classics digests, reflections and reviews
The Stoic Ideal Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations, as well as works by Cicero which extol stoic virtues, put me in a state of awe and shame. I’m awed by the loftiness of their ideal character: purposefulness of life, clarity of vision, purity in dedication, fortitude, temperance, magnanimity, freedom and equanimity; I’m ashamed as if looking in a mirror and recognizing my own character contemptible in contrast. The Stoic Tenets As I […]
Read more[Original Latin Title: De Finibus Bonorum Et Malorum; Volume XVII of Loeb Classical Library’s 28-volume series] An Epicurean’s Criticism of Education “[Epicurus] refused to consider any education worth the name that did not help to school us in happiness. Was he to spend his time in perusing poets, who give us nothing solid and useful, but merely childish amusement? Was he to occupy himself like Plato with music and geometry, […]
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