Cicero (on the Stoics) · 106–43 BCE
Tusculan Disputations 5 ¶35 — Cicero (on the Stoics)
From “Whether Virtue Alone Be Sufficient for a Happy Life”
Translation by C. D. Yonge (1853)
Cicero (on the Stoics), Tusculan Disputations 5 ¶35
M. What? you would convict me from my own words, and bring against me what I had said or written elsewhere. You may act in that manner with those who dispute by established rules. We live from hand to mouth, and say anything that strikes our mind with probability, so that we are the only people who are really at liberty. But, since I just now spoke of consistency, I do not think the inquiry in this place is if the opinion of Zeno and his pupil Aristo be true, that nothing is good but what is honorable, but, admitting that, then, whether the whole of a happy life can be rested on virtue alone. Wherefore, if we certainly grant Brutus this, that a wise man is always happy, how consistent he is, is his own business, for who, indeed, is more worthy than himself of the glory of that opinion? Still, we may maintain that such a man is more happy than anyone else.
Cite this passage
Cicero (on the Stoics), Tusculan Disputations 5 ¶35, tr. C. D. Yonge (1853)
https://whatwouldstoicsdo.com/passage/tusculan-disputations/5.35
Cicero, Tusculan Disputations, tr. C. D. Yonge (1853). Text: Standard Ebooks (CC0). Sources and licences
In plain English
AI-written notesThe teacher defends his freedom to argue by whatever seems most probable and not by strict school consistency, and narrows the question to whether a happy life can rest on virtue alone if virtue is the only good, while conceding that a wise person would still be happier than anyone else.
Older wording
- “live from hand to mouth”
- — improvise day by day without a fixed system
Themes and situations
- Virtue and character
- Learning and progress
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