Sublime

What he displayed today contained more of recklessness than true courage, andreia. He cost the city his life, which could have been spent more fruitfully in battle.”

He was also the first to express the four virtues of Stoicism: courage, temperance, justice, and wisdom.

He concluded his speech to the Athenian people with words that Seneca would later echo and still resounds centuries later. “Reflect, then,” he said, “that your ancestors set up those trophies, not that you may gaze at them in wonder, but that you may also imitate the virtues of

“Let each thing you would do, say or intend be like that of a dying person.” —MARCUS AURELIUS, MEDITATIONS, 2.11.1

“The greatness of Napoleon, Caesar or Washington is only moonlight by the sun of Lincoln. His example is universal and will last thousands of years…. He was bigger than his country—bigger than all the Presidents together… and as a great character he will live as long as the world lives.”

Think of yourself as dead. You have lived your life. Now take what’s left and live it properly.

The Roman commander at the siege of Pompeii in 89 BCE, where the teenaged Cicero served as a very junior officer, was Lucius Cornelius Sulla Felix, meaning ‘lucky’ or, rather more imposingly, ‘the favourite of the goddess Venus’.

The orator Demosthenes once said that virtue begins with understanding and is fulfilled by courage.