Sublime

Cicero reflects exactly that when he sums up Servius Tullius’ political objectives in approving tones: ‘He divided the people in this way to ensure that voting power was under the control not of the rabble but of the wealthy, and he saw to it that the greatest number did not have the greatest power – a principle that we should always stand by in po

Cicero was the first documented person to talk about the Alter Ego, in his philosophical works, although the term he used was “a second self, a trusted friend.”

il sent naître en lui et l’envahir une forme de dégoût pour tout ce qui est public. Il se résigne : que d’autres défendent les droits du peuple, qui se préoccupe davantage des jeux et des combats de gladiateurs que de sa liberté ; il ne s’agit plus pour Cicéron, désormais, que de rechercher sa propre liberté intérieure, de la trouver et de lui donn

“Speak as common people do,” Aristotle advised, “but think as wise men do.”

“Soon you will die, and still you aren’t sincere, undisturbed, or free from suspicion that external things can harm you, nor are you gracious to all, knowing that wisdom and acting justly are one and the same.” —MARCUS AURELIUS, MEDITATIONS

Tiberius Gracchus

Like Epictetus, Marcus was far more interested in Stoic ethics—in, that is, its philosophy of life—than in Stoic physics or logic. Indeed, in the Meditations he asserts that it is possible to achieve “freedom, self-respect, unselfishness, and obedience to the will of God” even though we have not mastered logic and physics.34

A line from Seneca, which has since become a proverb, expresses Marcus’s insight well: Mundus ipse est ingens deorum omnium templum (The world itself is a huge temple of all the gods).