'About things that are within our power and those that are not.' Epictetus's Discourses have been the most widely read and influential of all writings of Stoic philosophy, from …
'No man is crushed by misfortune unless he has first been deceived by prosperity.' In these dialogues and essays the Stoic philosopher Seneca outlines his thoughts on how to live …
The first philosophers paved the way for the work of Plato and Aristotle - and hence for the whole of Western thought. Aristotle said that philosophy begins with wonder, and the …
'Do not act as if you had ten thousand years to live ... while you have life in you, while you still can, make yourself good.' The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius (AD 121-180) is a …
The Politics is one of the most influential texts in the history of political thought, and it raises issues which still confront anyone who wants to think seriously about the ways …
'many men compete in digging and kicking but no one at all in the pursuit of human excellence.' Diogenes the Cynic is best remembered today for having lived in a storage-jar, and …
In his celebrated masterpiece, Symposium, Plato imagines a high-society dinner-party in Athens in 416 BC at which the guests - including the comic poet Aristophanes and, of course, …
'Happiness, then, is the best, noblest, and most pleasant thing in the world.' In the Nicomachean Ethics Aristotle's guiding question is: what is the best thing for a human being? …
Republic is the central work of the Western world's most famous philosopher. Essentially an inquiry into morality, Republic also contains crucial arguments and insights into many …
'. . . the more honourable animals have been allotted a more honourable soul. . . ' What is the nature of the soul? It is this question that Aristotle sought to answer in De Anima …
