Beyond Writing Papers

I have been dragging my feet this week about getting my homework done. i always put philosophy off last, not because i don't like it, but because it takes the longest and always entails  mountains of research, reading and work.
 I just finished my paper for the week, and i have to say, it was so enjoyable to write!

This week we are reading about Seneca, and I have to say... the guy was pretty smart!

Here are a few quotes that really caught my fancy.

Avoid luxury, debilitating prosperity which makes men’s minds soggy and which, unless something intervenes to remind them of the human condition, renders them comatose as in unending inebriation.  If a man has always be protected from wind by glass windows, if his feet have been kept warm by constant relays of poultices, if the temperature of his dining room has been maintained by the hot air circulating under the floor and through the walls, he will be dangerously susceptible to a slight breeze.  All excesses are injurious, but immoderate prosperity is the most dangerous of all…

disaster is virtue’s opportunity.  

Cruelty presses hardest on the inexperienced; the tender neck chafes at the yoke.  

“Why do many misfortunes fall to the lot of good men?”  It is not possible that any evil can befall a good man.  Opposites cannot combine.  The stalwart man maintains his poise and assimilates all that falls to his lot to his own complexion, for he is more potent than the world without.  I do not maintain that he is insensible to externals, but that he overcomes them; unperturbed and serene, he rises to meet every sally.  All adversity he regards as exercise.  Is not every upstanding man who is intent upon what is right eager for appropriate exertion and ready for service which involves danger?  Does not any diligent man regard idleness as a punishment?  In the case of athletes, whose concern is for physical strength, we observe that they employ very strong adversaries in their practice bouts and insist that their trainers use all their strength against them.  They submit to blows and bruises, and if they cannot find individuals strong enough to match with them, they take on several at once.  Without an antagonist prowess fades away.  Its true proportions and capacities come to light only when action proves its endurance."

You must know that good men should behave similarly:  they must not shrink from hardship and difficulty or complain of fate; they should take whatever befalls in good part and turn it to advantage.  The thing that matters most is not what you bear but how you bear it.

I know, it is a lot to read, but I love these thoughts and theories. It makes so much sense.