Combining Texts

Ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'The Trouble with Being Born' and 'Phaedrus'

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2 ideas

25. Social Practice / E. Policies / 5. Education / b. Education principles
Learned men gain more in one day than others do in a lifetime [Posidonius]
     Full Idea: In a single day there lies open to men of learning more than there ever does to the unenlightened in the longest of lifetimes.
     From: Posidonius (fragments/reports [c.95 BCE]), quoted by Seneca the Younger - Letters from a Stoic 078
     A reaction: These remarks endorsing the infinite superiority of the educated to the uneducated seem to have been popular in late antiquity. It tends to be the religions which discourage great learning, especially in their emphasis on a single book.
25. Social Practice / F. Life Issues / 4. Suicide
Suicide is pointless, because it always comes too late [Cioran]
     Full Idea: It's not worth the bother of killing yourself, since you always kill yourself too late.
     From: E.M. Cioran (The Trouble with Being Born [1973], 02)
     A reaction: A neat thought, but unlikely to be true for those who commit suicide, which presumably results from a sustained and apparently incurable situation.