Philosophy

This is the first thing philosophy promises:

Philosophy demands frugality, not punishment;

"You must be a slave to philosophy, that true freedom may fall to your lot.

In learning, and in every branch of letters, Greece surpassed us;

In this our countrymen have prevailed greatly by valour, and still more by discipline.

Philosophy has lain neglected until this very day and has had no light shed on it by Latin letters;

"which for a season greases your throat," it says — but philosophy does not flatter.

even if philosophy were useless, if establishing its uselessness is useful, then it is useful.

Before the coming of the Lord, then, philosophy was necessary to the Greeks for righteousness;

and come back to philosophy not as to a schoolmaster, but as the sore-eyed come back to the little sponge and the egg, as another to a plaster, as to a fomentation.

So now the court is your stepmother, and philosophy your mother.

You are tainted, then, so that to win the reputation of a philosopher is no longer easy for you;

Do not, then, you too seek to taste the words from philosophy, as the eyes the honey;

but to philosophy belongs no proper work nor business nor equipment?

do you mean anything else than that the philosopher differs from the rest by truth, and by examining each thing with reference to truth and not according to opinion?

Now you have heard the whole truth about my power, my philosophy, my profession, or whatever you care to call it.

and, finally, that while clever pleaders are sadly unequal to the higher eloquence, the exponents of the latter could, if they so desired, easily master also the oratory of the courts.

I maintain also that if you compare me with those who profess to turn men to a life of temperance and justice, you will find that my teaching is more true and more profitable than theirs.

I left Athens for the report of your philosophy, passing over the schools there.

What are you doing, my admirable friend, in driving our dear poverty, the nurse of philosophy, away from this retreat?

How noble a thing philosophy is — in other respects, and in this too, that she does not even allow her foster-children to be cured at great expense;

for the value of their service is not measurable in money, and no honor paid them could be an equivalent, but no doubt all that can be expected is that to them, as to the gods and to our parents, we should make such return as is in our Power.

or else we must cling to it only so far—as Plato says—as we win from it a service for philosophy, speaking somewhat like Paul, who exhorts that we should take no forethought for the body unto the occasion of lusts.

but we must provide the best things for the soul, freeing it through philosophy, as from a prison, from its fellowship with the passions of the body, while at the same time making the body too superior to the passions—serving the belly with what is necessary, not with what is most pleasant.

As a philosopher, Cicero’s most important function was to make his countrymen familiar with the main schools of Greek thought.

and the future statesman received an elaborate education in rhetoric, law, and philosophy, studying and practising under some of the most noted teachers of the time.

from which things we have won philosophy, than which no good more to be desired, none more excellent, has ever been given, or ever shall be, to the race of mortals by the grant and gift of the gods .

Philosophy, as the elders say, is a long-lasting counsel, wooing the eternal love of wisdom;

It certainly is not permissible to make the assertion that it is not through acquired knowledge that we surpass one another in sound judgement;

My own judgement is not different from Solon’s and I recommend to you to study philosophy, bearing in mind the advantages you have possessed from the beginning.

Now of the powers residing in human beings we shall find that intelligence leads all the rest and that philosophy alone is capable of educating this rightly and training it.

For myself, I should have preferred above great riches that philosophy had as much power as these men claim;

Formal training makes such men more skilfull and more resourceful in discovering the possibilities of a subject;

However, if it is my duty not only to rebuke others, but also to set forth my own views, I think all intelligent people will agree with me that while many of those who have pursued philosophy have remained in private life, others, on the other hand, who have never taken lessons from any one of the sophists have become able orators and statesmen.

and then for the soul they introduced philosophy’s training, a pursuit which has the power, not only to establish laws, but also to investigate the nature of the universe.

on the contrary, many contemporaries and predecessors have remarked it, of whom Pythagoras of Samos is one On a visit to Egypt he became a student of the religion of the people, and was first to bring to the Greeks all philosophy, and more conspicuously than others he seriously interested himself in sacrifices and in ceremonial purity, since he believed that even if he should gain thereby no great …

for if you persevere in the study of philosophy and make as great progress as heretofore, you will soon become the man it is fitting you should be.

Those who devote themselves to philosophy venture to speak on many subjects of every kind, but no one of them has ever attempted to compose a discourse on such a theme.

For it has not escaped the notice of either me or anyone else that you, Nicocles, are the first and the only one of those who possess royal power, wealth, and luxury who has undertaken to pursue the study of philosophy, nor that you will cause many kings, emulating your culture, to desire these studies and to abandon the pursuits in which they now take too great pleasure.

Therefore, those who dare to speak with disrespect of educators and teachers of philosophy deserve our opprobrium no less than those who profane the sanctuaries of the gods.

There are people who frown upon eloquence and censure men who study philosophy, asserting that those who engage in such occupations do so, not for the sake of virtue, but for their own advantage.

As regards systems of philosophy, they say that while you do not indeed reject eristic, but hold that it is valuable in private discussions, you regard it nevertheless as unsuitable for either those who are leaders of the people or for monarchs;

Which now is called philosophy, and who

Who first and chief found out that plan of life

nay, a thing of no consequence.

Charming is it, my dear innocent?

Whereupon—Well, all the same, I said, philosophy is a charming thing.

So philosophizing seems to you to be honorable?

Then do you know, I went on, what philosophizing is?

why, these fellows are prating about the heavenly bodies, and babbling philosophy.

It follows, then, that those who are as yet neither good nor bad are lovers of wisdom, while all who are bad, and all the good, are not:

And so we find no horse-lovers where the horses do not love in return, no quail-lovers, dog-lovers, wine-lovers, or sport-lovers on such terms, nor any lovers of wisdom if she returns not their love.

Other people are likely not to be aware that those who pursue philosophy aright study nothing but dying and being dead.

In fact, then, Simmias, said he, the true philosophers practice dying, and death is less terrible to them than to any other men.

nor on the other hand did I feel pleasure because we were occupied with philosophy, as was our custom—and our talk was of philosophy;

for my friend, something of philosophy is inborn in his mind.

but the name philosopher, that is, lover of wisdom, or something of the sort would be more fitting and modest for such a man.