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Musonius Rufus: Lectures and Sayings
Musonius Rufus
Top 10 Best Quotes
“We will train both soul and body when we accustom ourselves to cold, heat, thirst, hunger, scarcity of food, hardness of bed, abstaining from pleasures, and enduring pains.”
“Won’t we, therefore, be willing to endure pain in order to gain complete happiness?”
“Since I say that this is the case, the person who is practicing to become a philosopher must seek to overcome himself so that he won’t welcome pleasure and avoid pain, so that he won’t love living and fear death, and so that, in the case of money, he won’t honor receiving over giving.”
“Only by exhibiting actions in harmony with the sound words which he has received will anyone be helped by philosophy.”
“Therefore practicing each virtue always must follow learning the lessons appropriate to it, or it is pointless for us to learn about it. The person who claims to be studying philosophy must practice it even more diligently than the person who aspires to the art of medicine or some similar skill, inasmuch as philosophy is more important and harder to grasp than any other pursuit.”
“And this, according to Musonius, should be one of the primary objectives of philosophy: to reveal to us our shortcomings so we can overcome them and thereby live a good life.”
“Also nourishing is food from domestic animals which we don’t slaughter. The most suitable of these foods, though, are the ones we can eat without cooking: fruits in season, certain vegetables, milk, cheese, and honeycombs. These foods also are easiest to obtain. Even those foods that require cooking, including grains and some vegetables, are not unsuitable; all are proper food for a human being.”
“what a great spectacle it is when a husband or wife with many children are seen with these children crowded around them! No procession conducted for the gods is as beautiful to look at, and no ritual performed solemnly for a sacred occasion is as worthy of being watched, as is a chorus of many children guiding their parents through the city, leading”
“virtue, he said, is not just theoretical knowledge, it is also practical, like both medical and musical knowledge. The doctor and the musician must each not only learn the principles of his own skill but be trained to act according to those principles. Likewise, the man who wants to be good must not only learn the lessons which pertain to virtue but train himself to follow them eagerly and rigorously.”
“You will deserve respect from everyone if you will start by respecting yourself.”
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