more from this thinker | more from this text
Full Idea
What's the use of overcoming opponent after opponent in the wrestling or boxing rings if you can be overcome by your temper?
Gist of Idea
It's no good winning lots of fights, if you are then conquered by your own temper
Source
Seneca the Younger (Letters from a Stoic [c.60], 088)
Book Ref
Seneca: 'Letters from a Stoic (Selections)', ed/tr. Campbell,Robin [Penguin 1969], p.156
A Reaction
He has such a nice way of presenting what might be traditional and commonplace ideas. If you see life as a battle, then you should think very carefully about who the opponents are - because they may be hiding within.
| 131 | If absence of desire is happiness, then nothing is happier than a stone or a corpse [Plato] |
| 140 | Self-indulgent desire makes friendship impossible, because it makes a person incapable of co-operation [Plato] |
| 254 | Excessive laughter and tears must be avoided [Plato] |
| 23908 | If someone just looks at or listens to beautiful things, they would not be thought intemperate [Aristotle] |
| 2813 | It is quite possible to live a moderate life and yet be miserable [Aristotle] |
| 13312 | Excessive curiosity is a form of intemperance [Seneca] |
| 13308 | It's no good winning lots of fights, if you are then conquered by your own temper [Seneca] |
| 13552 | Anger is an extreme vice, threatening sanity, and gripping whole states [Seneca] |
| 13553 | Anger is a vice which afflicts good men as well as bad [Seneca] |
| 22399 | Temperance prevents our passions from acting against reason [Aquinas] |
| 22403 | Temperance is not a virtue if it results from timidity or excessive puritanism [Foot] |