Cicero (on the Stoics) · 106–43 BCE
Tusculan Disputations 1 ¶117–120 — Cicero (on the Stoics)
From “On the Contempt of Death”
Translation by C. D. Yonge (1853)
Cicero (on the Stoics), Tusculan Disputations 1 ¶117–120
A. I remembered it very well. But I had no dislike to your digressing a little from your original design, while you were talking of the soul’s immortality. M. I perceive you have sublime thoughts, and are eager to mount up to heaven. I am not without hopes myself that such may be our fate. But admit what they assert—that the soul does not continue to exist after death. A. Should it be so, I see that we are then deprived of the hopes of a happier life.
Cite this passage
Cicero (on the Stoics), Tusculan Disputations 1 ¶117–120, tr. C. D. Yonge (1853)
https://whatwouldstoicsdo.com/passage/tusculan-disputations/1.117
Cicero, Tusculan Disputations, tr. C. D. Yonge (1853). Text: Standard Ebooks (CC0). Sources and licences
In plain English
AI-written notesA short exchange in which the speaker teases his friend for aiming at heaven, then asks him to assume the soul does not survive death, and the friend replies that in that case hopes of a happier life are lost.
Themes and situations
- Death and mortality
- Fear and anxiety
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