15 Quotes from the Roman Socrates
Meditating on Musonius Rufus
When we think of the big three Roman Stoics, we think of Epictetus, Seneca, and Marcus Aurelius.
Arguably, Musonius Rufus is the other name that belongs on that list. The teacher of Epictetus, he captured the essence of Stoic philosophy as a way of life. Indeed, in the discourses we have from him, he covers topics that were of immense practical importance to his students—from how much they should obey their fathers, to their choice of career, to how they should furnish their apartment. Throughout all these questions, the practice of noble behavior runs throughout.
Let’s meditate on some quotes from him today.
Is not this second young man like the Spartan boy who asked Cleanthes the philosopher if pain was not a good? That boy seems to have been so naturally good and to have been trained so well towards virtue that he considered pain to be closer to the nature of a good than of an evil.
Only by exhibiting actions in harmony with the sound words which he has received will anyone be helped by philosophy.
Because it is entirely fitting for us to be good, some of us deceive ourselves into thinking that we are indeed good, and others of us are ashamed to admit that we are not.
A person who has not studied letters, music, or sports does not say that he knows them. Nor does he pretend to possess these skills if he is unable to name also the teacher to whom he went. So why, by the gods, do we all declare that we have virtue? A human being has no claim by nature to any of those other skills, and no one comes into life with a natural ability for them.
Just as there is no use in medical study unless it leads to the health of the human body, so there is no use to a philosophical doctrine unless it leads to the virtue of the human soul.
Practice is more important than theory because it more effectively leads humans to actions than theory does.
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.
Being fearless, undaunted, and bold—these are the products of courage. And how else could these become someone’s qualities more effectively than if he would become firmly convinced that death and pain are not evils?
And even if it would deprive a person of some or all of these things, it does not deprive him of things that are truly good. The person in exile is not prevented from having courage, justice, self-control, wisdom, or any other virtue, just because he is in exile.
When they are whipped in public and revel in being whipped, Spartan boys make it clear that such things are neither shameful nor injurious. If a philosopher cannot scorn blows or jeering, he is useless, inasmuch as a philosopher must make it clear that he scorns even death.
Souls that are naturally disposed towards self-control and justice—in a word, towards virtue—are obviously most suitable for marriage.
Could a good person be in harmony with a bad one? This could not happen, any more than a crooked piece of wood could fit together with a similar crooked one or than two crooked pieces could fit together.
When someone said that marriage and life with a wife seemed to him to get in the way of studying philosophy, Musonius said that marriage did not hinder Pythagoras or Socrates or Crates, each of whom lived with a wife, and no one could name other philosophers who were better than these.
He often talked in a very forceful manner about food, on the grounds that food was not an insignificant topic and that what one eats has significant consequences. In particular, he thought that mastering one’s appetites for food and drink was the beginning of and basis for self-control.
I myself would therefore choose to be sick rather than to live in luxury. Being sick harms the body only; living in luxury harms both soul and body, by making the body weak and powerless and the soul undisciplined and cowardly.