The wise man
historical figure · 6 works · 6 mentions · 14 anchored passages
also in the atlas: The wise man the idea
the wise man · the sage · a good and wise man · a wise man · he · he alone · he who has attained wisdom · the philosopher · the student
in the texts
On His Return
An unnamed sage credited with a maxim about human fortune and error, quoted by the speaker.
To my mind, gentlemen, he was a wise man who first said that every human being is born to meet with good fortune and with bad;
it is the common fate of humanity to make mistakes and suffer misfortune.
Nicomachean Ethics
A generic figure representing one who pursues wisdom and contemplation, contrasted with the just, temperate, and brave man who require external goods and others' aid.
for while it is true that the wise man equally with the just man and the rest requires the necessaries of life, yet, these being adequately supplied, whereas the just man needs other persons towards whom or with whose aid he may act justly, and so likewise do the temperate man and the brave man and the others, the wise man on the contrary can also contemplate by himself, and the more so the wiser he is;
But the student, so far as the pursuit of his activity is concerned, needs no external apparatus:
On Moral Ends
The Stoic ideal sage, whose judgments, duties, and constant happiness are described throughout the passage
From which it appears both that it is sometimes the wise man's duty to depart from life, though he be happy, and the fool's to remain in life, though he be wretched.
Wherefore, since vices do not have that force that they should furnish a cause for voluntary death, it is plain that it is the duty even of fools, who are likewise wretched, to remain in life, if they are in the greater part of those things which we call according to nature.
But since we see that man is born for the protection and preservation of men, it is consistent with this nature that the wise man should wish to take part in and administer the commonwealth, and, that he may live according to nature, should take a wife and wish to have children by her.
On Anger
The Stoic ideal of the philosophically perfected person, used throughout as the standard against which anger's utility and propriety are tested.
The wise man will accomplish everything he ought without the ministry of any evil thing, and will mix in nothing whose measure he must too anxiously watch.
The wise man, therefore, calm and fair toward errors, no enemy but a corrector of sinners, goes forth each day in this spirit:
And what is more unworthy than that the wise man's passion should hang upon another's wickedness?
On the Happy Life
The Stoic ideal figure who possesses and uses riches without being possessed by them, practices virtue amid both wealth and poverty, and answers critics of philosophy.
"What difference, then, is there between me, the fool, and you, the wise man, if we both wish to have riches?
And what doubt is there that for the wise man there is here a greater matter for the unfolding of his soul in riches than in poverty, since in poverty there is but one kind of virtue—not to be bowed down or crushed—whereas in riches temperance and liberality and diligence and orderly management and magnificence have an open field?
For the wise man does not think himself unworthy of any gifts of chance.
On the Shortness of Life
An idealized philosophical figure who, unlike ordinary men, commands past, present, and future and so achieves a long life.
The life of the wise man, therefore, has a wide range, and he is not hemmed in by the same boundary as other men.