Living in Agreement with Nature

This is why Zeno was the first (in his treatise On the Nature of Man) to designate as the end life in agreement with nature (or living agreeably to nature), which is the same as a virtuous life, virtu

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He that is unjust, is also impious. For the nature of the universe, having made all reasonable creatures one for another, to the end that they should do one another good; more or less according to the

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What is the law of life. WHEN a person was reading hypothetical arguments, Epictetus said, This also is an hypothetical law that we must accept what follows from the hypothesis. But much before this l

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Miscellaneous. WHEN some person asked him how it happened that since reason has been more cultivated by the men of the present age, the progress made in former times was greater. In what respect, he a

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Against the quarrelsome and ferocious. THE wise and good man neither himself fights with any person, nor does he allow another, so far as he can prevent it. And an example of this as well as of all ot

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How then is it said that some external things are according to nature and others contrary to nature? It is said as it might be said if we were separated from union (or society): for to the foot I shal

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To live happily is an inward power of the soul, when she is affected with indifferency, towards those things that are by their nature indifferent. To be thus affected she must consider all worldly obj

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Whatsoever thou doest hereafter aspire unto, thou mayest even now enjoy and possess, if thou doest not envy thyself thine own happiness. And that will be, if thou shalt forget all that is past, and fo

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No operation whatsoever it he, ceasing for a while, can be truly said to suffer any evil, because it is at an end. Neither can he that is the author of that operation; for this very respect, because h

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Let thy course ever be the most compendious way. The most compendious, is that which is according to nature: that is, in all both words and deeds, ever to follow that which is most sound and perfect.

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Be not discontented, be not disheartened, be not out of hope, if often it succeed not so well with thee punctually and precisely to do all things according to the right dogmata, but being once cast of

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Every particular nature hath content, when in its own proper course it speeds. A reasonable nature doth then speed, when first in matter of fancies and imaginations, it gives no consent to that which

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Trials of cases on appeal before special arbitrators and the carrying of cases before foreign courts were first devised by the Greeks by reason of their mutual distrust, since they had need of the jus

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Yet that very thing which is now praised may be objected, not once or twice or thrice, but even ten thousand times, against Chrysippus: ’Tis a most easy thing t’ accuse the Gods. For first having in h

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DIADUMENUS. With what then, says he, shall I begin? And what shall I take for the principle of duty and matter of virtue, leaving Nature and that which is according to Nature? With what, O good sir, d

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DIADUMENUS. I think also that this is said by them against common sense, that Nature herself is indifferent, and yet that it is good to agree with Nature. For it is not our duty either to follow the l

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Of Providence. FROM everything which is or happens in the world, it is easy to praise Providence, if a man possesses these two qualities, the faculty of seeing what belongs and happens to all persons

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Of indifference. THE hypothetical proposition is indifferent: the judgment about it is not indifferent, but it is either knowledge or opinion or error. Thus life is indifferent: the use is not indiffe

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Against those who on account of sickness go away home. I AM sick here, said one of the pupils, and I wish to return home.—At home, I suppose, you were free from sickness. Do you not consider whether y

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What things we ought to despise, and what things we ought to value. THE difficulties of all men are about external things, their helplessness is about externals. What shall I do, how will it be, how w

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