Cicero (on the Stoics) · 106–43 BCE
Tusculan Disputations 1 ¶113–114 — Cicero (on the Stoics)
From “On the Contempt of Death”
Translation by C. D. Yonge (1853)
Cicero (on the Stoics), Tusculan Disputations 1 ¶113–114
M. Have you any objection to our dismissing our friends the Stoics—those, I mean, who allow that the souls exist after they have left the body, but yet deny that they exist forever? A. We certainly may dismiss the consideration of those men who admit that which is the most difficult point in the whole question, namely, that a soul can exist independently of the body, and yet refuse to grant that which is not only very easy to believe, but which is even the natural consequence of the concession which they have made—that if they can exist for a length of time, they most likely do so forever.
Cite this passage
Cicero (on the Stoics), Tusculan Disputations 1 ¶113–114, tr. C. D. Yonge (1853)
https://whatwouldstoicsdo.com/passage/tusculan-disputations/1.113
Cicero, Tusculan Disputations, tr. C. D. Yonge (1853). Text: Standard Ebooks (CC0). Sources and licences
In plain English
AI-written notesThe friend sets aside the Stoics, who allow the soul to survive apart from the body but not forever, arguing that if the soul can exist for a time without the body it most likely lasts forever. It is a brief exchange in a debate over the soul's immortality.
Themes and situations
- Death and mortality
- Nature and the cosmos
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