Posts by Cassius

VS79. The man who is serene causes no disturbance to himself or to another.

VS78. The truly noble man busies himself chiefly with wisdom and friendship, of which the one is an understandable good but the other is immortal.

See this linked discussion here for the reason "understandable" is superior to "immortal" as the best translation. Bailey has: "The noble soul occupies itself with wisdom and friendship; of these, the one is a mortal good, the other immortal."

VS77. The greatest fruit of self-sufficiency is freedom.

VS76. You are, in your old age, just such as I urge you to be, and you have seen the difference between studying philosophy for oneself and proclaiming it to Greece at large; I rejoice with you.

VS74. In a philosophical discussion he who is defeated gains more, since he learns more.

VS73. The occurrence of certain bodily pains assists us in guarding against others like them.

VS72. There is no advantage to obtaining protection from other men so long as we are alarmed by events above or below the earth, or, in general, by whatever happens in the boundless universe.

VS70. Let nothing be done in your life which will cause you fear if it becomes known to your neighbor.

VS69. The ungrateful greed of the soul makes the creature everlastingly desire varieties in its lifestyle.

VS68. Nothing is sufficient for him to whom what is sufficient seems too little.

VS65. It is vain to ask of the gods what a man is capable of supplying for himself.

VS62. Now if parents are justly angry with their children, it is certainly useless to fight against it, and not to ask for pardon; but if their anger is unjust and irrational, it is quite ridiculous to add fuel to their irrational passion by nursing one’s own indignation, and not to attempt to turn aside their wrath in other ways by gentleness.

VS61. Most beautiful too is the sight of those near and dear to us, when our original kinship makes us of one mind; for such sight is great incitement to this end.

VS60. Every man passes out of life as though he had just been born.

VS59. It is not the stomach that is insatiable, as is generally said, but the false opinion that the stomach needs an unlimited amount to fill it.

VS58. We must free ourselves from the prison of public education and politics.

VS57. On occasion a man will die for his friend, for if he betrays his friend, his whole life will be confounded by distrust and completely upset.

VS32. The veneration of the wise man is a great blessing to those who venerate him.

VS12. The just man is most free from disturbance, while the unjust is full of the utmost disturbance. See PD17.

VS56. The wise man feels no more pain, when being tortured himself than when his friend is tortured.