1. To a rational creature, only what is contrary to reason is unendurable: but everything rational he can endure.
2. Blows are not by nature unendurable.
- 'How so?'
- See how the Spartans bear a whipping, after they have learned that it is a reasonable thing.
3. 'But to be hanged - is that not unendurable?'
- Even so, when a man feels that it is reasonable, he goes off and hangs himself.
4. In short, we shall find by observation, that by nothing is the rational creature so distressed as by the irrational, and, conversely, to nothing is he so drawn as to the rational.
- The Discourses, Chapter 2
#stoicism #philosophy
2. Blows are not by nature unendurable.
- 'How so?'
- See how the Spartans bear a whipping, after they have learned that it is a reasonable thing.
3. 'But to be hanged - is that not unendurable?'
- Even so, when a man feels that it is reasonable, he goes off and hangs himself.
4. In short, we shall find by observation, that by nothing is the rational creature so distressed as by the irrational, and, conversely, to nothing is he so drawn as to the rational.
- The Discourses, Chapter 2
#stoicism #philosophy