Posted by A. J. on March 14, 1999 at 07:21:44:
My personal favorite is from Book V, chapter 16: "Where
a person can live, there he can also live well." I
believe this summarizes much of Stoic philosophy: that
happiness depends on our own internal state rather than
the external conditions of our life, and that the path
to happiness is courage, discipline, humility and
continence.
I disagree strongly with the view expressed here by
some that Stoicism is only for a select few and that
those who accept it are somehow superior to the masses.
After all the beauty of Classical Stoicism is that its
two greatest representatives were an emperor and a
liberated slave. Stoicism teaches us the virtue is the
path to happiness and that virtue is within the reach
of anyone regardless of personal conditions. I believe
that education has a great power to transform minds and
that if the modern generations seem so far from the
ideal of the Stoics it is to a large extent because
culture has taught us very little in the way of
reverence for vituous conduct. And let us not forget
that the temptations to act badly were at least as
great in Imperial Rome as they are today of have ever
been in a prosperous society.
Furthermore, Marcus Aurelius repeats often that pride
in our own virtue is bound to poison our minds and
destroy whatever good we may have achieved for
ourselves. Virtue is the path to personal happiness
and perfection, not an avenue to the accumulation of
merit. And when someone seems to fail at behaving
virtuously one must see such a person with sympathy,
merely as one who is confused as to how to achieve
happiness. And let's not forget how many times we
ourselves have failed to act or think virtuously, even
though we are philosophically convinced of the
importance of doing so.
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