Cicero (on the Stoics) · 106–43 BCE
On Duties 3.116 — Cicero (on the Stoics)
Translation by Walter Miller (1913)
Cicero (on the Stoics), On Duties 3.116
We have still left our fourth division, comprising propriety, moderation, temperance, selfrestraint, self-control. Can anything be expedient, then, which is contrary to such a chorus of virtues? And yet the Cyrenaics, adherents of the school of Aristippus, and the philosophers who bear the name of Anniceris find all good to consist in pleasure and consider virtue praiseworthy only because it is productive of pleasure. Now that these schools are out of date, Epicurus has come into vogue—an advocate and supporter of practically the same doctrine. Against such a philosophy we must fight it out "with horse and foot," as the saying is, if our purpose is to defend and maintain our standard of moral rectitude.
Cite this passage
Cicero (on the Stoics), On Duties 3.116, tr. Walter Miller (1913)
https://whatwouldstoicsdo.com/passage/on-duties/3.116
Cicero, On Duties (De Officiis), tr. Walter Miller (Loeb, 1913). Text: Perseus Digital Library (CC BY-SA 4.0). Sources and licences
In plain English
AI-written notesThe last of the four virtue groups is self-restraint and fitting conduct, and the schools that treat pleasure as the highest good clash with it. The author announces a full fight against that view to defend the idea that moral goodness comes first.
Older wording
- “Cyrenaics”
- — an ancient school that held pleasure to be the only good
- “propriety”
- — fitting, seemly conduct
- “moral rectitude”
- — doing what is morally right
Themes and situations
- Virtue and character
- Self-discipline and habit
- Pleasure and pain
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