July 31st Reading from The Daily Stoic - Your Career Is Not A Life Sentence

"How disgraceful is the lawyer whose dying breath passes while at court, at an advanced age, pleading for unknown litigants and still seeking the approval of ignorant spectators."

~ Seneca, On the Brevity of Life, 20.2

July 30th Reading from The Daily Stoic - Stoic Joy

"Trust me, real joy is a serious thing. Do you think someone can, in the charming expression, blithely dismiss death with an easy disposition? Or swing open the door to poverty, keep pleasures in check, or meditate on the endurance of suffering? The one who is comfortable with turning these thoughts over is truly full of joy, but hardly cheerful. It's exactly such a joy that I would wish for you to possess, for it will never run dry once you've laid claim to its source."

~ Seneca, Moral Letters, 23.4

July 29th Reading from The Daily Stoic - A Cure For The Self

"The person who has practiced philosophy as a cure for the self becomes great of soul, filled with confidence, invincible - and greater as you draw near."

~ Seneca, Moral Letters, 111.2

July 28th Reading from The Daily Stoic - Check Your Privilege

"Some people are sharp and others dull; some are raised in a better environment, others in worse, the latter, having inferior habits and nurture, will require more by the way of proof and careful instruction to master these teachings and to be formed by them - in the same way that bodies in a bad state must be given a great deal of care when perfect health is sought."

~ Musonius Rufus, Lectures, 1.1.33-1.3.1-3

July 27th Reading from The Daily Stoic - Where Is Anything Better?

"Indeed, if you find anything in human life better than justice, truth, self-control, courage - in short, anything better than the sufficiency of your own mind, which keeps you acting according to the demands of true reason and accepting what fate gives you outside of your own power of choice - I tell you, if you can see anything better than this, turn to it heart and soul and take full advantage of this greater good you've found."

~ Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 3.6.1

July 26th Reading from The Daily Stoic - When Good Men Do Nothing

"Often injustice lies in what you aren't doing, not only in what you are doing."

~ Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 9.5

July 25th Reading from The Daily Stoic - "What's On Your Tombstone?"

"When you see someone often flashing their rank or position, or someone whose name is often bandied about in public, don't be envious; such things are bought at the expense of life . . . Some died on the first rungs of the ladder of success, others before they can reach the top, and the few that make it to the top of their ambition through a thousand indignities realize at the end it's only for an inscription on their gravestone."

~ Seneca, On the Brevity of Life, 20

July 24th Reading from The Daily Stoic - Somewhere Someone's Dying

"Whenever disturbing news is delivered to you, bear in mind that no news can ever be relevant to your reasoned choice. Can anyone break news to you that your assumptions or desires are wrong? No way! But they can tell you someone died - even so, what is that to you?"

~ Epictetus, Discourses, 3.18.1-2

Suffers a little in the translation, I think, and sounds wrong - "can anyone break news to you that your assumptions or desires are wrong?" Most people would say, "Heck, yeah! All the time!" But Epictetus means that if you have accepted the truth of Stoic teachings, the answer would be "no."

July 23rd Reading from The Daily Stoic - Receive Honors and Slights Exactly the Same Way

"Receive without pride, let go without attachment."

~ Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 8.33

July 22nd Reading from The Daily Stoic - "No One Has A Gun To Your Head"

"Nothing is noble if it's done unwillingly or under compulsion. Every noble deed is voluntary."

~ Seneca, Moral Letters, 66.16b

July 21st Reading from The Daily Stoic - Made For Working Together

"Whenever you have trouble getting up in the morning, remind yourself that you've been made by nature for the purpose of working with others, whereas even unthinking animals share sleeping. And it's our own natural purpose that is more fitting and more satisfying."

~ Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 8.12

July 20th Reading from The Daily Stoic - "Made For Justice"

"The unjust person acts against the gods. For insofar as the nature of the universe made rational creatures for the sake of each other, with an eye toward mutual benefit based on true value and never for harm, anyone breaking nature's will obviously acts against the oldest of gods."

~ Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 9.1.1

"Fama Perennis"

     My reading today from Brevissima was #268, "Fama Perennis," from Giuseppe Gatti's Sales Poetici, Proverbiales, et Iocosi (1703). It rather puts me in mind of a bit from the Hávamál, though I rather doubt that Giuseppe Gatti read the Old Norse "Sayings of the High One." The Latin text is as follows:

Transit honos, transit fortuna, pecunia transit

Omnis, sed tantum fama perennis erit.

     Roughly translated into English:

"Honor passes, good luck passes, all wealth passes

Away, but reputation alone will endure through the years."

      It is probably worth noting that honos, "honor," doesn't have the same nebulous, abstract quality in Latin that it does in English. In English, "honor" is almost equivalent to "reputation," or even "virtue." In Latin, it tends to mean the tangible rewards one can earn, or political offices held. So there is less contradiction than there might at first appear in the contrast between "honor passes away" and "reputation endures."
   
     The passage from the Hávamál that seems quite similar to this is as follows in Old Norse:

Deyr fé, deyja frændr,
deyr sjálfur it sama.
Ek veit einn, at aldri deyr;
dómr um dauðan hvern.

"Cattle (wealth) die(s), kinsmen die,

You yourself will die the same.

I know one thing only that never dies:

The reputation earned by each of the dead.

          As I have noted previously on this blog, Gatti's Latin couplets often dwell on the ephemeral nature of gold and glory, and the lasting nature of virtue or the Good. This poem is somewhat unusual in promoting fama, "reputation," as a good thing, whereas the Stoic traditions from which Gatti usually draws tend to view reputation as a thing indifferent, at best. 

Readings from The Daily Stoic for 7/15/17-7/19/17

"When you've done well and another had benefited by it, why like a fool do you look for a third thing on top - credit for the good deed or a favor in return?
~ Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 7.73

"To what service is my soul committed? Constantly ask yourself this an thoroughly examine yourself by seeing how you relate to that part called the ruling principle. Whose soul do I have now? Do I have that of a child, a youth . . . a tyrant, a pet, or a wild animal?"
~ Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 5.11

"As you move forward along the path of reason, people will stand in your way. They will never be able to keep you from doing what's sound, so don't let them knock out your goodwill for them. Keep a steady watch on both fronts, not only for well-based judgments and actions, but also for gentleness with those who would obstruct our path or create other difficulties. For getting angry is also a weakness, just as much as abandoning the task or surrendering under panic. For doing either is an equal desertion - the one by shrinking back and the other by estrangement from family and friend."
~ Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 11.9

"My reasoned choice is as indifferent to the reasoned choice of my neighbor, as to his breath or body. However much we've been made for cooperation, the ruling reason in each of us is master of its own affairs. If this weren't the case, the evil in someone else could become my harm, and God didn't mean for someone else to control my misfortune."
~ Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 8.56

"As Plato said, every soul is deprived of truth against its will. The same holds true for justice, self-control, goodwill to others, and every similar virtue. It's essential to constantly keep this in mind, for it will make you more gentle to all."
~ Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 7.63

A Many Headed Beast: "Populo Servire Difficile"

     My reading from Brevissima today was #266, "Populo Servire Difficile" ("It is Difficult to Serve the People"), from Jean Girard (1518-1586), Stichostratia, 1.68. The Latin text reads:

Qui populo servit, placet ille haud omnibus aeque,

Multorum capitum bestia quod populus.

Roughly translated into English:

"Who serves the people does please everyone at all equally,

For the populace is a beast of many heads."

July 10th Reading from The Daily Stoic - Love the Humble Art

"Love the humble art you have learned, and take rest in it. Pass through the remainder of your days as one who whole-heartedly entrusts all possessions to the gods, making yourself neither a tyrant nor a slave to any person."

~ Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 4.31

July 9th Reading from The Daily Stoic - The Philosopher King

"For I believe a good king is from the outset and by necessity a philosopher, and the philosopher is from the outset a kingly person."

~ Musonius Rufus, Lectures, 8.33.32-34

July 18th Reading from The Daily Stoic - Stop Monkeying Around

"Enough of this miserable, whining life. Stop monkeying around! Why are you troubled? What's new here? What's so confounding? The one responsible? Take a good look. Or just the matter itself? Then look at that. There's nothing else to look at. As far as the gods go, by now you could try being more straightforward and kind. It's the same, whether you've examined these things for a hundred years, or only three."

~ Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 9.37

July 7th Reading from The Daily Stoic - Our Duty to Learn

"This is what you should teach me, how to be like Odysseus - how to love my country, wife, and father, and how, even after suffering shipwreck, I might keep sailing on course to those honorable ends."

~ Seneca, Moral Letters, 88.7b

July 6th Reading from The Daily Stoic - Rise and Shine

"On those mornings you struggle with getting up, keep this thought in mind - I am awakening to the work of a human being. Why then am I annoyed that I am going to do what I'm made for, the very things for which I was put into this world? Or was I made for this, to snuggle under the covers and keep warm? It's so pleasurable. Were you then made for pleasure? In short, to be coddled or to exert yourself?"

~ Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 5.1

July 5th Reading from The Daily Stoic - No One Said It'd Be Easy

"Good people will do what they find honorable to do, even if it requires hard work; they'll do it even if it causes them injury; they'll do it even if it will bring them danger. Again, they won't do what they find base, even if it brings wealth, pleasure, or power. Nothing will deter them from what is honorable, and nothing will lure them into what is base."

~ Seneca, Moral Letters, 76.18

July 4th Reading from The Daily Stoic - Protect The Flame

"Protect your own good in all that you do, and as concerns everything else take what is given as far as you can make reasoned use of it. If you don't, you'll be unlucky, prone to failure, hindered and stymied."

~ Epictetus, Discourses, 4.3.11

July 3rd Reading from The Daily Stoic - Turn "Have To" Into "Get To"

"The task of the philosopher: we should bring our will into harmony with whatever happens, so that nothing ever happens against our will and nothing that we wish for fails to happen."

~ Epictetus, Discourses, 2.14.7

July 2nd Reading from The Daily Stoic - On Duty And Circumstance

"Never shirk the proper dispatch of your duty, no matter if you are freezing or hot, groggy or well-rested, vilified or praised, not even if dying or pressed by other demands. Even dying is one of the important assignments of life and, in this as in all else, make the most of your resources to do well the duty at hand."

~ Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 6.2

July 1st Reading from The Daily Stoic - Do Your Job

"Whatever anyone does or says, for my part I'm bound to the good. In the same way an emerald or gold or purple might always proclaim, 'whatever anyone says or does, I must be what I am and show my true colors.'"

~ Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 7.15