Giovanni's Diary > Subjects > Reading >
Stoicism
Early stoicism's ethics is based on the idea that a wise man has the duty to live in accordance with the harmony of nature, through reason, by being virtuous. A virtuous man is someone that does not follow pleasure or recreational activities, "To be violently drawn and moved by the lusts and desires of the soul, is proper to wild beasts an monsters" - Marcus Aurelius. A virtuous man is someone that listens to everybody, that doesn't talk too much but not too little, thankful to others, rigid when he needs to be…
Some of the greatest stoic philosophers include Zeno (the first to introduce stoicism), Seneca and the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius (there are many more which I did not mention for sake of brevity).
I like stoicism for dealing with my anxieties and worries, but I do not consider myself a good stoic, not even a decent one. To exercise virtue I need to consistently do the good because, as Aristotele would say, someone is said to be virtuous if his normal state of being is being virtuous.
Here are a few notes from my readings.