Charles Comer
https://www.goodreads.com/charlesagain
“That which is in itself in accordance with nature, or which produces something else that is so, and which therefore is deserving of choice as possessing a certain amount of positive value—axia as the Stoics call it—this they pronounce to be ‘valuable’ (for so I suppose we may translate it); and on the other hand that which is the contrary of the former they term ‘valueless.’ The initial principle being thus established that things in accordance with nature are ‘things to be taken’ for their own sake, and their opposites similarly ‘things to be rejected,’ the first ‘appropriate act’ (for so I render the Greek kathekon) is to preserve oneself in one’s natural constitution; the next is to retain those things which are in accordance with nature and to repel those that are contrary; then when this principle of choice and also of rejection has been discovered, there follows next in order choice conditioned by ‘appropriate action’; then such choice become a fixed habit; and finally, choice fully rationalized and in harmony with nature.”
― On Ends
― On Ends
“A man needs to look, not down, but up to standards set so much above his ordinary self as to make him feel that he is himself “spiritually” the underdog. Anyone who thus looks up has some chance of becoming worthy to be looked up to in turn.”
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“What can be more certain than this, that no one should be so stupid and so arrogant as to believe that reason and intelligence are present in him but not in the heavens and in the world? Or that those things which are barely understood by the highest intellectual reasoning are kept in motion without any intelligence at all? As for the person who is not impelled to give thanks for the procession of the stars, the alternation of day and night, the regular succession of the seasons, and the fruits which are produced for our enjoyment—how can such a person be counted as human at all?”
― The Republic and The Laws
― The Republic and The Laws
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