darkle

The Saws of the Sages

Words and ideas.... from the lips of the wise and wizened to invade your thoughts and destroy all you thought you knew.
Pay close attention... I have never said that I agree with all of these ideas but thought they were worth sharing with the world. For instance, there are several quotes that show the horribly misogynistic views of Plato and Aristotle who are conisdered to be very important figures in the history of philosphy.

[Politics: V]

Again, the male is by nature superior, and the female inferior; and the one rules, and other is ruled; this principle of necessity, extends to all mankind.

[Nichomachean Ethics: Book I]

Verbally there is very general agreement; for both the general run of men and people of superior refinement say that it is happiness, and identify living well and doing well with being happy; but with regard to what happiness is they differ, and the many do not give the same account as the wise.

[Nichomachean Ethics: Book II]

But this must be agreed upon beforehand, that the whole account of matters of conduct must be given in outline and not precisely, as we said at the very beginning that the accounts we demand must be in accordance with the subject-matter; matters concerned with conduct and questions of what is good for us have no fixity, any more than matters of health.

For moral excellence is concerned with pleaures and pains; it is on account of the pleasure that we do bad things, and on account of the pain that we abstain from noble ones.

Now in everything the pleasnt or pleasure is most to be guarded against; for we do not judge it impartially. We ought, then, to feel towards pleasure as the elders of the people felt towards Helen, and in all circumsatances repeat their saying; for if we dismiss pleasure thus we are less likely to go astray. It is by doing this, then, (to sum the matter up) that we shall best be able to hit the mean.

[Nichomachean Ethics: Book X]

It is only reasonable then that, as men and children differ in their estimate of what is honourable, so should good and bad people. As has been frequently said, therefore, it is the things which are honourable and pleasant to the virtuous man that are really honourable and pleasant.

It would be paradoxical to hold that the end of human life is amusement, and that we should toil and suffer all our life for the sake of amusing ourselves. For we may be said to desire all things as means to something else except indeed hapiness.

It seems too that Anaxagoras did not conceive of the happy man as possessing wealth or power when he said that he should not be surprised if the happy man proved a puzzle in the eyes of the world; for the world judges by externals alone, it has no perception of anything that is not external.

[Enchiridion]

Require not things to happen as you wish, but wish them to happen as they do happen and you will go on well.

Whoever, then, would be free, let him wish nothing, let him decline nothing, which depends on others else he must necesarily be a slave.

Remember that you must behave [in life] as at an entertainment. Is anything brought round to you? put your hand and take your share with moderation. Does it pass by you? Do not stop it. Is it not yet come? Do not stretch forth your desire towards it, but wait till it reaches you.

Remember that you are an actor in a drama, of such a kind as the author pleases to make it. If short, of a short one; if long, of a long one. If it be his pleasure you should act a poor man, a cripple, a governor, or a private person, see that you act it naturally. For this is your business, to act well the character asigned you; to choose it is another's.

Never call yourself a philosopher, nor talk a great deal among the unlearned about theorems, but act conformably to them. Thus, at an entertainment, do not talk how persons ought to eat, but eat as you ought.

[Discourses]

Seek, and you will find; for you are furnished by nature with means for discovering the truth.

[Of Freedom]

He is free who lives as he likes; who is not subject either to complusion, to restraint, or to violence; whose pursuits are undhindered, his desires successful, his aversions unincurred.

And if you should hear him say, Wretch that I am, what do I suffer! call him a slave. In short, if you see him wailing, complaining, unprosperous, call him a slave in purple.

And, after you have recieved all, and even your very self, from another, are you angry with the giver, and complain if he takes anything away from you? Who are you and for what purpose did you come? Was it not he who brought you here? Was it not he who showed you the light? Has not he given you assistants? Has not he given you senses? Has not he given you reason? And as whom did he bring you here? Was in not as a mortal? Was it not as one to live, with a little portion of flesh, upon earth, and to see his administration; to behold the spectacle, and the solemnity, then, as long as it is permitted you, will you not depart when he leads you out, adoring and thankful for what you have heard and seen?

Correct your principles. See that nothing cleave to you which is not your own; nothing grow to you that may give you pain when it is torn away. And say when you are daily exercising yourself as you do here, not that you act the philosopher (admit this to be an insolent title), but that you are asserting your freedom. For this is true freedom...