"I wouldn’t be your friend if everything that pertains to you were not my concern as well. Friendship creates between us a shared interest that includes everything. Neither good times nor bad affect

"What are you up to, Cato? The contest is not for freedom; that was lost long ago. The question is whether Caesar or Pompey will possess the state. What have you to do with such a controversy? It

"the men we live with are not perfect and ideally wise, but men who do very well, if there be found in them but the semblance of virtue. I therefore think that this is to be taken for granted, that

"How small a thing it is to refrain from harming someone you ought to help! As if it were highly meritorious when one person avoids savagery in relation to another! Won’t our precepts state that one

"We are insane as a country, and not just as individuals. We reduce the incidence of individual killings, but what about wars and the splendid crime of genocide? There is no limit to our greed and

A lesson in propaganda

"for one man to take something from another and to increase his own advantage at the cost of another’s disadvantage is more contrary to nature than death, than poverty, than pain and than anything

"reflect often that the majority of human beings become upset and bothered even when nothing bad is either present or definite for the future. For no one resists his own movement, once begun; no one

"our powers can never inspire in us implicit faith in ourselves except when many difficulties have confronted us on this side and on that, and have occasionally even come to close quarters with us.

"There are many whose faults go undetected only because they are ineffectual: when these grow confident of their strength, they will act no less audaciously than those whose fortunes have already

"A good man delights in being admonished, but all the worst people have the hardest time putting up with correction." Seneca, On Anger III.36

Because of Plato we often assume that true moral development can only happen through endless conversations. But we obviously pick up an enormous amount of information from other people when we are near

Turn off your tv and put down your newspaper. Listen to real voices from Syria for a change. Hala M Youseffe writes on Facebook: "I've been a little MIA and haven't posted about this whole Ghouta

"real virtue belongs only to a mind that has been trained, thoroughly instructed, and brought to the highest condition by constant practice. We are indeed born for this, but not born with it. Until

"There is no greater comfort in the face of death than mortality itself, none in the face of all those external terrors greater than the fact there are countless dangers here inside us. For what is

"no one can live a truly happy life, or even a bearable life, without philosophy; also, that while it is complete wisdom that renders a life happy, even to begin that study makes life bearable. But

"you will often have to combine being just with being disgraced. And then if you are wise, you should take delight in the bad reputation you have won by your good behavior." Seneca, Letters 113.32

NSA Document Says Saudi Prince Directly Ordered Coordinated Attack By Syrian Rebels On Damascus

"I think Assad is a dictator, madman, and a murderer of his own people." "Who says so? how do you know?" "The NYT, WaPp, Fox News, CNN, the State Department" "Do you

Winter morning