Occasional reflections on the wisdom of Ancient Greek and Roman philosophers. More at https://massimopigliucci.com. Please consider supporting Stoic Meditations. (cover art by Marek Škrabák; original music by Ian Jolin-Rasmussen, www.jolinras.info). Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/support
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Why are you asking for more?
Does this not appear great enough, when I tell you that the highest good is an unyielding strength of mind, wisdom, magnanimity, sound judgment, freedom, harmony, beauty? Do you still ask me for something greater?
--- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/supportVirtue is its own reward
If exercising virtue is pleasurable, aren't the Stoics a kind of Epicureans in disguise? Not at all, because the pleasure of virtue is a byproduct, not the main goal.
--- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/supportHarmonize your mind
A mind in harmony with itself is a virtuous one, because it is the vices that are at war with each other.
--- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/supportPleasure is the companion, not the essence, of life
The ancients bade us lead the highest, not the most pleasant life, in order that pleasure might not be the guide but the companion of a right-thinking and honorable mind.
--- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/supportThe difference between pleasure and virtue
If pleasure and virtue were entirely inseparable, we should not see some things to be pleasant, but not honorable, and others most honorable indeed, but hard and only to be attained by suffering.
--- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/supportReason is the only thing that will make you truly happy
That person is happy, whose reason recommends to them the whole posture of their affairs.
--- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/supportThere is no happiness without truth
For no one can be styled happy who is beyond the influence of truth.
--- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/supportDo away with hope and fear
A person may be called “happy” who, thanks to reason, has ceased either to hope or to fear: but rocks also feel neither fear nor sadness, yet no one would call those things happy which cannot comprehend what happiness is.
--- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/supportFortune vs virtue
The highest good is a mind which despises the accidents of fortune, and takes pleasure in virtue.
--- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/supportPursue the pleasures of life, in moderation
A happy life must also set due value upon all the things which adorn our lives, without over-estimating any one of them, and must be able to enjoy the bounty of Fortune without becoming her slave.
--- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/support