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.
it is the common fate of humanity to make mistakes and suffer misfortune.
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;
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.
But the student, so far as the pursuit of his activity is concerned, needs no external apparatus:
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;
On Moral Ends
The Stoic ideal sage, whose judgments, duties, and constant happiness are described throughout the passage
So there is a certain duty common to the wise and the foolish;
and it is alien to the wise man not only to do injustice to anyone, but even to harm him.
For those things which profit or which harm are either goods or evils, which must necessarily be equal;
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 never cease to be angry, if once he begins.
for the sake of a slight pleasure and plunder they crave that all should be lost.
He will break down, if he exacts anger from himself as often as the occasion demands.
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.
I deny that riches are a good;
no one has condemned wisdom to poverty.
not for this will I be pleased with myself.
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.