Thursday, October 23, 2025
Stoic Commonplaces
Horace, Satires 2.7.83-88 (tr. H. Rushton Fairclough):
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Who then is free? The wise man, who is lord over himself, whom neither poverty nor death nor bonds affright, who bravely defies his passions, and scorns ambition, who in himself is a whole, smoothed and rounded, so that nothing from outside can rest on the polished surface, and against whom Fortune in her onset is ever maimed.
quisnam igitur liber? sapiens, sibi qui imperiosus,
quem neque pauperies neque mors neque vincula terrent,
responsare cupidinibus, contemnere honores 85
fortis, et in se ipso totus, teres atque rotundus,
externi ne quid valeat per leve morari,
in quem manca ruit semper Fortuna.
