Stoic Sage

Constantly run down the list of those who felt intense anger at something: the most famous, the most unfortunate, the most hated, the most whatever. And ask: Where is all that now? Smoke, dust, legend … or not even a legend. Think of all the examples: Fabius Catullinus in the country, Lusius Lupus in the orchard, Stertinius at Baiae, Tiberius on Capri, Velius Rufus … obsession and arrogance. And how trivial the things we want so passionately are. And how much more philosophical it would be to take what we’re given and show uprightness, self-control, obedience to God, without making a production of it. There’s nothing more insufferable than people who boast about their own humility.

Meditations 12.27

First, tragedies. To remind us of what can happen, and that it happens inevitably—and if something gives you pleasure on that stage, it shouldn’t cause you anger on this one. You realize that these are things we all have to go through, and that even those who cry aloud “o Mount Cithaeron!” have to endure them. And some excellent lines as well. These, for example: If I and my two children cannot move the godsThe gods must have their reasons Or: And why should we feel anger at the world? And: To harvest life like standing stalks of grain and a good many others. Then, after tragedy, Old Comedy: instructive in its frankness, its plain speaking designed to puncture pretensions. (Diogenes used the same tactic for similar ends.) Then consider the Middle (and later the New) Comedy and what it aimed at—gradually degenerating into mere realism and empty technique. There are undeniably good passages, even in those writers, but what was the point of it all—the script and staging alike?

Meditations 11.6

Wouldn’t you rather leave petty arguments about these subjects to do-nothings who sit in a corner and receive their little stipend, or get nothing and whine about it? Step forward and make use of what you’ve learned. [56] It isn’t more logic chopping that is needed – our Stoic texts are full of that. What we need now are people to apply their learning and bear witness to their learning in their actions. [57] Please, be the one to take on this character, I am tired in my teaching of invoking examples from the past, I want to be able to hold up an example from my own time.

Discourses 1.29.55

Consequently, there is bound to be frustration when you exert yourself. You desire what is not in your control: fine, but be prepared to be refused, to be frustrated, to come up empty-handed. [16] If, on the other hand, we read books entitled On Impulse not just out of idle curiosity, but in order to exercise impulse correctly; books entitled On Desire and On Aversion so as not to fail to get what we desire or fall victim to what we would rather avoid; and books entitled On Moral Obligation in order to honour our relationships and never do anything that clashes or conflicts with this principle; [17] then we wouldn’t get frustrated and grow impatient with our reading. Instead we would be satisfied to act accordingly. And rather than reckon, as we are used to doing, [18] ‘How many lines I read, or wrote, today,’ we would pass in review how ‘I applied impulse today the way the philosophers recommend, how I desisted from desire, and practised aversion only on matters that are under my control. I wasn’t flustered by A or angered by B; I was patient, restrained and cooperative.’ That way we will be able to thank God for things that we truly should be grateful for.

Discourses 4.4.15

There are some quietly temperamental people who coldly and calmly act the same way as people wholly carried away by anger. Their vice should be avoided too as it is much worse than being boiling mad; people of the latter sort soon get their satisfaction, whereas the former hold on to their anger like patients with a low- grade fever.

Fragments 12.12