Tuesday, September 30, 2025
Monday, September 29, 2025
Stoic Snippets 271
—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 12.12
IMAGE: Johann Rudolf Byss, The Feast of the Gods (1734)
Sunday, September 28, 2025
Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 5.29
A. Indeed I cannot; but I should be glad to prevail on you, unless it is troublesome (as you are under no confinement from obligations to any particular sect, but gather from all of them whatever strikes you most as having the appearance of probability), as you just now seemed to advise the Peripatetics and the Old Academy boldly to speak out without reserve, “that wise men are always the happiest”—I should be glad to hear how you think it consistent for them to say so, when you have said so much against that opinion, and the conclusions of the Stoics.
M. I will make use, then, of that liberty which no one has the privilege of using in philosophy but those of our school, whose discourses determine nothing, but take in everything, leaving them unsupported by the authority of any particular person, to be judged of by others, according to their weight.
And as you seem desirous of knowing how it is that, notwithstanding the different opinions of philosophers with regard to the ends of goods, virtue has still sufficient security for the effecting of a happy life—which security, as we are informed, Carneades used indeed to dispute against; but he disputed as against the Stoics, whose opinions he combated with great zeal and vehemence.
I, however, shall handle the question with more temper; for if the Stoics have rightly settled the ends of goods, the affair is at an end; for a wise man must necessarily be always happy. But let us examine, if we can, the particular opinions of the others, that so this excellent decision, if I may so call it, in favor of a happy life, may be agreeable to the opinions and discipline of all.
M. I will make use, then, of that liberty which no one has the privilege of using in philosophy but those of our school, whose discourses determine nothing, but take in everything, leaving them unsupported by the authority of any particular person, to be judged of by others, according to their weight.
And as you seem desirous of knowing how it is that, notwithstanding the different opinions of philosophers with regard to the ends of goods, virtue has still sufficient security for the effecting of a happy life—which security, as we are informed, Carneades used indeed to dispute against; but he disputed as against the Stoics, whose opinions he combated with great zeal and vehemence.
I, however, shall handle the question with more temper; for if the Stoics have rightly settled the ends of goods, the affair is at an end; for a wise man must necessarily be always happy. But let us examine, if we can, the particular opinions of the others, that so this excellent decision, if I may so call it, in favor of a happy life, may be agreeable to the opinions and discipline of all.
—from Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 5.29
The Auditor now seems more confident in the claim the virtue is sufficient for happiness, though he also offers a further question, which will occupy the remainder of the book. Cicero has argued that philosophers from many different schools can agree on how a life of wisdom must also be a happy life, but what are we to make of their countless disputes? Is it really possible for such diverse, and often conflicting, models to find a common ground?
When I was first formally introduced to philosophy, I was taught a stale routine about the tension between Plato and Aristotle, such that it took me many years to look beyond this narrow assumption of dissonance. When I later discovered the subtle beauty of Aquinas, the partisans told me I must now side with the Peripatetics, and look down my nose at the Academics, but I disappointed them by viewing the work of St. Thomas as a synthesis of all that had come before, not as one school in combat with the others.
Doubt should be a tool, not an obstacle, so while I am deeply wary of radical skepticism, Cicero’s sort of hesitation, that of the “New Academy”, seems far more reasonable to me, concerned with practicality over ideology. I also find the refusal to be tied to this or that “-ism” remarkably refreshing, as I do indeed worry about the Stoic tendency toward pompous pontification; as a recovering reactionary, I’m sensitive to that sort of thing.
It is said that Boethius, the author of The Consolation of Philosophy, a book which is quite possibly responsible for saving my life, intended to translate all the works of Plato and Aristotle from Greek into Latin, and then to write an account of how these two systems were, with proper qualifications and distinctions, compatible and complementary. I wonder what might have happened to our Western culture if he had achieved this, and how well this would have served the cause of a common Wisdom Tradition.
We too often forget how philosophy is a universal calling, which ought to transcend our petty bickering about our selfish preferences. If our human nature is indeed the same, our problems will also be essentially the same, and our solutions will center around the same first principles, regardless of class, race, or creed. My colleagues dismiss Cicero as a philosophical lightweight, even as I find him to be a champion of common sense.
A few years back, I casually started to collect images of how the world perceived philosophers, not to produce some fancy work of scholarship, but to help myself understand something more about who I was meant to be. There were a few depictions of the noble intellectual hero, yet also a slew of nasty caricatures, mockeries of those self-absorbed idiots with their heads in the clouds.
There was, however, one that spoke to me immensely, a 19th century advertisement for beer; I will post it online one of these days if I can ever find a digital copy. A rather common man sits in peace on a crate, smoking his pipe and writing out his thoughts, totally oblivious to any worldly diversions or anxieties. I would like to imagine that the open-minded and amiable philosopher Cicero has in mind is this sort of fellow.
Wisdom, and its ensuing happiness, are bigger than our provincial squabbles.
The Auditor now seems more confident in the claim the virtue is sufficient for happiness, though he also offers a further question, which will occupy the remainder of the book. Cicero has argued that philosophers from many different schools can agree on how a life of wisdom must also be a happy life, but what are we to make of their countless disputes? Is it really possible for such diverse, and often conflicting, models to find a common ground?
When I was first formally introduced to philosophy, I was taught a stale routine about the tension between Plato and Aristotle, such that it took me many years to look beyond this narrow assumption of dissonance. When I later discovered the subtle beauty of Aquinas, the partisans told me I must now side with the Peripatetics, and look down my nose at the Academics, but I disappointed them by viewing the work of St. Thomas as a synthesis of all that had come before, not as one school in combat with the others.
Doubt should be a tool, not an obstacle, so while I am deeply wary of radical skepticism, Cicero’s sort of hesitation, that of the “New Academy”, seems far more reasonable to me, concerned with practicality over ideology. I also find the refusal to be tied to this or that “-ism” remarkably refreshing, as I do indeed worry about the Stoic tendency toward pompous pontification; as a recovering reactionary, I’m sensitive to that sort of thing.
It is said that Boethius, the author of The Consolation of Philosophy, a book which is quite possibly responsible for saving my life, intended to translate all the works of Plato and Aristotle from Greek into Latin, and then to write an account of how these two systems were, with proper qualifications and distinctions, compatible and complementary. I wonder what might have happened to our Western culture if he had achieved this, and how well this would have served the cause of a common Wisdom Tradition.
We too often forget how philosophy is a universal calling, which ought to transcend our petty bickering about our selfish preferences. If our human nature is indeed the same, our problems will also be essentially the same, and our solutions will center around the same first principles, regardless of class, race, or creed. My colleagues dismiss Cicero as a philosophical lightweight, even as I find him to be a champion of common sense.
A few years back, I casually started to collect images of how the world perceived philosophers, not to produce some fancy work of scholarship, but to help myself understand something more about who I was meant to be. There were a few depictions of the noble intellectual hero, yet also a slew of nasty caricatures, mockeries of those self-absorbed idiots with their heads in the clouds.
There was, however, one that spoke to me immensely, a 19th century advertisement for beer; I will post it online one of these days if I can ever find a digital copy. A rather common man sits in peace on a crate, smoking his pipe and writing out his thoughts, totally oblivious to any worldly diversions or anxieties. I would like to imagine that the open-minded and amiable philosopher Cicero has in mind is this sort of fellow.
Wisdom, and its ensuing happiness, are bigger than our provincial squabbles.
—Reflection written in 3/1999
IMAGE: The Philosopher, advertising proof for ABC Lager Beer, Boston MA (c. 1880)
Saturday, September 27, 2025
Friday, September 26, 2025
Dhammapada 406
IMAGE: Jean Baptiste de Champaigne, Allegory of Peace (1668)
Stockdale on Stoicism 51
The book had special meaning because it was a gift from a man sixteen years my senior, whom I idolized. It was given to me by Philip Rhinelander, my professor of philosophy at Stanford University Graduate School. He had been my mentor for almost a year when, during my last tutorial session, he removed the little worn and marked-up personal volume from a high shelf in his study and said: "Here is a book that a man in your profession should own. Keep it and read it from time to time."
I was a career naval officer, an experienced fighter pilot about to return to sea duty to command a carrier-based squadron flying the navy’s latest supersonic jets. What did I have in common with a first century Stoic, who went along page after page reciting epigrams like:
Men are disturbed not by things but by the view they take of them.
Do not be concerned with things that are beyond your power.
Demand not that events should happen as you wish, but wish them to happen as they do happen and you will go on well.
—from James B. Stockdale, Epictetus' Enchiridion: Conflict and Character
IMAGE: Philip H. Rhinelander
Thursday, September 25, 2025
Sayings of Publilius Syrus 182
IMAGE: Caravaggio, The Taking of Christ (1602)
.jpg)
Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 5.28
M. But let us not dwell too much on these questions, but rather let us return to our subject.
I say, and say again, that happiness will submit even to be tormented; and that in pursuit of justice, and temperance, and still more especially and principally fortitude, and greatness of soul, and patience, it will not stop short at sight of the executioner; and when all other virtues proceed calmly to the torture, that one will never halt, as I said, on the outside and threshold of the prison; for what can be baser, what can carry a worse appearance, than to be left alone, separated from those beautiful attendants?
Not, however, that this is by any means possible; for neither can the virtues hold together without happiness, nor happiness without the virtues; so that they will not suffer her to desert them, but will carry her along with them, to whatever torments, to whatever pain they are led.
For it is the peculiar quality of a wise man to do nothing that he may repent of, nothing against his inclination, but always to act nobly, with constancy, gravity, and honesty; to depend on nothing as certainty; to wonder at nothing, when it falls out, as if it appeared strange and unexpected to him; to be independent of every one, and abide by his own opinion.
For my part, I cannot form an idea of anything happier than this. The conclusion of the Stoics is indeed easy; for since they are persuaded that the end of good is to live agreeably to nature, and to be consistent with that—as a wise man should do so, not only because it is his duty, but because it is in his power—it must, of course, follow that whoever has the chief good in his power has his happiness so too.
And thus the life of a wise man is always happy. You have here what I think may be confidently said of a happy life; and as things now stand, very truly also, unless you can advance something better.
I say, and say again, that happiness will submit even to be tormented; and that in pursuit of justice, and temperance, and still more especially and principally fortitude, and greatness of soul, and patience, it will not stop short at sight of the executioner; and when all other virtues proceed calmly to the torture, that one will never halt, as I said, on the outside and threshold of the prison; for what can be baser, what can carry a worse appearance, than to be left alone, separated from those beautiful attendants?
Not, however, that this is by any means possible; for neither can the virtues hold together without happiness, nor happiness without the virtues; so that they will not suffer her to desert them, but will carry her along with them, to whatever torments, to whatever pain they are led.
For it is the peculiar quality of a wise man to do nothing that he may repent of, nothing against his inclination, but always to act nobly, with constancy, gravity, and honesty; to depend on nothing as certainty; to wonder at nothing, when it falls out, as if it appeared strange and unexpected to him; to be independent of every one, and abide by his own opinion.
For my part, I cannot form an idea of anything happier than this. The conclusion of the Stoics is indeed easy; for since they are persuaded that the end of good is to live agreeably to nature, and to be consistent with that—as a wise man should do so, not only because it is his duty, but because it is in his power—it must, of course, follow that whoever has the chief good in his power has his happiness so too.
And thus the life of a wise man is always happy. You have here what I think may be confidently said of a happy life; and as things now stand, very truly also, unless you can advance something better.
—from Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 5.28
The word on the street, among those who claim to know their way around, is that you can choose to be a good man, or you can choose to be a happy man, though you shouldn’t count on being both. This is because they assume a conflict between character and contentment, failing to understand why they are actually one and the same. If we only expect to receive for ourselves, we will not consider how we are fulfilled by what we are willing to give of ourselves.
While a balanced soul cannot excise pain, it is certainly able to rise above pain. When the whole person is improved, no one excellence is abandoned for the sake of another, but all these aspects are perfected together, each playing its proper role, in its fitting place. To be good is to be happy, and to be happy is to be good, since we are made to be one instead of many, in the service of a single nature.
Just as a body cannot survive without nourishment, so a soul cannot thrive without virtue. Happiness does not leave us as long as we cling to an informed conscience, and if we commit to maintaining our integrity, we cannot be denied the joy of satisfying the end for which we are created. Yes, there will be agony and hardship, sometimes to staggering extremes, and yet for any seeming loss on the outside there can always be a guaranteed gain on the inside.
In my Catholic upbringing, I often wondered how the saints could be so dedicated, and especially how the martyrs could endure such agonies, sometimes even expressing their gratitude or cracking jokes.
Yes, it is only by grace that all things are possible, an article of faith which even the cautious philosopher can comprehend, but Providence also allows the room for our cooperation, and I eventually came to appreciate how the blessed have chosen to know the true and to love the good with such total devotion that any lower things are immediately subsumed under the glory of the higher. Like Socrates, they can say with absolute confidence: “They cannot harm me.”
If bliss is something complete, it will not be limited to gratification, to property, and to fame, which always beg for more and more. Happiness leaves nothing more to be desired, and it is therefore attained by nothing else than the exercise of our very essence, as creatures of reason and of will. From such lofty heights, fortune now looks very small.
The word on the street, among those who claim to know their way around, is that you can choose to be a good man, or you can choose to be a happy man, though you shouldn’t count on being both. This is because they assume a conflict between character and contentment, failing to understand why they are actually one and the same. If we only expect to receive for ourselves, we will not consider how we are fulfilled by what we are willing to give of ourselves.
While a balanced soul cannot excise pain, it is certainly able to rise above pain. When the whole person is improved, no one excellence is abandoned for the sake of another, but all these aspects are perfected together, each playing its proper role, in its fitting place. To be good is to be happy, and to be happy is to be good, since we are made to be one instead of many, in the service of a single nature.
Just as a body cannot survive without nourishment, so a soul cannot thrive without virtue. Happiness does not leave us as long as we cling to an informed conscience, and if we commit to maintaining our integrity, we cannot be denied the joy of satisfying the end for which we are created. Yes, there will be agony and hardship, sometimes to staggering extremes, and yet for any seeming loss on the outside there can always be a guaranteed gain on the inside.
In my Catholic upbringing, I often wondered how the saints could be so dedicated, and especially how the martyrs could endure such agonies, sometimes even expressing their gratitude or cracking jokes.
Yes, it is only by grace that all things are possible, an article of faith which even the cautious philosopher can comprehend, but Providence also allows the room for our cooperation, and I eventually came to appreciate how the blessed have chosen to know the true and to love the good with such total devotion that any lower things are immediately subsumed under the glory of the higher. Like Socrates, they can say with absolute confidence: “They cannot harm me.”
If bliss is something complete, it will not be limited to gratification, to property, and to fame, which always beg for more and more. Happiness leaves nothing more to be desired, and it is therefore attained by nothing else than the exercise of our very essence, as creatures of reason and of will. From such lofty heights, fortune now looks very small.
—Reflection written in 3/1999
IMAGE: Il Sodoma, St. Sebastian (1525)
Wednesday, September 24, 2025
Tuesday, September 23, 2025
Monday, September 22, 2025
Henry David Thoreau 10
Ralph Waldo Emerson 15
—from Ralph Waldo Emerson, "The Sovereignty of Ethics" (1878)
Sunday, September 21, 2025
Maxims of Goethe 74
IMAGE: Sandro Botticelli, Portrait of a Young Man Holding a Roundel (c. 1480)
Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 5.27
M. But to dismiss the subtleties of the Stoics, which I am sensible I have employed more than was necessary, let us admit of three kinds of goods; and let them really be kinds of goods, provided no regard is had to the body and to external circumstances, as entitled to the appellation of good in any other sense than because we are obliged to use them: but let those other divine goods spread themselves far in every direction, and reach the very heavens.
Why, then, may I not call him happy, nay, the happiest of men, who has attained them? Shall a wise man be afraid of pain? Which is, indeed, the greatest enemy to our opinion. For I am persuaded that we are prepared and fortified sufficiently, by the disputations of the foregoing days, against our own death or that of our friends, against grief, and the other perturbations of the mind. But pain seems to be the sharpest adversary of virtue; that it is which menaces us with burning torches; that it is which threatens to crush our fortitude, and greatness of mind, and patience.
Shall virtue, then, yield to this? Shall the happy life of a wise and consistent man succumb to this? Good. Gods! how base would this be! Spartan boys will bear to have their bodies torn by rods without uttering a groan. I myself have seen at Lacedaemon troops of young men, with incredible earnestness contending together with their hands and feet, with their teeth and nails, nay, even ready to expire, rather than own themselves conquered.
Is any country of barbarians more uncivilized or desolate than India? Yet they have among them some that are held for wise men, who never wear any clothes all their life long, and who bear the snow of Caucasus, and the piercing cold of winter, without any pain; and who if they come in contact with fire endure being burned without a groan.
The women, too, in India, on the death of their husbands have a regular contest, and apply to the judge to have it determined which of them was best beloved by him; for it is customary there for one man to have many wives. She in whose favor it is determined exults greatly, and being attended by her relations, is laid on the funeral pile with her husband; the others, who are postponed, walk away very much dejected.
Custom can never be superior to nature, for nature is never to be got the better of. But our minds are infected by sloth and idleness, and luxury, and languor, and indolence: we have enervated them by opinions and bad customs. Who is there who is unacquainted with the customs of the Egyptians? Their minds being tainted by pernicious opinions, they are ready to bear any torture rather than hurt an ibis, a snake, a cat, a dog, or a crocodile; and should any one inadvertently have hurt any of these animals, he will submit to any punishment.
I am speaking of men only. As to the beasts, do they not bear cold and hunger, running about in woods, and on mountains and deserts? Will they not fight for their young ones till they are wounded? Are they afraid of any attacks or blows? I mention not what the ambitious will suffer for honor’s sake, or those who are desirous of praise on account of glory, or lovers to gratify their lust. Life is full of such instances.
Why, then, may I not call him happy, nay, the happiest of men, who has attained them? Shall a wise man be afraid of pain? Which is, indeed, the greatest enemy to our opinion. For I am persuaded that we are prepared and fortified sufficiently, by the disputations of the foregoing days, against our own death or that of our friends, against grief, and the other perturbations of the mind. But pain seems to be the sharpest adversary of virtue; that it is which menaces us with burning torches; that it is which threatens to crush our fortitude, and greatness of mind, and patience.
Shall virtue, then, yield to this? Shall the happy life of a wise and consistent man succumb to this? Good. Gods! how base would this be! Spartan boys will bear to have their bodies torn by rods without uttering a groan. I myself have seen at Lacedaemon troops of young men, with incredible earnestness contending together with their hands and feet, with their teeth and nails, nay, even ready to expire, rather than own themselves conquered.
Is any country of barbarians more uncivilized or desolate than India? Yet they have among them some that are held for wise men, who never wear any clothes all their life long, and who bear the snow of Caucasus, and the piercing cold of winter, without any pain; and who if they come in contact with fire endure being burned without a groan.
The women, too, in India, on the death of their husbands have a regular contest, and apply to the judge to have it determined which of them was best beloved by him; for it is customary there for one man to have many wives. She in whose favor it is determined exults greatly, and being attended by her relations, is laid on the funeral pile with her husband; the others, who are postponed, walk away very much dejected.
Custom can never be superior to nature, for nature is never to be got the better of. But our minds are infected by sloth and idleness, and luxury, and languor, and indolence: we have enervated them by opinions and bad customs. Who is there who is unacquainted with the customs of the Egyptians? Their minds being tainted by pernicious opinions, they are ready to bear any torture rather than hurt an ibis, a snake, a cat, a dog, or a crocodile; and should any one inadvertently have hurt any of these animals, he will submit to any punishment.
I am speaking of men only. As to the beasts, do they not bear cold and hunger, running about in woods, and on mountains and deserts? Will they not fight for their young ones till they are wounded? Are they afraid of any attacks or blows? I mention not what the ambitious will suffer for honor’s sake, or those who are desirous of praise on account of glory, or lovers to gratify their lust. Life is full of such instances.
—from Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 5.27
I must regularly remind myself why my aversion to “tough guy talk” has nothing to do with a fear of genuine strength, and everything to do with distaste for crude domination. To become our own masters is an expression of true power, but to lord it over others is actually a crippling weakness, for what a man fails to find within himself, he seeks to gain by diminishing others. I should be mighty in my understanding and stalwart in my love, not proud in my ignorance and vigorous in my hatred.
Observe how the haughty cry out that they have no fears, while the meek have the courage to quietly confront their fears. Some are obsessed with their appearances, and others are content with their character. So, when anyone tells me to be brave, to keep a stiff upper lip, I try to focus of my virtues instead of my vanity; let me imitate the constancy of the sage rather than the severity of the tyrant.
Such a fortitude is only possible when my conscience is firmly grounded, when my awareness of the good runs so deep that my convictions can tame my concupiscence. Despite what the technocrats would tell us, this cannot be achieved by simply earning some degree; the habits of an honorable soul are the result of continuous personal reflection, and they grow from a willingness to seek out the causes over merely following the rules. I will find happiness when I choose to act with virtue, and I will choose to act with virtue when I grasp my nature to the best of my ability.
In other words, don’t believe them when they order you to try harder, when the real trick is to understand more thoroughly and carefully. Like a skilled craftsman who can feel his way around his materials with his eyes closed, the sage acts with integrity because he can barely imagine doing otherwise. If I am certain the poison will kill me, I will not drink it, and I if I am certain the vice will harm my soul, I will not embrace it. Socrates was not off base when he suggested that evil always stems from ignorance.
This calling transcends the various schools and sects, such that the Academic, the Peripatetic, the Stoic, and the Epicurean are all able to agree that mindfulness is the key to serenity. The Stoics insisted that virtue was the only human good, while the Peripatetics argued that the body and fortune could also be considered as goods, but Cicero explains how even in the case of the latter, external circumstances can only receive their value from the way they are employed by our internal judgments. Though we should not ignore the critical differences, let us first attend to the basic principles.
Despite both its prevalence and its intensity, there is a remedy for pain: its control over us decreases as our dedication to the virtues increases, just as anything feels lesser in the presence of something greater. A flea can look like a monster under a magnifying glass, until I place it next to an elephant. Once the blessings of character are truly discerned, pain does not have to drag us into grief and fear, because it can be transformed into an opportunity for excellence before it traps in a cycle of suffering.
I am not from Sparta, the Caucuses, India, or Egypt, so I cannot speak to their customs, past or present, yet I do recognize what all of these stories share in common. If I believe it to be important enough, I will go through hell and high water to achieve it, and I will bear any burden to defend what I perceive to be right and good, even if it kills me. Living well is more meaningful than merely living.
If you think me too romantic and sentimental when I say that I would not hesitate to die for my wife, you need only go downtown to see what the bankers and the lawyers are willing to surrender for the sake of their riches. We have obviously chosen radically different priorities, and I would hope that mine are slightly more in harmony with Nature, but we all, for better or for worse, define ourselves by our conceptions of an absolute. Just keep in mind how the tycoon can so easily lose his prize, while mine can never be taken from me.
I must regularly remind myself why my aversion to “tough guy talk” has nothing to do with a fear of genuine strength, and everything to do with distaste for crude domination. To become our own masters is an expression of true power, but to lord it over others is actually a crippling weakness, for what a man fails to find within himself, he seeks to gain by diminishing others. I should be mighty in my understanding and stalwart in my love, not proud in my ignorance and vigorous in my hatred.
Observe how the haughty cry out that they have no fears, while the meek have the courage to quietly confront their fears. Some are obsessed with their appearances, and others are content with their character. So, when anyone tells me to be brave, to keep a stiff upper lip, I try to focus of my virtues instead of my vanity; let me imitate the constancy of the sage rather than the severity of the tyrant.
Such a fortitude is only possible when my conscience is firmly grounded, when my awareness of the good runs so deep that my convictions can tame my concupiscence. Despite what the technocrats would tell us, this cannot be achieved by simply earning some degree; the habits of an honorable soul are the result of continuous personal reflection, and they grow from a willingness to seek out the causes over merely following the rules. I will find happiness when I choose to act with virtue, and I will choose to act with virtue when I grasp my nature to the best of my ability.
In other words, don’t believe them when they order you to try harder, when the real trick is to understand more thoroughly and carefully. Like a skilled craftsman who can feel his way around his materials with his eyes closed, the sage acts with integrity because he can barely imagine doing otherwise. If I am certain the poison will kill me, I will not drink it, and I if I am certain the vice will harm my soul, I will not embrace it. Socrates was not off base when he suggested that evil always stems from ignorance.
This calling transcends the various schools and sects, such that the Academic, the Peripatetic, the Stoic, and the Epicurean are all able to agree that mindfulness is the key to serenity. The Stoics insisted that virtue was the only human good, while the Peripatetics argued that the body and fortune could also be considered as goods, but Cicero explains how even in the case of the latter, external circumstances can only receive their value from the way they are employed by our internal judgments. Though we should not ignore the critical differences, let us first attend to the basic principles.
Despite both its prevalence and its intensity, there is a remedy for pain: its control over us decreases as our dedication to the virtues increases, just as anything feels lesser in the presence of something greater. A flea can look like a monster under a magnifying glass, until I place it next to an elephant. Once the blessings of character are truly discerned, pain does not have to drag us into grief and fear, because it can be transformed into an opportunity for excellence before it traps in a cycle of suffering.
I am not from Sparta, the Caucuses, India, or Egypt, so I cannot speak to their customs, past or present, yet I do recognize what all of these stories share in common. If I believe it to be important enough, I will go through hell and high water to achieve it, and I will bear any burden to defend what I perceive to be right and good, even if it kills me. Living well is more meaningful than merely living.
If you think me too romantic and sentimental when I say that I would not hesitate to die for my wife, you need only go downtown to see what the bankers and the lawyers are willing to surrender for the sake of their riches. We have obviously chosen radically different priorities, and I would hope that mine are slightly more in harmony with Nature, but we all, for better or for worse, define ourselves by our conceptions of an absolute. Just keep in mind how the tycoon can so easily lose his prize, while mine can never be taken from me.
—Reflection written in 3/1999
Saturday, September 20, 2025
Delphic Maxims 83
Ὕβριν ἀμύνου
Keep yourself from insolence
IMAGE: Edwin Landseer, Dignity and Impudence (1839)
Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 5.26
A. What, when in torments and on the rack?
M. Do you imagine I am speaking of him as laid on roses and violets? Is it allowable even for Epicurus (who only puts on the appearance of being a philosopher, and who himself assumed that name for himself) to say (though, as matters stand, I commend him for his saying) that a wise man might at all times cry out, though he be burned, tortured, cut to pieces, “How little I regard it!”
Shall this be said by one who defines all evil as pain, and measures every good by pleasure; who could ridicule whatever we call either honorable or base, and could declare of us that we were employed about words, and uttering mere empty sounds; and that nothing is to be regarded by us but as it is perceived to be smooth or rough by the body?
What! shall such a man as this, as I said, whose understanding is little superior to the beasts’, be at liberty to forget himself; and not only to despise fortune, when the whole of his good and evil is in the power of fortune, but to say that he is happy in the most racking torture, when he had actually declared pain to be not only the greatest evil, but the only one?
Nor did he take any trouble to provide himself with those remedies which might have enabled him to bear pain, such as firmness of mind, a shame of doing anything base, exercise, and the habit of patience, precepts of courage, and a manly hardiness; but he says that he supports himself on the single recollection of past pleasures, as if any one, when the weather was so hot as that he was scarcely able to bear it, should comfort himself by recollecting that he was once in my country, Arpinum, where he was surrounded on every side by cooling streams. For I do not apprehend how past pleasures can allay present evils.
But when he says that a wise man is always happy who would have no right to say so if he were consistent with himself, what may they not do who allow nothing to be desirable, nothing to be looked on as good but what is honorable? Let, then, the Peripatetics and Old Academics follow my example, and at length leave off muttering to themselves; and openly and with a clear voice let them be bold to say that a happy life may not be inconsistent with the agonies of Phalaris’s bull.
M. Do you imagine I am speaking of him as laid on roses and violets? Is it allowable even for Epicurus (who only puts on the appearance of being a philosopher, and who himself assumed that name for himself) to say (though, as matters stand, I commend him for his saying) that a wise man might at all times cry out, though he be burned, tortured, cut to pieces, “How little I regard it!”
Shall this be said by one who defines all evil as pain, and measures every good by pleasure; who could ridicule whatever we call either honorable or base, and could declare of us that we were employed about words, and uttering mere empty sounds; and that nothing is to be regarded by us but as it is perceived to be smooth or rough by the body?
What! shall such a man as this, as I said, whose understanding is little superior to the beasts’, be at liberty to forget himself; and not only to despise fortune, when the whole of his good and evil is in the power of fortune, but to say that he is happy in the most racking torture, when he had actually declared pain to be not only the greatest evil, but the only one?
Nor did he take any trouble to provide himself with those remedies which might have enabled him to bear pain, such as firmness of mind, a shame of doing anything base, exercise, and the habit of patience, precepts of courage, and a manly hardiness; but he says that he supports himself on the single recollection of past pleasures, as if any one, when the weather was so hot as that he was scarcely able to bear it, should comfort himself by recollecting that he was once in my country, Arpinum, where he was surrounded on every side by cooling streams. For I do not apprehend how past pleasures can allay present evils.
But when he says that a wise man is always happy who would have no right to say so if he were consistent with himself, what may they not do who allow nothing to be desirable, nothing to be looked on as good but what is honorable? Let, then, the Peripatetics and Old Academics follow my example, and at length leave off muttering to themselves; and openly and with a clear voice let them be bold to say that a happy life may not be inconsistent with the agonies of Phalaris’s bull.
—from Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 5.26
There is a certain type of rigid philosopher who frowns upon any sort of rhetoric, perhaps because he remembers reading something long ago about Socrates criticizing the Sophists, and so he assumes that the truth has no place for eloquence. I think it no accident how this unbending fellow is also likely to oppose reason and faith, yet another one of those destructive false dichotomies.
Now I am neither an esteemed scholar nor a gifted writer, but hard experience has taught me that while style can never replace substance, substance can surely be reinforced by style. I should not be ashamed if my emotions are moved by fiery words, as long as they offer their support to a clarity of understanding—let pathos be in a proper service to logos.
This chapter has that sort of powerful effect on me, for while I have followed along with Cicero’s arguments throughout the text, I will sometimes feel as if my appetites are continuing to struggle against my intellect. As a great orator, he knew how to appeal to his audience on many levels, and he had the skill to choose the most persuasive tools at the moments when they were most needed. If the passions are dragging their feet, here is a way to put some pep back into their step!
The Auditor continues to be worried about the problem of pain. In a purely technical manner, Cicero could review the previous arguments once again, and yet he now chooses to challenge us with a dare: if even those confused Epicureans can manage to face their agonies with courage, shouldn’t we be able to manage so much more?
Even as I know he is using a fair amount of hyperbole here, and he is trying to make us feel ashamed for being weaker than those he insists are barely any better than animals, it is certainly an effective provocation. It reminds me of a time when a middle school coach told a hesitant runner that his little sister could do a better job, and the boy went on to win the race with ease. Yes, it was rude, and yes, it was played up, but it sure did the trick in the end.
While I don’t like being manipulated, I should not be so proud as to resist being motivated. As much as I would like to think kindly of the Epicurean model, is it not a terrible error to reduce our human dignity to a mere matter of pleasure and pain? And if such a “hedonist” is capable of bearing torture without complaint, why wouldn’t I throw myself into the Bull of Phalaris willingly? Though that is obviously going too far, at least there is now some enthusiasm, where before there was only anxiety.
I am fully aware how suffering is not just an abstraction, and I know all too well why pain cannot simply be wished away. Nevertheless, I am far more than an animal, because I am also gifted with reason and will, the power to rise above the circumstances of fortune by finding my happiness in the excellence of my character. If it takes a swift kick in the rear to remind me of that glorious fact, then so be it.
There is a certain type of rigid philosopher who frowns upon any sort of rhetoric, perhaps because he remembers reading something long ago about Socrates criticizing the Sophists, and so he assumes that the truth has no place for eloquence. I think it no accident how this unbending fellow is also likely to oppose reason and faith, yet another one of those destructive false dichotomies.
Now I am neither an esteemed scholar nor a gifted writer, but hard experience has taught me that while style can never replace substance, substance can surely be reinforced by style. I should not be ashamed if my emotions are moved by fiery words, as long as they offer their support to a clarity of understanding—let pathos be in a proper service to logos.
This chapter has that sort of powerful effect on me, for while I have followed along with Cicero’s arguments throughout the text, I will sometimes feel as if my appetites are continuing to struggle against my intellect. As a great orator, he knew how to appeal to his audience on many levels, and he had the skill to choose the most persuasive tools at the moments when they were most needed. If the passions are dragging their feet, here is a way to put some pep back into their step!
The Auditor continues to be worried about the problem of pain. In a purely technical manner, Cicero could review the previous arguments once again, and yet he now chooses to challenge us with a dare: if even those confused Epicureans can manage to face their agonies with courage, shouldn’t we be able to manage so much more?
Even as I know he is using a fair amount of hyperbole here, and he is trying to make us feel ashamed for being weaker than those he insists are barely any better than animals, it is certainly an effective provocation. It reminds me of a time when a middle school coach told a hesitant runner that his little sister could do a better job, and the boy went on to win the race with ease. Yes, it was rude, and yes, it was played up, but it sure did the trick in the end.
While I don’t like being manipulated, I should not be so proud as to resist being motivated. As much as I would like to think kindly of the Epicurean model, is it not a terrible error to reduce our human dignity to a mere matter of pleasure and pain? And if such a “hedonist” is capable of bearing torture without complaint, why wouldn’t I throw myself into the Bull of Phalaris willingly? Though that is obviously going too far, at least there is now some enthusiasm, where before there was only anxiety.
I am fully aware how suffering is not just an abstraction, and I know all too well why pain cannot simply be wished away. Nevertheless, I am far more than an animal, because I am also gifted with reason and will, the power to rise above the circumstances of fortune by finding my happiness in the excellence of my character. If it takes a swift kick in the rear to remind me of that glorious fact, then so be it.
—Reflection written in 3/1999
Friday, September 19, 2025
The Basel Dance of Death 12
Matthäus Merian, The Basel Dance of Death: The Abbot (1616)
"Lord Abbot, I snatch away your mitre,
So your staff no longer avails you.
If here you have been a good shepherd
For your sheep, honor is prepared for you."
"I raised myself up to be an abbot,
And lived long with the highest honors.
Though none ever dared to oppose me,
Yet Death has made me his equal."
Thursday, September 18, 2025
Ellis Walker, Epictetus in Poetical Paraphrase 57
As we speak sense, and cannot but be right,
When we affirm 'tis either day or night,
But rave, and talk rank nonsense, when we say,
At the same instant, 'tis both night and day;
So 'tis a contradiction at a feast,
To take the largest share, to cut the best,
And be a fair and sociable guest.
You may, 'tis true, your appetite appease,
But not your company, nor treater please,
Wherefore of this absurdity beware,
And take a modest and an equal share,
Nor think each sav'ry bit, that's there your due,
Nor let your entertainer blush for you.
You may as well say 'tis both day, and night,
As strive, at once, to indulge your appetite,
And please the rest, and him that doth invite.
When we affirm 'tis either day or night,
But rave, and talk rank nonsense, when we say,
At the same instant, 'tis both night and day;
So 'tis a contradiction at a feast,
To take the largest share, to cut the best,
And be a fair and sociable guest.
You may, 'tis true, your appetite appease,
But not your company, nor treater please,
Wherefore of this absurdity beware,
And take a modest and an equal share,
Nor think each sav'ry bit, that's there your due,
Nor let your entertainer blush for you.
You may as well say 'tis both day, and night,
As strive, at once, to indulge your appetite,
And please the rest, and him that doth invite.
William Hogarth, Marriage A-la-Mode 1
Yet I suspect that people in all times and places are prone to twisting a blessing into a curse, and the health of any social institution will rise or fall with the moral values that stand behind it. I don't know whether to be disturbed or relieved to find that marriage in Hogarth's time was just as prone to abuse as it is in our own day. In the simplest of terms, when we reduce love to a vehicle for greed and lust, very bad things are bound to happen, both on the inside and on the outside of our souls.
These works were not quite as well-received as A Harlot's Progress and A Rake's Progress; perhaps the topic made folks uncomfortable by hitting too close to home? It appears that Hogarth intended to produce a sequel, The Happy Marriage, but this was never completed. I can only imagine it presenting the struggles of loyalty in the face of temptations and hardships, a theme that might be far less titillating but far more inspiring.
Earl Squanderfield is a member of the ancient nobility, but he is short on cash, so he has arranged for his son to marry the daughter of a wealthy merchant, a classic case of "old money" seeking to survive off of "new money". As is true for all grasping folks, who treat one another as means instead of as ends, life is about transactions, and people are little more than disposable commodities. Neither the young nor the old will come off well here, all of them caught up in their selfish desires.
The gouty Earl has been building himself a new mansion, as seen outside the window. He is proud to point to his family tree, though he is not too proud to arrange for the necessary funds by selling his family name to the highest bidder. In return, the stingy businessman gains status and prestige, a step up into the inner circles of high society. A banker is already grabbing his share of the profits as he does the paperwork.
The son has absolutely no interest in the proceedings, taking a pinch of snuff as he gazes into the mirror at his own handsome visage. The mark on his neck may reveal the signs of syphilis. His bride-to-be is distraught, a handkerchief pulled through the ring. The viewer has little time to feel sympathy, as the root of her own downfall makes an appearance: the shifty lawyer, Silvertongue, is already practicing his charms.
In one of Hogarth's favorite devices, the two dogs tied to one another reflect the misery of the couple and the absurdities of our human condition.
William Hogarth, Marriage A-la-Mode I: The Marriage Settlement (painting, 1743)
William Hogarth, Marriage A-la-Mode I: The Marriage Settlement (engraving, 1745)
Wednesday, September 17, 2025
Cain and Abel
Peter Paul Rubens, Cain Slaying His Brother Abel (c. 1609)
William Blake, The Body of Abel Found by Adam and Eve (c. 1826)
Benedetto Luti, Cain Fleeing from the Sight of God after the Death of Abel (1692)
.jpg)
_-_Cain_Fleeing_from_the_Sight_of_God_after_the_Death_of_Abel_-_108850_-_National_Trust.jpg)
Tuesday, September 16, 2025
James Vila Blake, Sonnets from Marcus Aurelius 23
Ὁ ἀδικῶν ἀσεβεῖ: τῆς γὰρ τῶν ὅλων φύσεως κατεσκευακυίας τὰ λογικὰ ζῷα ἕνεκεν ἀλλήλων, ὥστε ὠφελεῖν μὲν ἄλληλα κατ̓ ἀξίαν βλάπτειν δὲ μηδαμῶς, ὁ τὸ βούλημα ταύτης παραβαίνων ἀσεβεῖ δηλονότι εἰς τὴν πρεσβυτάτην τῶν θεῶν.
The unjust man is an impious man, and sins against the gods. For as the Nature of the Universe has constituted reasoning creatures for the sake of one another, that they may be useful and do good to each other in a due manner, but by no means ever to harm any one, so whoever goes aside from this purpose and will of Nature, plainly is impious, and sins against the eldest of all deities.
—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 9.1
23.
Treasonable against the King of Kings,
Fluent from whom the ancient heavens proceed,
And marvelous multiplicity of things.
Compacted all in oneness forth they go,
And in their way a lovely order sings—
Peasants, kings, commoners, friend and foe,
And all assembled to the King of Kings!
Nature is music’s vast conventicle,
Wherein each life plays precious melodies
That congregate in parts majestical,
And justice is the solemn harmonies.
Justice is many in One; uncivil to be
Profaneth the most ancient Deity.
IMAGE: Titian, Cain and Abel (c. 1544)
