March 31st Reading from The Daily Stoic - You're A Product Of Your Training

"Chasing what can't be done is madness. But the base person is unable to do anything else."

~ Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 5.17

March 30th Reading from The Daily Stoic - Reason In All Things

"Hurry to your own ruling reason, to the reason of the Whole, and to your neighbor's. To your own mind to make it just, to the mind of the Whole to remember your place in it, and to your neighbor's mind to learn whether it's ignorant or of sound knowledge - while recognizing it's like yours."

~ Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 9.22

March 29th Reading from The Daily Stoic - Why Do You Need To Impress People Again?

"If you should ever turn your will to things outside your control in order to impress someone, be sure that you have wrecked your whole purpose in life. Be content, then, to be a philosopher in all that you do, and if you wish also to be seen as one, show yourself first that you are and you will succeed."

~ Epictetus, Enchiridion, 23

March 28th Reading from The Daily Stoic - Cowardice as a Design Problem

"Life without design is erratic. As soon as one is in place, principles become necessary. I think you'll concede that nothing is more shameful than uncertain and wavering conduct, and beating a cowardly retreat. This will happen in all our affairs unless we remove the faults that seize and detain our spirits, preventing them from pushing forward and making an all-out effort,"

~ Seneca, Moral Letters, 95.46

March 27th Reading from The Daily Stoic - "Pay What Things Are Worth"

"Diogenes of Sinope said we sell things of great value for things of very little, and vice versa."

~ Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Eminent Philosophers, 6.2.35b

March 26th Reading from The Daily Stoic - What Rules Your Ruling Reason?

"How does your ruling reason manage itself? For in that is the key to everything. Whatever else remains, be it in the power of your choice or not, is but a corpse and smoke."

~ Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 12.33

March 25th Reading from The Daily Stoic - Wealth and Freedom Are Free

" . . . freedom isn't secured by filling up on your heart's desire but by removing your desire."

~ Epictetus, Discourses, 4.1.175

March 24th Reading from The Daily Stoic - There Is Philosophy in Everything

"Eat like a human being, drink like a human being, dress up, marry, have children, get politically active - suffer abuse, bear with a headstrong brother, father, son, neighbor, or companion. Show us these things so we can see that you have truly learned from the philosophers."

~ Epictetus, Discourses, 3.21.5-6

March 23rd Reading from The Daily Stoic - The Straightjacketed Soul

"The diseases of the rational soul are long-standing and hardened vices, such as greed and ambition - they have put the soul in a straightjacket and have begun to be permanent evils inside it. To put it briefly, this sickness is an unrelenting distortion of judgement, so things that are only mildly desirable are vigorously sought after,"

~ Seneca, Moral Letters, 75.11

March 22nd Reading from The Daily Stoic - The Sign of True Education

"What is it then to be properly educated? It is learning to apply our natural preconceptions to the right things according to Nature, and beyond that to separate the things that lie within our power from those that don't."

~ Epictetus, Discourses, 1.22.9-10a

March 21st Reading from The Daily Stoic - The Best Retreat Is In Here, Not Out There

"People seek retreats for themselves in the country, by the sea, or in the mountains. You are very much in the habit of yearning for those same things. But this is entirely the trait of a base person, when you can, at any moment, find such a retreat in yourself. For nowhere can you find a more peaceful and less busy retreat than in your own soul - especially if on close inspection it is filled with ease, which I say is nothing more than being well-ordered. Treat yourself often to this retreat, and be renewed."

~ Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 4.3.1

March 20th Reading from The Daily Stoic - Ready and At Home

"I may wish to be free from torture, but if the time comes for me to endure it, I'll wish to bear it courageously with bravery and honor. Wouldn't I prefer not to fall into war? But if war does befall me, I'll wish to carry nobly the wounds, starvation, and other necessities of war. Neither am I so crazy as to desire illness, but if I must suffer illness, I'll wish to do nothing rash or dishonorable. The point is not to wish for these adversities, but for the virtue that makes adversities bearable."

~ Seneca, Moral Letters, 67.4

March 19th Reading from The Daily Stoic - Timeless Wisdom

"For there are two rules to keep at the ready - that there is nothing good or bad outside my own reasoned choice, and that we shouldn't try to lead events but to follow them."

~ Epictetus, Discourses, 3.10.18

March 18th Reading from The Daily Stoic - Impossible Without Your Consent

"Today I escaped from the crush of circumstances, or better put, I threw them out, for the crush wasn't from outside me but in my own assumptions."

~ Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 9.13

March 17th Reading from The Daily Stoic - The Beauty of Choice

"You are not your body and hair-style, but your capacity for choosing well. If your choices are beautiful, so too will you be."

~ Epictetus, Discourses, 3.1.39b-40a

March 16th Reading from The Daily Stoic - That Sacred Part Of You

"Hold sacred your capacity for understanding. For in it is all, that our ruling principle won't allow anything to enter that is either inconsistent with nature or with the constitution of a logical creature. It's what demands due diligence, care for others, and obedience to God."

~ Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 3.9

March 15th Reading from The Daily Stoic - The Present Is All We Possess

"Were you to live three thousand years, or even a countless multiple of that, keep in mind that no one ever loses a life other than the one they are living, and no one ever lives a life other than the one they are losing. The longest and shortest life, then, amount to the same, for the present moment last the same for all and is all anyone can possess. No one can lose either the past or the future, for how can someone be deprived of what's not theirs?"

~ Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 2.14

March 14th Reading from The Daily Stoic - Self-Deception Is Our Enemy

"Zeno would also say that nothing is more hostile to a firm grasp on knowledge than self-deception."

~ Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Eminent Philosophers, 7.23

"Quanto Dignior"

     My daily reading from Brevissima today was #187, "Quanto Dignior," from the Florilegium Gottingense, 109. In the current age of ascendance of the crude, crass, and obnoxious to the highest positions in the land, it struck me as somewhat appropriate:

Quanto dignior es, aut per genus aut per honores,

In te tanto res vitiosae sunt graviores.

Roughly rendered in English:

However much more worthy you are, either by birth or by the positions you've held,

So much more gravely do your vices count against you.

Or, as it was put in Luke 12:48, "For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required: and to whom men have committed much, of him they will ask the more." Much is required of you when you seek the highest offices in the land. If the voters choose to award such offices to you, you much show yourself worthy . . . a test currently being failed dramatically by the 45th presidential administration and the current Congress. 

March 13th Reading from The Daily Stoic - One Day It Will All Make Sense

"Whenever you find yourself blaming providence, turn it around in your mind and you will see that what has happened is in accordance with reason."

~ Epictetus, Discourses, 3.17.1

March 12th Reading from The Daily Stoic - Seeing Things As the Person at Fault Does

"Whenever someone has done wrong by you, immediately consider what notion of good or evil they had in doing it. For when you see that, you'll feel compassion, instead of astonishment or rage. For you may yourself have the same notions of good and evil, or similar ones, in which case you'll make allowance for what they've done. But if you no longer hold the same notions, you'll be more readily gracious for their error."

~ Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 7.26

March 11th Reading from The Daily Stoic - Living Without Restriction

"The unrestricted person, who has in hand what they will in all events, is free. But anyone who can be restricted, coerced, or pushed into something against what they will is a slave."

~ Epictetus, Discourses, 4.1.128b-129a

"Virtutis Amor, Non Opum Studium"

     My daily reading from Brevissima today is one of those wonderful moralizing pieces that works well as Latin poetry and still seems like sound advice. It is from the French humanist Marcus Antonius Muretus (1526-1585), Juvenilia:

Semper opum studio praefer virtutis amorem;

Non opibus virtus, sed opes virtute parantur.

Roughly rendered into English:

Always put love of virtue before your eagerness for riches;

Virtue is not produced by riches, but riches are prepared by virtue. 

March 10th Reading from The Daily Stoic - Find Yourself a Cato

"We can remove most sins if we have a witness standing by as we are about to go wrong. The soul should have someone it can respect, by whose example it can make its inner sanctum more inviolable. Happy is the person who can improve others, not only when present, but even when in their thoughts!"

~ Seneca, Moral Letters, 11.9

"Gloria Nihil Est"

     My daily reading from Brevissima today was very nice. It was from Giuseppe Gatti, Sales Poetici, Proverbiales, et Iocosi (1703); Gatti wrote a few on similar themes, but this one is quite good:

Est etenim virtus aliquid, nil gloria; sicut

Est aliquid corpus, corporis umbra nihil.

Roughly rendered in English:

As a matter of fact, virtue is something, glory is nothing, just as

A body is something, the shadow of a body is nothing. 

     This seems to be a theme Gatti explored quite a bit - the idea that glory and praise are but the shadow of virtue, and as such, they are nothing in and of themselves.  

March 9th Readings from The Daily Stoic - Find the Right Scene

"Above all, keep a close watch on this - that you are never so tied to your former acquaintances and friends that you are pulled down to their level. If you don't you'll be ruined . . . you must choose whether to be loved by these friends and remain the same person, or to become a better person at the cost of those friends . . . if you try to have it both ways you will neither make progress nor keep what you once had."

~ Epictetus, Discourses, 4.2.1;4-5

"From good people you'll learn good, but if you mingle with the bad you'll destroy such soul as you had."

~ Musonius Rufus, quoting Theogonis of Megara in Lectures. 11.53.21-22

March 8th Reading from The Daily Stoic - Don't Unintentionally Hand Over Your Freedom

"If a person gave away your body to some passerby, you'd be furious. Yet you hand over your mind to anyone who comes along, so they may abuse you, leaving it disturbed and troubled - have you no shame in that?"

March 7th Reading from The Daily Stoic - Don't Trust The Senses

"Heraclitus called self-deception an awful disease and eyesight a lying sense."

~ Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Eminent Philosophers, 9.7

"Virtus" (John Owen)

     I rather liked my daily reading from Brevissima this morning - it's #180 in the collection, from John Owen (c. 1564-c.1628), Epigrammata 3.96. The text in Latin is:

Non est in verbis virtus, at rebus inhaeret;

Res sunt, non voces, spes amor atque fides.

Roughly rendered in English:

Virtue is not in words, but it is inherent in things [acts, deeds]

Hope, love, and faith are things [acts, deeds], not words.

The real problem with this one is that while the Latin is clear, the fact that no real English equivalent exists for the Latin noun res - it is most often rendered "thing," but can be anything from "matter," "topic of discussion," "affairs," to stuff like, "the universe," "government," and such. Here, much of the play of meaning hinges on the idea that to the Romans, the act of hoping, loving, or being faithful is every bit as much a concrete thing as a stone, to be contrasted with mere words. That contrast is not as plain in English, in my opinion.  

March 6th Reading from The Daily Stoic - Don't Tell Yourself Stories

"In public avoid talking excessively about your accomplishments and dangers, for however much you enjoy recounting your dangers, it's not so pleasant for others to hear about your affairs."

~ Epictetus, Enchiridion,u 33.14

March 5th Reading from The Daily Stoic - Cutting Back On the Costly

"So, concerning the things we pursue, and for which we vigorously exert ourselves, we owe this consideration - either there is nothing useful in them, or most aren't useful. Some of them are superfluous, while others aren't worth that much. But we don't discern this and see them as free, when they cost us dearly."

~ Seneca, Moral Letters, 42.6

March 4th Reading from The Daily Stoic - Awareness Is Freedom

"The person is free who lives as they wish, neither compelled, nor hindered, nor limited - whose choices aren't hampered, whose desires succeed, and who don't fall into what repels them. Who wished to live in deception - tripped up, mistaken, undisciplined, complaining, in a rut? No one. These are base people who don't live as they wish; and so, no base person is free."

~ Epictetus, Discourses, 4.1.1-3a

March 3rd Reading from The Daily Stoic - (Dis)Integration

"These things don't go together. You must be a unified human being, either good or bad. You must diligently work either on your own reasoning or on things out of your control - take great care with the inside and not what's outside, which is to say, stand with the philosopher, or else with the mob!"

~ Epictetus, Discourses, 3.15.13

March 2nd Reading from The Daily Stoic - Accurate Self-Assessment

"Above all, it is necessary for a person to have a true self-estimate, for we commonly think we can do more than we really can."

~ Seneca, On Tranquility of Mind, 5.2

March 1st Reading from The Daily Stoic - Where Philosophy Begins

"An important place to begin in philosophy is this: a clear perception of one's own ruling principle."

~ Epictetus, Discourses, 1.26.15