of, to be disabused of the idea that they deserved to become playboys, and to be taught that their job was to serve their fellow men. 

Epictetus explained that his curriculum was not about "revenues or income, or peace or war, but about happiness and unhappiness, success and failure, slavery and freedom." 

His model graduate was not a person "able to speak fluently about philosophic principles as an idle babbler, but about things that will do you good if your child dies, or your brother dies, or if you must die or be tortured. . . . Let others practice lawsuits, others study problems, others syllogisms; here you practice how to die, how to be enchained, how to be racked, how to be exiled." 

A man is responsible for his own "judgments, even in dreams, in drunkenness, and in melancholy madness." Each individual brings about his own good and his own evil, his good fortune, his ill fortune, his happiness, and his wretchedness. 

It is unthinkable that one man's error could cause another's suffering; suffering, like everything else in Stoicism, was all internal--remorse at destroying yourself. 

Epictetus was telling his students that there can be no such thing as being the "victim" of another. You can only be a "victim" of yourself. It's all in how you discipline your mind. 

Who is your master? "He who has authority over any of the things on which you have set your heart. . . . What is the result at which all virtue aims? Serenity. . . . Show me a man who though sick is happy, who though in danger is happy, who though in prison is happy, and I'II show you a Stoic." 

—from James B. Stockdale, Master of My Fate: A Stoic Philosopher in a Hanoi Prison 

Seneca, Moral Letters 50.5

There is nothing, Lucilius, to hinder you from entertaining good hopes about us, just because we are even now in the grip of evil, or because we have long been possessed thereby. There is no man to whom a good mind comes before an evil one. It is the evil mind that gets first hold on all of us. Learning virtue means unlearning vice.
 
We should therefore proceed to the task of freeing ourselves from faults with all the more courage because, when once committed to us, the good is an everlasting possession; virtue is not unlearned. 
 
For opposites find difficulty in clinging where they do not belong, therefore they can be driven out and hustled away; but qualities that come to a place which is rightfully theirs abide faithfully. Virtue is according to nature; vice is opposed to it and hostile. 

—from Seneca, Moral Letters 50 
 
Our current attitudes, fed by certain dogmas of materialist science, assume that a person’s character is determined by genetics, environment, or some combination of these two. 
 
If I am asked the generic “nature or nurture?” question, I tend to say that in one sense it is both, and in another sense it is neither. I’m not trying to be difficult—I’m just trying to be thorough. 
 
We are certainly born with dispositions, and we are certainly influenced by our circumstances, but these conditions, as material causes, are not to be confused with our deliberate choices, as efficient causes. We are provided the settings to work in, even as our own judgments make the final call. 
 
Are we already created as good or bad? We are given the potency to be either, and how we order our own minds and wills, slowly but surely, is the deciding factor. We remove freedom, and therefore responsibility, when we think of ourselves as machines instead of as persons. 
 
Then why does Seneca say we need to work away our vices before we can work in our virtues? Beyond any supernatural concept of original sin, on a natural level the human mind will fall into weakness merely by doing nothing, and it can only begin to improve when it commits to doing something. Inaction breeds lethargy, and action spurs growth. 
 
In other words, we start out by being ignorant, and must then make a conscious effort to become wise; it is easy to rest in vice, while it is difficult to reach for virtue. Just as a newborn must adjust his eyes to see, so a man must discipline his soul to increase in righteousness. 
 
And what does Seneca mean when he says that once we acquire virtue, we are not inclined to lose it? After all, I can think of dozens of instances when my conduct got better, and then it quickly fell back into being worse. For so much work, it didn’t seem to stick! 
 
Let me be careful not to jump the gun. I may have been leaning in the right direction, though I hadn’t taken the decisive step. Where the knowledge is certain, it is not easily dislodged, and when the actions are pure, I won’t be taken in by cheap diversions. The work is still in progress. 
 
For my virtues to be lasting, they must proceed from a profound awareness of my nature, and through such a harmony refuse the intrusion of any conflict. If peace reigns within me, I will no longer have a desire to go to war. Once I have made it my own, no one can take it away. 

—Reflection written in 3/2013 

Sayings of Ramakrishna 209

Q: What do you say about the method of religious preaching employed nowadays? 

A: It is inviting hundreds of persons to dinner, when the food supply is sufficient for one only. 

Thomas a Kempis, The Imitation of Christ 3.58

Of deeper matters, and God’s hidden judgments which are not to be inquired into 

1. “My Son, beware you dispute not of high matters and of the hidden judgments of God; why this man is thus left, and that man is taken into so great favor; why also this man is so greatly afflicted, and that so highly exalted. These things pass all man’s power of judging, neither may any reasoning or disputation have power to search out the divine judgments. When therefore the enemy suggests these things to you, or when any curious people ask such questions, answer with that word of the Prophet, Just art Thou, O Lord, and true is Thy judgment, and with this, The judgments of the Lord are true, and righteous altogether. My judgments are to be feared, not to be disputed on, because they are incomprehensible to human understanding. 

2. “And be not given to inquire or dispute about the merits of the Saints, which is holier than another, or which is the greater in the Kingdom of Heaven. Such questions often beget useless strifes and contentions: they also nourish pride and vainglory, whence envyings and dissensions arise, while one man arrogantly endeavors to exalt one Saint and another another. But to wish to know and search out such things brings no fruit, but it rather displeases the Saints; for I am not the God of confusion but of peace; which peace consists more in true humility than in self-exaltation. 

3. “Some are drawn by zeal of love to greater affection to these Saints or those; but this is human affection rather than divine. I am He Who made all the Saints: I gave them grace, I brought them glory; I know the merits of every one; I prevented them with the blessings of My goodness. I foreknew my beloved ones from everlasting, I chose them out of the world; they did not choose Me. I called them by My grace, drew them by My mercy, led them on through sundry temptations. I poured mighty consolations upon them, I gave them perseverance, I crowned their patience. 

4. “I acknowledge the first and the last; I embrace all with inestimable love. I am to be praised in all My Saints; I am to be blessed above all things, and to be honored in every one whom I have so gloriously exalted and predestined, without any preceding merits of their own. He therefore that shall despise one of the least of these My people, honors not the great; because I made both small and great. And he who speaks against any of My Saints speaks against Me, and against all others in the Kingdom of Heaven. They are all one through the bond of charity; they think the same thing, will the same thing, and all are united in love one to another. 

5. “But yet (which is far better) they love Me above themselves and their own merits. For being caught up above themselves, and drawn beyond self-love, they go all straightforward to the love of Me, and they rest in Me in perfect enjoyment. There is nothing which can turn them away or press them down; for being full of Eternal Truth, they burn with the fire of inextinguishable charity. Therefore let all carnal and natural men hold their peace concerning the state of the Saints, for they know nothing save to love their own personal enjoyment. They take away and add according to their own inclination, not as it pleases the Eternal Truth. 

6. “In many men this is ignorance, chiefly is it so in those who, being little enlightened, rarely learn to love anyone with perfect spiritual love. They are still much drawn by natural affection and human friendship to these or to those: and as they reckon of themselves in lower matters, so also do they frame imaginations of things heavenly. But there is an immeasurable difference between those things which they imperfectly imagine, and these things which enlightened men behold through supernatural revelation. 

7. “Take heed, therefore, My son, that you treat not curiously those things which surpass your knowledge, but rather make this your business and give attention to it, namely, that you seek to be found, even though it be the least, in the Kingdom of God. And even if any one should know who were holier than others, or who were held greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven; what should that knowledge profit him, unless through this knowledge he should humble himself before Me, and should rise up to give greater praise unto My name? He who considers how great are his own sins, how small his virtues, and how far he is removed from the perfection of the Saints, does far more acceptably in the sight of God, than he who disputes about their greatness or littleness. 

8. “They are altogether well content, if men would learn to be content, and to refrain from vain babbling. They glory not of their own merits, seeing they ascribe no good unto themselves, but all unto Me, seeing that I of my infinite charity have given them all things. They are filled with so great love of the Divinity, and with such overflowing joy, that no glory is lacking to them, neither can any felicity be lacking. All the Saints, the higher they are exalted in glory, the humbler are they in themselves, and the nearer and dearer are they unto Me. And so you have it written that they cast their crowns before God and fell on their faces before the Lamb, and worshipped Him that lives for ever and ever. 

9. “Many ask who is greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven, who know not whether they shall be worthy to be counted among the least. It is a great thing to be even the least in Heaven, where all are great, because all shall be called, and shall be, the sons of God. A little one shall become a thousand, but the sinner being an hundred years old shall be accursed. For when the disciples asked who should be the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven, they received no other answer than this, Except ye be converted and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. But whosoever shall humble himself as this little child, the same shall be greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven.”  

10. Woe unto them who disdain to humble themselves willingly with the little children; for the low gate of the kingdom of Heaven will not suffer them to enter in. Woe also to them who are rich, who have their consolation here; because while the poor enter into the kingdom of God, they shall stand lamenting without. Rejoice you humble, and exult you poor, for yours is the kingdom of God if only you walk in the truth. 

IMAGE: Albrecht Dürer, Adoration of the Trinity (1511) 

Seneca, Moral Letters 50.4

No, we must work. To tell the truth, even the work is not great, if only, as I said, we begin to mold and reconstruct our souls before they are hardened by sin. But I do not despair even of a hardened sinner.
 
There is nothing that will not surrender to persistent treatment, to concentrated and careful attention; however much the timber may be bent, you can make it straight again. Heat unbends curved beams, and wood that grew naturally in another shape is fashioned artificially according to our needs. 
 
How much more easily does the soul permit itself to be shaped, pliable as it is and more yielding than any liquid! For what else is the soul than air in a certain state? And you see that air is more adaptable than any other matter, in proportion as it is rarer than any other. 

—from Seneca, Moral Letters 50 
 
Why do we assume labor of any sort to be a burden? We regularly refer to “work” as a grueling and tedious chore, something we are forced to do if we wish to pay the mortgage, though we’ll find a way to do as little as possible if we can get away with it. 
 
Yet if we think of work as a free choice rather than a form of coercion, and we understand why our actions are truly fulfilling, wouldn’t we then enjoy working? And if we enjoy it, how is it any less appealing than play? 
 
After worrying for some time that I was inclined to laziness, I finally realized that exertion didn’t bother me at all, as long as I aligned myself to its purpose. When I find joy in the good, then the blood, sweat, and tears become like badges of honor. 
 
A resolution to act proceeds from conviction, and conviction is a function of awareness. All the toil is worth it, if only I know that the goal is peace of mind. Though sadly out of fashion at the moment, as is the case for good manners in general, saying “It was my pleasure!” reflects something of an attitude where the dignity of the deed is its own reward. 
 
So, if I know what is at stake, the work no longer seems so hard. It would be best if I could avoid tearing up everything I have already laid down over the years, but even then, the act of starting again can be taken as a glorious victory. Instead of dragging myself along, I find myself with a spring in my step. 
 
Some like to say that people never change, yet they most certainly can and do change, with the key being the degree of focus and enthusiasm. If I want it enough, I will go through hell and high water, and I won’t complain a bit. 
 
Like a muscle that becomes more flexible by stretching, consciousness will more easily adapt with exercise. Contrary to expectation, it’s starting out that is the most difficult. 
 
The soul is, after all, an active principle, and its power to shape the meaning in circumstances is remarkable. There is a good reason why the Stoics spoke of pneuma, breath, as representing the vital and creative force of mind. 

—Reflection written in 3/2013 

Character of the Happy Warrior

"Character of the Happy Warrior" 

William Wordsworth (1770-1850)

Who is the happy Warrior? Who is he
Whom every Man in arms should wish to be?
—It is the generous Spirit, who, when brought
Among the tasks of real life, hath wrought
Upon the plan that pleased his childish thought:
Whose high endeavours are an inward light
That make the path before him always bright:
Who, with a natural instinct to discern
What knowledge can perform, is diligent to learn;
Abides by this resolve, and stops not there,
But makes his moral being his prime care;
Who, doomed to go in company with Pain,
And Fear, and Bloodshed, miserable train!
Turns his necessity to glorious gain;
In face of these doth exercise a power
Which is our human-nature's highest dower;
Controls them and subdues, transmutes, bereaves
Of their bad influence, and their good receives;
By objects, which might force the soul to abate
Her feeling, rendered more compassionate;
Is placable—because occasions rise
So often that demand such sacrifice;
More skilful in self-knowledge, even more pure,
As tempted more; more able to endure,
As more exposed to suffering and distress;
Thence, also, more alive to tenderness.
'Tis he whose law is reason; who depends
Upon that law as on the best of friends;
Whence, in a state where men are tempted still
To evil for a guard against worse ill,
And what in quality or act is best
Doth seldom on a right foundation rest,
He fixes good on good alone, and owes
To virtue every triumph that he knows:
—Who, if he rise to station of command,
Rises by open means; and there will stand
On honourable terms, or else retire,
And in himself possess his own desire;
Who comprehends his trust, and to the same
Keeps faithful with a singleness of aim;
And therefore does not stoop, nor lie in wait
For wealth, or honors, or for worldly state;
Whom they must follow; on whose head must fall,
Like showers of manna, if they come at all:
Whose powers shed round him in the common strife,
Or mild concerns of ordinary life,
A constant influence, a peculiar grace;
But who, if he be called upon to face
Some awful moment to which heaven has join'd
Great issues, good or bad for human-kind,
Is happy as a Lover; and attired
With sudden brightness like a Man inspired;
And through the heat of conflict keeps the law
In calmness made, and sees what he foresaw;
Or if an unexpected call succeed,
Come when it will, is equal to the need:
—He who, though thus endued as with a sense
And faculty for storm and turbulence,
Is yet a Soul whose master bias leans
To home-felt pleasures and to gentle scenes;
Sweet images! which, wheresoe'er he be,
Are at his heart; and such fidelity
It is his darling passion to approve;
More brave for this, that he hath much to love:
'Tis, finally, the Man, who, lifted high,
Conspicuous object in a Nation's eye,
Or left unthought-of in obscurity,—
Who, with a toward or untoward lot,
Prosperous or adverse, to his wish or not,
Plays, in the many games of life, that one
Where what he most doth value must be won:
Whom neither shape of danger can dismay,
Nor thought of tender happiness betray;
Who, not content that former worth stand fast,
Looks forward, persevering to the last,
From well to better, daily self-surpast:
Who, whether praise of him must walk the earth
For ever, and to noble deeds give birth,
Or He must go to dust without his fame,
And leave a dead unprofitable name,
Finds comfort in himself and in his cause;
And, while the mortal mist is gathering, draws
His breath in confidence of Heaven's applause:
This is the happy Warrior; this is He
Whom every Man in arms should wish to be. 

IMAGE: Benjamin West, The Death of Nelson (1806) 

Stoic Snippets 197

Among the animals which have not reason one life is distributed; but among reasonable animals one intelligent soul is distributed: just as there is one earth of all things which are of an earthly nature, and we see by one light, and breathe one air, all of us that have the faculty of vision and all that have life. 

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 9.8 

Sayings of Myson

We know very little about Myson of Chenae (6th century BC), for though he was reported to have been the son of a tyrant, he lived the life of a common farmer. It is unclear if his home town was in Laconia, Crete, or near Mount Oeta. 

Plato, at least, thought Myson a better fit than Periander as one of the Seven Sages, and Eudoxus includes him on the list instead of Cleobulus. 

Though I am sure there must be some out there, I have over the years never been able to find a single image of Myson, from any period. Perhaps the very idea of a noble character from a humble background was the very reason that Plato preferred him? 

We are quick to honor mighty kings, clever scholars, or eloquent poets, but we too easily forget the true source of human greatness, the inner qualities of the soul, which never require a grand setting. 

When Anacharsis, another of the candidates for the Seven Sages, asked the Oracle at Delphi if anyone was wiser than himself, the priestess gave him a very clear reply: 

Myson of Chen in Oeta; this is he

Who for wiseheartedness surpasseth thee. 

Just as Socrates later wished to discover what the Oracle meant about him, so Anacharsis figured he should seek out this Myson, and found him working on his plow. As this was in the middle of summer, Anacharsis was confused, and said to Myson: 

Myson, this is not the season for plowing! 

To which Myson replied: 

Yes, but it is the season to repair it. 

It just goes to show how the preparedness of a farmer can outwit the perceptions of a philosopher. 

It is said that Myson, like so many men of keen insight, had a streak of misanthropy to him, for he knew the wickedness that could so easily arise among crowds. Myson was once observed laughing to himself, and when asked why he was doing so while standing completely alone, he explained: 

That is precisely the reason. 

There is only one other saying regularly attributed him, but it's a good one: 

We should not investigate facts by the light of arguments, but arguments by the light of facts; for the facts were not put together to fit the arguments, but the arguments to fit the facts. 

One can only wish that far more "thinkers" understood why the conclusions should never come before the premises. It would save us so much unnecessary grief.