Cicero (on the Stoics) · 106–43 BCE
On Duties 3.13 — Cicero (on the Stoics)
Translation by Walter Miller (1913)
Cicero (on the Stoics), On Duties 3.13
Furthermore, when the Stoics speak of the supreme good as "living conformably to Nature," they mean, as I take it, something like this: that we are always to be in accord with virtue, and from all other things that may be in harmony with Nature to choose only such as are not incompatible with virtue. This being so, some people are of the opinion that it was not right to introduce this counterbalancing of right and expediency and that no practical instruction should have been given on this question at all. And yet moral goodness, in the true and proper sense of the term, is the exclusive possession of the wise and can never be separated from virtue; but those who have not perfect wisdom cannot possibly have perfect moral goodness, but only a semblance of it.
Cite this passage
Cicero (on the Stoics), On Duties 3.13, tr. Walter Miller (1913)
https://whatwouldstoicsdo.com/passage/on-duties/3.13
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 Stoic aim of living in line with nature means always keeping to virtue and choosing among natural goods only those that do not conflict with it. Perfect moral goodness belongs only to the wise, so everyone else has just an imperfect likeness of it.
Older wording
- “conformably to Nature”
- — in harmony with nature
- “semblance”
- — outward likeness or appearance
Themes and situations
- Nature and the cosmos
- Virtue and character
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