A Stoic Breviary: Classical Wisdom in Daily Practice

Building upon many years of privately shared thoughts on the real benefits of Stoic Philosophy, Liam Milburn eventually published a selection of Stoic passages that had helped him to live well. They were accompanied by some of his own personal reflections. This blog hopes to continue his mission of encouraging the wisdom of Stoicism in the exercise of everyday life. All the reflections are taken from his notes, from late 1992 to early 2017.

Showing posts with label Jacques Callot. Show all posts

Friday, March 6, 2026

Jacques Callot, Seven Deadly Sins

Jacques Callot, The Seven Deadly Sins (c. 1620)

Friday, January 16, 2026

Chuang Tzu 6.9

Tsze-sze, Tsze-yü, Tsze-lì, and Tsze-lâi, these four men, were talking together, when someone said, "Who can suppose the head to be made from nothing, the spine from life, and the rump-bone from death? Who knows how death and birth, living on and disappearing, compose the one body? I would be friends with him."

The four men looked at one another and laughed, but no one seized with his mind the drift of the questions. All, however, were friends together.

Not long after Tsze-yü fell ill, and Tsze-sze went to inquire for him. "How great," said the sufferer, "is the Creator! That He should have made me the deformed object that I am!"

He was a crooked hunchback; his five viscera were squeezed into the upper part of his body; his chin bent over his navel; his shoulder was higher than his crown; on his crown was an ulcer pointing to the sky; his breath came and went in gasps—yet he was easy in his mind, and made no trouble of his condition.

He limped to a well, looked at himself in it, and said, "Alas that the Creator should have made me the deformed object that I am!"

Tsze said, "Do you dislike your condition?"

He replied, "No, why should I dislike it? If He were to transform my left arm into a cock, I should be watching with it the time of the night; if He were to transform my right arm into a crossbow, I should then be looking for a hsiâo to bring down and roast; if He were to transform my rump-bone into a wheel, and my spirit into a horse, I should then be mounting it, and would not change it for another steed.

"Moreover, when we have got what we are to do, there is the time of life in which to do it; when we lose that at death, submission is what is required. When we rest in what the time requires, and manifest that submission, neither joy nor sorrow can find entrance to the mind.

"This would be what the ancients called loosing the cord by which the life is suspended. But one hung up cannot loose himself—he is held fast by his bonds. And that creatures cannot overcome Heaven, the inevitable, is a long-acknowledged fact—why should I hate my condition?"

IMAGE: Jacques Callot, The Flageolet Player (c. 1622)

Wednesday, September 13, 2023

Chuang Tzu 4.8

There was the deformed hunchback Shû. His chin seemed to hide his navel; his shoulders were higher than the crown of his head; the knot of his hair pointed to the sky; his five viscera were all compressed into the upper part of his body, and his two thigh bones were like ribs.

By sharpening needles and washing clothes he was able to make a living. By sifting rice and cleaning it, he was able to support ten individuals.

When the government was calling out soldiers, this poor Shû would bare his arms among the others; when it had any great service to be undertaken, because of his constant ailments, none of the work was assigned to him; when it was giving out grain to the sick, he received three kung, and ten bundles of firewood.

If this poor man, so deformed in body, was still able to support himself, and complete his term of life, how much more may they do so, whose deformity is that of their faculties!

IMAGE: Jacques Callot, The Hunchback With a Cane (c. 1622)