Antisthenes Quotes on Virtue
Antisthenes, a pupil of Socrates traditionally regarded as the founder of the Cynic school, made virtue the whole of the good life, and the quotes gathered here present that teaching. For Antisthenes virtue is sufficient for happiness, requiring nothing further, and the wise person regulates conduct not by the established laws of the state but by the law of virtue. He held that virtue is the same for everyone, declaring it the same for a man and for a woman, and that doing good while being slandered for it is a royal privilege. His ethics prized self-sufficiency and a frank, even harsh, honesty, including the counsel to pay attention to your enemies, for they are the first to discover your mistakes. His conviction that virtue alone suffices for happiness anticipated the central thesis of Stoicism. Drawn from the surviving fragments and Diogenes Laertius, these passages present virtue as the one thing needful.
Quotes
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Attributed to Antisthenes:
“Virtue is sufficient for happiness; it requires nothing else but the strength of a Socrates.”
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“I would rather go mad than feel pleasure.”
ἔλεγέ τε συνεχές, “ μανείην μᾶλλον ἢ ἡσθείην. -
Attributed to Antisthenes:
“It is the privilege of the gods to want nothing, and of godlike men to want little.”
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“Pay attention to your enemies, for they are the first to discover your mistakes.”
§ 12 -
“It is a royal privilege to do good and be ill spoken of. § 3; quoted also by Marcus Aurelius , vii. 36”
ἀκούσας ποτὲ ὅτι Πλάτων αὐτὸν κακῶς λέγει, “βασιλικόν,” ἔφη, “ καλῶς ποιοῦντα κακῶς ἀκούειν. -
“Antisthenes ... used to say that the wise man would regulate his conduct as a citizen, not according to the established laws of the state, but according to the law of virtue.”
FromLives and Opinions of the Eminent PhilosophersbyDiogenes Laërtius | § 5 -
“Virtue is the same for a man and for a woman.”
FromLives and Opinions of the Eminent PhilosophersbyDiogenes Laërtius | § 5