On the Firmness of the Wise Man
19 chapters in Stewart
On the Firmness of the Wise Man is addressed to Serenus, a friend who found the Stoic claim hard to take: that the wise man can receive neither injury nor insult. Seneca defends it over nineteen chapters, first for injury, which cannot reach a man whose only good is virtue, then for insult, which only wounds a mind that agrees to be wounded. Stilbo, who lost his city and answered that he carried all his property with him, and Cato, struck in the face, are the examples.
The English text here is Aubrey Stewart’s, in his Minor Dialogues of 1889, where it is the second book of the dialogues. Stewart numbers the chapters from I to XIX, and Baillard’s French edition counts the same nineteen; the two do not always cut a chapter at the same sentence, which is why each language cites its own edition. An extract is cited as On the Firmness of the Wise Man, V, with the line of the file. The passages of this work in the app are counted, not listed.
Structure
| Book | Chapters | Concordance |
|---|---|---|
| I | 19 | chapter for chapter with Baillard, 1861 |
In the edition of Aubrey Stewart, 1889
Virtue is free, inviolable, not to be moved, not to be shaken, and so hardened against misfortunes that she cannot be bent, let alone overcome by them.
Demetrius, who was surnamed Poliorcetes, took Megara, and the philosopher Stilbo, when asked by him whether he had lost anything, answered, “No, I carry all my property about me.”
Good men are at peace among themselves; bad ones are equally mischievous to the good and to one another.
The wise man escapes all this, since he knows not what it is to live for hope or for fear.
He says that injuries may be endured by the wise man, we say that they do not exist for him.
The nobler a man is by birth, by reputation, or by inheritance, the more bravely he should bear himself, remembering that the tallest men stand in the front rank in battle.
In Stoic+: 12 passages of this work, each with its reference.
Seneca and Epictetus are in Stoic+: 12 passages of this work in the app, each with its reference.