The Stoic and Epicurean Philosophers

_The Stoic and Epicurean Philosophers_ 

NY:  Random House, 1940

Introduction by Whitney Oakes

(xix)  The gods, on the other hand, exist, but they have nothing to do with human affairs for if they did they would be troubled, and a god by his very nature cannot have his blessedness marred by trouble.

(xxi)  The Stoic argued that since the universe was good, there was actually no evil in it.  Morally virtue was proclaimed to be the highest good, and virtue was defined as living χατά φύσiν, according to nature.  Living “according to nature” then means that man must accept everything that takes place as good or “indifferent”;  if he interprets anything as evil he is obviously wrong, and in making such an erroneous judgment, he is not by any means “living according to nature” in the full sense.

Epicurus

(40)  XI.  For most men rest is stagnation and activity madness.

(41)  XXXIV.  It is not so much our friends’ help that helps us as the confidence of their help.

(48)  I am thrilled with pleasure in the body, when I live on bread and water, and I spit upon luxurious pleasures not for their own sake, but because of the inconveniences that follow.

(49)  The man who follows nature and not vain opinions is independent in all things.  For in reference to what is enough for nature every possession is riches, but in reference to unlimited desires even the greatest wealth is (not riches but poverty).

(50)  If God listened to the prayers of men, all men would quickly have perished:  for they are for ever praying for evil against one another.

… That which creates joy insuperable is the complete removal of a great evil.  And this is the nature of good, if one can once grasp it rightly, and then hold by it, and not walk about babbling idly about the good.

…. Thanks be to blessed Nature because she has made what is necessary easy to supply, and what is not easy unnecessary.

(51)  The laws exist for the sake of the wise, not that they may not do wrong, but that they may not suffer it.

Epictetus

(226)  Here you see the result of training as training should be, of the will to get and will to avoid, so disciplined that nothing can hinder or frustrate them.  I must die, must I?  If at once, then I am dying:  if soon, I die now, as it is time for dinner, and afterwards when the time comes I will die.  And die how?  As befits one who gives back what is not his own.

(265)  If you do not find one [pallet] you will sleep on the ground, only do so with a good cheer, snoring the while, and remembering that it is among rich men and kings and emperors that tragedies find room, and that no poor man fills a part in a tragedy except as one of the chorus.  

(362)  What occasion for anger, what occasion for fear concerning things that are not our own, nor of any value?  For the two principles we must have ready at command are there:  that outside the will there is nothing good or evil, and that we must not lead events but follow them.

(395)  You bear God about with you, poor wretch, and know it not.  Do you think I speak of some external god of silver or gold?  No, you bear Him about within you and are unaware that you are  defiling Him with unclean thoughts and foul actions.

(396)   What is yours then?

[Diogenes]  “Power to deal with impressions.  He showed me that I possess this beyond all hindrance and compulsion;  no one can hamper me, no one can compel me to deal with them otherwise than I will.  Who then has authority over me any more?  Has Philip, or Alexander, or Perdiccas, or the Great King?…”

(397)  In like manner you must remind yourself that you love a mortal, and that nothing that you love is your very own;  it is given you for the moment, not for ever nor inseparably, but like a fig or a bunch of grapes at the appointed season of the year, and if you long for it in winter you are a fool.

(404)  Trusting in what?  Not in reputation, not in money, nor office, but in his own might, that is in judgements on things within our power and beyond it.  For it is these alone that make free men, whom nothing can hinder which lift up the neck of those who are in humiliation, and make them look with unwavering eyes upon rich men and upon despots.

(405)  And what is the end of the illness?  Nothing worse than death.  Will you realize once for all that it is not death that is the source of all man’s evils, and of a mean and cowardly spirit, but rather the fear of death?  Against this fear then I would have you discipline yourself;  to this let all your reasonings, your, lectures, and your trainings be directed;  and then you will know that only so do men achieve their freedom.

(407)  How can we call him free when he has not learnt to give up desire and fear?

(413)  You must treat your whole body like a poor ass, with its burden on its back, going with you just so far as it may, and so far as it is given you;  but if the king’s service calls, and a soldier lays hands on it, let it go, do not resist or murmur;  if you do, you will only get a flogging and lose your poor ass all the same.

(420)  Diogenes was free.  How came he by this?  Not because he was of free parents (he was not), but because he was fee himself, had cast away all the weakness that might give slavery a hold on him, and so no one could approach or lay hold on him to enslave him.  Everything he had he was ready to let go, it was loosely attached to him.

(425)  Remember that it is not only desire of office and of wealth that makes men abject and subservent to others, but also desire of peace and leisure and travel and learning.  Regard for any external thing, whatever it be, makes you subservient to another.

(440)  ‘But you will be flung abroad and unburied.'

I shall be, if I and the dead body are one, but if I am not the same as the dead body, state the facts with more discrimination, and do not try to frighten me.  These are things to frighten children and fools.  But if a man has once entered a philosopher’s lecture-room and does not know what his true self is, he deserves to fear and to flatter what he flattered afterwards:  I mean, if he has not yet learnt that he is not flesh or bones or sinews, but the faculty which uses them, and which also governs the impressions and understands them.

(455)  But if I bear in mind, that one man does not harm another, but that it is his own acts which help or harm a man, I achieve this conquest - that I abstain from doing the same as he did, but still my own babbling has put me in the position I am in.

(462)  There are certain persons who indulge their anger gently, and who do all that the most passionate do, but in a quiet passionless way.  Now we must guard against their error as a much worse fault than passionate anger.  For the passionate are soon sated with their revenge, but the colder spirits persist for a long period like men who take a fever lightly.

6533(464)  Those whose bodies are in good condition can endure heat and cold;  so those whose souls are in good condition can bear anger and pain and exultation and other emotions.

(466)  You are a little soul, carrying a corpse, as Epictetus used to say.  - M Aurelius

…The rarest pleasures give most delight.

(467)  No one is free that is not his own master.

(468)  Of all existing things some are in our power, and others are not in out power.  In our power are thought, impulse, will to get and will to avoid, and, in a word, everything which is our own doing.  Things not in our power include the body, property, reputation, office, and, in a word, everything which is not our doing.  Things in our power are by nature free, unhidered, untrammelled;  things not in our power are weak, servile, subject to hindrance, dependent on others.

(469)  To accuse others for one’s own misfortunes is a sign of want of education;  to accuse oneself shows that one’s education has begun;  to accuse neither oneself nor others shows that one’s education is complete.

(470)  Never say anything, ‘I lost it,’ but say, ‘I gave it back.’  Has your child died?  It was given back.  Has your wife died?  She was given back.  Has your estate been taken from you?  Was not this also given back?  But you say, ‘He who took it from me is wicked.’  What does it matter to you through whom the Giver asked it back?  As long as He gives it you, take care of it, but not as your own;  treat it as passers-by treat an inn.

The Manual of Epictetus

(473)  Keep before your eyes from day to day death and exile and all things that seem terrible, but death most of all, and then you will never set your thoughts on what is low and will never desire anything beyond measure.

(480 - 481)  Everything has two handles, one by which you can carry it, the other by which you cannot.  If your brother wrongs you, do not take it by that handle, the handle of his wrong, for you cannot carry it by that, but rather by the other handle - that he is a brother, brought up with you, and then you will take it by the handle that you can carry by.

(481)  It is illogical to reason thus, ‘I am richer than you, therefore I am superior to you,’ ‘I am more eloquent than you, therefore I am superior to you.’  It is more logical to reason, ‘I am richer than you, therefore my property is superior to yours,’I am more eloquent than you, therefore my speech is superior to yours.’  You are something more than property or speech.

Meditations by Marcus Aurelius

(500-501)  Of human life the time is a point and the substance is in a flux, and the perception dull, and the composition of the whole body subject to putrefaction, and the soul a whirl, and fortune hard to divine, and fame a thing devoid of judgment.

(509)  The universe is transformation:  life is opinion.

(511)  Everything which is in any way beautiful is beautiful in itself, and terminates in itself, not have praise as part of itself.  Neither worse then nor better is a thing made by being praised.

(513)  Everything is only for a day, both that which remembers and that which is remembered.

(514)  Constantly regard the universe as one living being, having one substance and one soul;  and observe how all things have reference to one perception, the perception of this one living being;  and how all things act with one movement;  and how all things are the co-operating causes of all things which exist;  observe too the continuous spinning of the thread and the contexture of the web.

(523)  The intelligence of the universe is social.  Accordingly it has made the inferior things for the sake of the superior, and it has fitted the superior to one another.  Thou seest how it has subordinated, co-ordinated and assigned to everything its proper portion, and has brought together into concord with one another the things which are the best.

(524)  But to have good repute amidst such a world as this is an empty thing.

(526)  The best way of avenging thyself is not to become like the wrong doer.

(530)  Short is life.  There is only one fruit of this terrene life, a pious disposition and social acts.

(535)  What is badness?  It is that which thou hast often seen.  And on the occasion of everything which happens keep this in mind, that it is that which thou hast often seen. Everywhere up and down thou wilt find the same things, with which the old histories are filled, those of the middle ages and those of our own day;  with which cities and houses are filled now.  There is nothing new;  all things are both familiar and short-lived.

(536)  All things are implicated with one another, and the bond is holy;  and there is hardly anything unconnected with any other thing.

(537)  Near is thy forgetfulness of all things;  and near the forgetfulness of thee by all.

(543)  The gods who are immortal are not vexed because during so long a time they must tolerate continually men such as they are and so many of them bad;  and besides this, they also take care of them in all ways.  But thou, who art destined to end so soon, art thou wearied of enduring the bad, and this too when thou art one of them?

NB:  men are not gods

(549)  In the next place remember that neither the future nor the past pains thee, but only the present.  But this is reduced to a very little, if thou only circumscribest it, and chidest thy mind, if it is unable to hold out against even this.

… Was it not in the order of destiny that these persons too should first become old women and old men and the die?  What then would those do after these were dead?  All this is foul smell and blood in a bag.

(554)  This, then, is consistent with the character of a reflecting man, to be neither careless nor impatient nor contemputous with respect to death, but to wait for it as one of the operations of nature.

(556)  All things are the same, familiar in experience, and ephemeral in time, and worthless in the matter.  Everything now is just as it was in the time of those whom we have buried.

(557)  As thou thyself art a component part of a social system, so let every act of thine be a component part of social life.  Whatever act of thine then has no reference either immediately or remotely to a social end, this tears asunder thy life, and does not allow it to be one, and it is of the nature of a mutiny, just as when in a popular assembly a man acting by himself stands apart from the general agreement.

(571)  Have I done something for the general interest?  Well then I have had my reward.  Let this always be present to thy mind, and never stop doing such good.

(574)  How unsound and insincere is he who says, I have determined to deal with thee in a fair way.  - What art thou doing, man?  There is no occasion to give this notice.  It will soon show itself by acts.  The voice ought to be plainly written on the forehead.  Such as a man’s  character is, he immediately shows it in his eyes, just as he who is beloved forthwith trades everything in the eyes of lovers.  The man who is honest and good ought to be exactly like a man who smells strong, so that the bystander as soon as he comes near him must smell whether he choose or not.  But the affectation of simplicity is like a crooked stick.  Nothing is more disgraceful than a wolfish friendship (false friendship).  Avoid this most of all.  The good and simple and benevolent show all these things in the eyes, and there is no mistaking.  

(582)  Consider that everything is opinion, and opinion is in thy power.  Take away then, when thou choosest, thy opinion, and like a mariner, who has doubled the promontory, thou wilt find calm, everything stable, and a waveless bay.

(583)  Constantly bring to thy recollection those who have complained greatly about anything, those who have been most conspicious by the greatest fame or misfortunes or enmities or fortunes of any kind:  then think where are they all now?  Smoke and ash and a tale, or not even a tale.

…. for the pride which is proud of its want of pride is the most intolerable of all.

(584)  There is one soul, though it is distributed among infinite natures and individual circumscriptions (or individuals).  There is one intelligent soul, though it seems to be divided.