“Paradox is the intellectual life’s authentic pathos, and just as only great souls are prone to passions, so only great thinkers are prone to what I call paradoxes, which are nothing but grand thoughts still wanting completion.” — Soren Kierkegaard, in his Journals
Posted in paradoxes, Paradoxes for Better Living, Soren Kierkegaard
Tagged literary, paradox, philosophy
“Come now, do I really give you the impression that I advocate a life of inactivity? I have only buried myself away behind closed doors in order to be able to be of use to more people.” — Seneca, in Letter VIII, translated by Robin Campbell (his translation differs somewhat from the linked translation)
Posted in literature, paradoxes, Paradoxes for Better Living
Tagged Epistle, Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium, literature, paradox, Seneca
Seneca, part of double-herm, Antikensammlung Berlin (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
“But I wish to share with you today’s profit also. I find in the writings of our Hecato that the limiting of desires helps also to cure fears: ‘Cease to hope,’ he says, ‘and you will cease to fear.’ ‘But how,’ you will reply, ‘can things so different go side by side?’ In this way, my dear Lucilius: though they do seem at variance, yet they are really united. Just as the same chain fastens the prisoner and the soldier who guards him, so hope and fear, dissimilar as they are, keep step together; fear follows hope. I am not surprised that they proceed in this way; each alike belongs to a mind that is in suspense, a mind that is fretted by looking forward to the future. But the chief cause of both these ills is that we do not adapt ourselves to the present, but send our thoughts a long way ahead. And so foresight, the noblest blessing of the human race, becomes perverted. Beasts avoid the dangers which they see, and when they have escaped them are free from care; but we men torment ourselves over that which is to come as well as over that which is past. Many of our blessings bring bane to us; for memory recalls the tortures of fear, while foresight anticipates them. The present alone can make no man wretched.” — Seneca, Epistle V
Paradoxes for Better Living, 2
Paradoxes for Better Living, 1
A letter on friendship leads to an observation about fear and victimization:
“…you should share with a friend at least all your worries and reflections. Regard him as loyal, and you will make him loyal. Some, for example, fearing to be deceived, have taught men to deceive; by their suspicions they have given their friend+ the right to do wrong.” — Seneca, Epistle III
Posted in books, culture, paradoxes, Paradoxes for Better Living, Stoicism, Stoics
Tagged quotations, Seneca, Stoicism, Stoics
“Be careful, however, lest this reading of many authors and books of every sort may tend to make you discursive and unsteady. You must linger among a limited number of masterthinkers, and digest their works, if you would derive ideas which shall win firm hold in your mind. Everywhere means nowhere.” (emphasis added) — Seneca, “On Discursiveness in Reading,” Moral Epistles
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July 5, 2013 in books, culture, paradoxes, Paradoxes for Better Living, Stoicism, Stoics
Tagged paradox, quotations, Seneca, Stoicism, Stoics
LiturgicalCredoBlog Poem of the Day Audio Poem of the Day Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy Indexed
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