5 ideas
21336 | Crates lived in poverty, and treated his whole life as a joke [Crates of Thebes, by Plutarch] |
Full Idea: Crates, with his bag and threadbare cloak, spent his whole life laughing and joking as though he were on holiday. | |
From: report of Crates (Theb) (fragments/reports [c.325 BCE]) by Plutarch - 30: Quiet of Mind 266e | |
A reaction: Crates sounds a little less alarming than Diogenes, while living a similar life. Was Crates the first ancestor of post-modernism? |
1767 | Everyone should study philosophy until they see all people in the same light [Crates of Thebes, by Diog. Laertius] |
Full Idea: A man should study philosophy up to the point of looking on generals and donkey-drivers in the same light. | |
From: report of Crates (Theb) (fragments/reports [c.325 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 06.Cr.9 | |
A reaction: This seems to reject Aristote's idea that some people are clearly superior to others. |
22094 | Subjective truth can only be sustained by repetition [Kierkegaard, by Carlisle] |
Full Idea: If subjective truth is to be more than momentary, it has to be repeated continually. | |
From: report of Søren Kierkegaard (Repetition [1843]) by Clare Carlisle - Kierkegaard: a guide for the perplexed 4 | |
A reaction: This might apply to more traditional concepts of truth, if they are to be part of life, rather than remaining in books. |
7903 | The six perfections are giving, morality, patience, vigour, meditation, and wisdom [Nagarjuna] |
Full Idea: The six perfections are of giving, morality, patience, vigour, meditation, and wisdom. | |
From: Nagarjuna (Mahaprajnaparamitashastra [c.120], 88) | |
A reaction: What is 'morality', if giving is not part of it? I like patience and vigour being two of the virtues, which immediately implies an Aristotelian mean (which is always what is 'appropriate'). |
22093 | Life is a repetition when what has been now becomes [Kierkegaard] |
Full Idea: When one says that life is a repetition one affirms that existence which has been now becomes. | |
From: Søren Kierkegaard (Repetition [1843], p.49), quoted by Clare Carlisle - Kierkegaard: a guide for the perplexed 4 | |
A reaction: Not sure I understand this, but it seems very close to Nietzsche's Eternal Recurrence. |