Stoic Meditations

Cicero presents an argument according to which grief is the result of lack of courage. As a modern Stoic, I beg to differ. Overcoming grief requires courage, but the feeling itself is natural and inevitable.

They who are run away with by their lust or anger have quitted the command over themselves.

Cicero explains the Stoic "paradox" that everyone but the sage is mad. In the sense of not being reasonable. The good news is that we can work on being less mad, every day.

There are more disorders of the mind than of the body, and they are of a more dangerous nature. And what disorders can be worse to the body than these two distempers of the mind, weakness and desire?

Popular fame is hasty and inconsiderate, and generally commends wicked and immoral actions, and throws discredit upon the appearance and beauty of honesty by assuming a resemblance of it.

The Stoics put forth the notion that we are naturally virtuous (i.e., prosocial), and that it is society that leads us astray. Modern science confirms their intuition only in part. The fact remains, though, that the choice is ours.

What reason shall I assign, O Brutus, why, as we consist of mind and body, the art of curing the body should be so much sought after, but the medicine of the mind should not have been so much the object of inquiry?

If you are satisfied with yourself when you have approved of what is right, you will not only have the mastery over yourself (which I recommended to you just now), but over everybody, and everything.

Posidonius was once afflicted by severe pain, and yet invited Pompey to discuss philosophy. He said: “Pain, it is to no purpose; notwithstanding you are troublesome, I will never acknowledge you an evil.”

Cicero tells the story of how Dionysius quit Stoicism because he was experiencing chronic pain, and how Cleanthes, the second head of the Stoa, chastised him for not understanding the Stoic take on the issue.