32 Quotes by Donald J. Robertson

The Sage desires only one thing, virtue, and he is cautious about only one thing, vice. He is the same in every circumstance because what is most important lies within him, and not with external events, which are constantly changing.

The Stoic Sage, or wise man, needs nothing but uses everything well; the fool believes himself to “need” countless things, but he uses them all badly.

The true goal of life for Stoics isn’t to acquire as many external advantages as possible but to use whatever befalls us wisely, whether it be sickness or health, wealth or poverty, friends or enemies. The Stoic Sage, or wise man, needs nothing but uses everything well; the fool believes himself to “need” countless things, but he uses them all badly.

This is important to note: for a Stoic to exhibit the virtue of temperance, he must have at least some trace of desire to renounce, and to exhibit courage he must have at least these first sensations of fear to endure.

Most men are eager to point out their neighbors’ flaws, he said, whether we ask them to or not. So instead of resenting it, we should welcome criticism from others as one of life’s inevitabilities and turn it to our advantage by making all men into our teachers. Galen therefore says that if we desire to learn wisdom, we must be ready to listen to anyone we encounter and show gratitude “not to those who flatter us but to those who rebuke us.”14.

We’re told that Plato’s saying was always on Marcus’s lips: those states prospered where the philosophers were kings or the kings philosophers.

Socrates used to say that death is like some prankster in a scary mask, dressed as a bogeyman to frighten small children. The wise man carefully removes the mask and, looking behind it, he finds nothing worth fearing.

To learn how to die, according to the Stoics, is to unlearn how to be a slave.

When we reason well about life and live rationally, we exhibit the virtue of wisdom. Living in agreement with Nature, in part, means fulfilling our natural potential for wisdom; that’s what it means for us to flourish as human beings.