Ward Farnsworth > Quotes

“The first principle of practical Stoicism is this: we don’t react to events; we react to our judgments about them, and the judgments are up to us.”
― Ward Farnsworth, The Practicing Stoic

“Not being able to govern events, I govern myself, and if they will not adapt to me, I adapt to them. Montaigne, Of Presumption (1580)”
― Ward Farnsworth, The Practicing Stoic: A Philosophical User's Manual

“But the law's dream - anyone's dream - would be to turn the clock back and stop the bad thing from happening in the first place.”
― Ward Farnsworth, The Legal Analyst: A Toolkit for Thinking about the Law

“I myself don’t know the facts of these matters, but I’ve never met anyone, including the people here today, who could disagree with what I’m saying and still avoid making himself ridiculous.”
― Ward Farnsworth, The Socratic Method: A Practitioner's Handbook

“Men are disturbed not by the things that happen but by their opinions about those things.”
― Ward Farnsworth, The Practicing Stoic: A Philosophical User's Manual

“socrates. Renouncing the honors at which the world aims, I desire only to know the truth, and to live as well as I can, and, when I die, to die as well as I can. And, to the utmost of my power, I exhort all other men to do the same. Gorgias 526de”
― Ward Farnsworth, The Socratic Method: A Practitioner's Handbook

“If we treat Socrates as an internalized feature of the mind, then this is its first and constant order of business: uprooting false conceits of knowledge.”
― Ward Farnsworth, The Socratic Method: A Practitioner's Handbook

“Look down from above on the countless gatherings and countless ceremonies, and every sort of voyage in storm and calm, and the disputes between those being born, living together, and dying. Think also of the life that was lived by others long ago, and that will be lived after you, and that is being lived now in other countries; think of how many don’t know your name at all, how many will quickly forget it, how many who – perhaps praising you now – will soon be finding fault. Realize that being remembered has no value, nor does your reputation, nor anything else at all. Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 9.30”
― Ward Farnsworth, The Practicing Stoic: A Philosophical User's Manual

“If any external thing causes you distress, it is not the thing itself that troubles you, but your own judgment about it. And this you have the power to eliminate now. Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 8.47”
― Ward Farnsworth, The Practicing Stoic: A Philosophical User's Manual

“A stupid man’s report of what a clever man says is never accurate, because he unconsciously translates what he hears into something that he can understand.”
― Ward Farnsworth, The Socratic Method: A Practitioner's Handbook

“seeing how small our affairs look in the larger scheme of things, the Stoic means to induce a felt sense of humility and attraction to virtue. The method can be called intuitive because it isn’t a matter of argument. It’s more a question of showing and pointing, and expecting perceptions and adjustments to follow directly from a new point of view.”
― Ward Farnsworth, The Practicing Stoic: A Philosophical User's Manual

“Most of the outcry is about money. It is this that wearies the courts, pits father against son, brews poisons, and gives swords to the legions and to cut-throats alike. . . . Because of it, nights resound with the quarrels of husbands and wives, crowds swarm to the tribunals of the magistrates, kings rage and plunder and overthrow states that have been built by the long labor of centuries, in order that they may search for gold and silver in the very ashes of cities.”
― Ward Farnsworth, The Practicing Stoic: A Philosophical User's Manual

“Both death and life, honor and dishonor, pain and pleasure, wealth and poverty – all these things happen equally to good men and bad, being neither noble nor shameful. Therefore they are neither good nor evil. Marcus Aurelius, Meditations”
― Ward Farnsworth, The Practicing Stoic: A Philosophical User's Manual

“When you see someone groveling before another man, or flattering him contrary to his own opinion, you can confidently say he is not free.”
― Ward Farnsworth, The Practicing Stoic: A Philosophical User's Manual

“You ask what the finest life span would be? To live until you reach wisdom.”
― Ward Farnsworth, The Practicing Stoic: A Philosophical User's Manual

“What I will teach you is the ability to become rich as speedily as possible. How excited you are to hear the news! And rightly so; I will lead you by a shortcut to the greatest wealth. . . . My dear Lucilius, not wanting something is just as good as having it. The important thing either way is the same – freedom from worry.”
― Ward Farnsworth, The Practicing Stoic: A Philosophical User's Manual

“They are all matters of opinion, and taken up voluntarily because it seems right to do so. This error, as the root of all evils, philosophy promises to eradicate utterly. Let us therefore devote ourselves to its cultivation and submit to being cured; for so long as these evils possess us, not only can we not be happy, we cannot even be right in our minds.”
― Ward Farnsworth, The Practicing Stoic: A Philosophical User's Manual

“We always feel as though we react to things in the world; in fact we react to things in ourselves. And sometimes changing ourselves will be more effective and sensible than trying to change the world.”
― Ward Farnsworth, The Practicing Stoic: A Philosophical User's Manual

“Renouncing the honors at which the world aims, I desire only to know the truth, and to live as well as I can, and, when I die, to die as well as I can. And, to the utmost of my power, I exhort all other men to do the same.”
― Ward Farnsworth, The Socratic Method: A Practitioner's Handbook

“We torment ourselves with fear of things that are more easily endured than worried about.”
― Ward Farnsworth, The Practicing Stoic: A Philosophical User's Manual

“We can choose to have no opinion about a thing, and not to be troubled by it; for things themselves have no power of their own to affect our judgments.”
― Ward Farnsworth, The Practicing Stoic: A Philosophical User's Manual

“The ancient Romans built elaborate networks of pipes to deliver water where they wanted it to go. The networks were a marvel. But many of the pipes were made of lead, and the water carried the lead along with it. One school of thought regards this as part of the reason for the decline and fall of Rome: lead poisoning gradually took its toll, impairing the thought and judgment of many Romans, especially at the top. The theory is much disputed; perhaps it contains no truth. But as a metaphor it is irresistible. We have built networks for the delivery of information—the internet, and especially social media. These networks, too, are a marvel. But they also carry a kind of poison with them. The mind fed from those sources learns to subsist happily on quick reactions, easy certainties, one-liners, and rage. It craves confirmation and resents contradiction. Attention spans collapse; imbecility propagates, then seems normal, then is celebrated. The capacity for rational discourse between people who disagree gradually rots. I have a good deal more confidence in the lead-pipe theory of the internet, and its effect on our culture, than in the lead-pipe theory of the fall of Rome.”
― Ward Farnsworth, The Socratic Method: A Practitioner's Handbook

“socrates. There’s one proposition that I’d defend to the death, if I could, by argument and by action: that as long as we think we should search for what we don’t know, we’ll be better people—less faint-hearted and less lazy—than if we were to think that we had no chance of discovering what we don’t know and that there’s no point in even searching for it. Meno 86bc”
― Ward Farnsworth, The Socratic Method: A Practitioner's Handbook

“What is it, then, that doesn’t offend your eyes in public but upsets them at home – other than your opinion, which in the one place is easygoing and tolerant, but at home is critical and always complaining?”
― Ward Farnsworth, The Practicing Stoic: A Philosophical User's Manual

“Take nothing on its looks; take everything on evidence. Dickens, Great Expectations (1861)”
― Ward Farnsworth, Farnsworth's Classical English Style

“The majority of mankind would need to be much better cultivated than has ever yet been the case, before they can be asked to place such reliance in their own power of estimating arguments, as to give up practical principles in which they have been born and bred and which are the basis of much of the existing order of the world, at the first argumentative attack which they are not capable of logically resisting.3”
― Ward Farnsworth, The Socratic Method: A Practitioner's Handbook

“Why does Socrates use so many analogies? First, he is trying to get his partners to think hard in unaccustomed ways. Analogies make the process seem more familiar. He draws comparisons to everyday things and activities—to cobblers and clay. These images give relief from abstraction and create some comfort. They also suggest that anyone can do this, not just specialists. Socrates says: talk the way you are used to talking about the things you know, but do it while thinking about things that are larger.”
― Ward Farnsworth, The Socratic Method: A Practitioner's Handbook

“He played the philosopher while joking with you, perhaps, or drinking with you, or possibly campaigning with you, or at market with you, and finally when he was in prison and drinking the poison. He was thus the first to show that life affords scope for philosophy at every moment, in every detail, in every feeling and circumstance whatsoever.”
― Ward Farnsworth, The Socratic Method: A Practitioner's Handbook

“Our criticisms of others therefore have a side benefit. They provide an unintentional glimpse at what is ugliest within us.”
― Ward Farnsworth, The Practicing Stoic: A Philosophical User's Manual

“The doings of Sherlock Holmes are better recorded by a Watson than by another Holmes.”
― Ward Farnsworth, The Socratic Method: A Practitioner's Handbook