Fallen Greatness
Blaise Pascal
Pensées

The author argues that man's wretchedness is actually a proof of his greatness, as his current misery is the result of having fallen from a previously higher, kingly nature.

...splendour. When austerity or stern choice has not arrived at the true good, and must needs return to follow nature, it becomes proud by reason of this return. 408 Evil is easy, and has infinite forms; good is almost unique.[155] But a certain kind of evil is as difficult to find as what we call good; and often on this account such particular evil gets passed off as good. An extraordinary greatness of soul is needed in order to attain to it as well as to good. 409 The greatness of man.--
The greatness of man is so evident, that it is even proved by his wretchedness. For what in animals is nature we call in man wretchedness; by which we recognise that, his nature being now like that of animals, he has fallen from a better nature which once was his. For who is unhappy at not being a king, except a deposed king?
Was Paulus Æmilius[156] unhappy at being no longer consul? On the contrary, everybody thought him happy in having been consul, because the office could only be held for a time. But men thought Perseus so unhappy in being no longer king, because the condition of kingship implied his being always king, that they thought it strange that he endured life. Who is unhappy at having only one mouth? And who is not unhappy at having only one eye? Probably no man ever ventured to mourn at not having three...
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Learn by Example
Seneca
Letters From a Stoic

Seneca advises that personal example and daily intimacy are more effective than precepts, citing the influence of Zeno on Cleanthes and Socrates on his followers.

...benefit alone. If wisdom were offered me on the one condition that I should keep it shut away and not divulge it to anyone, I should reject it. There is no enjoying the possession of anything valuable unless one has someone to share it with. I shall send you, accordingly, the actual books themselves, and to save you a lot of trouble hunting all over the place for passages likely to be of use to you, I shall mark the passages so that you can turn straight away to the words I approve and admire.
Personal converse, though, and daily intimacy with someone will be of more benefit to you than any discourse. You should really be here and on the spot, firstly because people believe their eyes rather more than their ears, and secondly because the road is a long one if one proceeds by way of precepts but short and effectual if by way of personal example. Cleanthes would never have been the image of Zeno if he had merely heard him lecture; he lived with him, studied his private life, watched him to see if he lived in accordance with his own principle. Plato, Aristotle and a host of other philosophers all destined to take different paths,…
And yet I do not summon you to my side solely for the sake of your own progress but for my own as well, for we shall be of the utmost benefit to each other. Meanwhile, since I owe you the daily allowance, I'll tell you what took my fancy in the writings of Hecato today. “What progress have I made? I am beginning to be my own friend.” That is progress indeed. Such a person will never be alone, and you may be sure he is a friend of all. LETTER VII YOU ask me to say what you should consider it par...
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Notes
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The State's Stolen Language
Friedrich Nietzsche
Thus Spoke Zarathustra

A critique of the state as a 'cold monster' that lies in every language of good and evil, existing in opposition to the organic customs of a true people.

...hat is that? Well! open now your ears unto me, for now will I say unto you my word concerning the death of peoples. A state, is called the coldest of all cold monsters. Coldly lieth it also; and this lie creepeth from its mouth: “I, the state, am the people.” It is a lie! Creators were they who created peoples, and hung a faith and a love over them: thus they served life. Destroyers, are they who lay snares for many, and call it the state: they hang a sword and a hundred cravings over them.
Where there is still a people, there the state is not understood, but hated as the evil eye, and as sin against laws and customs. This sign I give unto you: every people speaketh its language of good and evil: this its neighbour understandeth not. Its language hath it devised for itself in laws and customs. But the state lieth in all languages of good and evil; and whatever it saith it lieth; and whatever it hath it hath stolen. False is everything in it; with stolen teeth it biteth, the biting one. False are even its bowels. Confusion of language of good and evil; this sign I give unto you as the sign of the state.
Verily, the will to death, indicateth this sign! Verily, it beckoneth unto the preachers of death! Many too many are born: for the superfluous ones was the state devised! See just how it enticeth them to it, the many-too-many! How it swalloweth and cheweth and recheweth them! “On earth there is nothing greater than I: it is I who am the regulating finger of God”—thus roareth the monster. And not only the long-eared and short-sighted fall upon their knees! Ah! even in your ears, ye great sou...
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Air's Ephemeral Gift
Henry David Thoreau
On the Duty of Civil Disobedience

Thoreau warns that morning air cannot be preserved, emphasizing the fleeting nature of this natural remedy. He urges immediate appreciation of the present moment.

...or thy great-grandfather's, but our great-grandmother Nature's universal, vegetable, botanic medicines, by which she has kept herself young always, outlived so many old Parrs in her day, and fed her health with their decaying fatness. For my panacea, instead of one of those quack vials of a mixture dipped from Acheron and the Dead Sea, which come out of those long shallow black-schooner looking wagons which we sometimes see made to carry bottles, let me have a draught of undiluted morning air.
Morning air! If men will not drink of this at the fountain-head of the day, why, then, we must even bottle up some and sell it in the shops, for the benefit of those who have lost their subscription ticket to morning time in this world. But remember, it will not keep quite till noon-day even in the coolest cellar, but drive out the stopples long ere that and follow westward the steps of Aurora.
I am no worshipper of Hygeia, who was the daughter of that old herb-doctor Æsculapius, and who is represented on monuments holding a serpent in one hand, and in the other a cup out of which the serpent sometimes drinks; but rather of Hebe, cupbearer to Jupiter, who was the daughter of Juno and wild lettuce, and who had the power of restoring gods and men to the vigor of youth. She was probably the only thoroughly sound-conditioned, healthy, and robust young lady that ever walked the globe, and...
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Courage as Freedom
Seneca
Letters From a Stoic

Seneca argues that fearing death is irrational because even a child can face it bravely, and that living in fear of death makes one a slave to life. He encourages adopting a spirited attitude of independence.

...o, when he was taken prisoner, kept shouting in his native Doric, “I shall not be a slave!” He was as good as his word. The first time he was ordered to perform a slave's task, some humiliating household job (his actual orders were to fetch a disgusting chamber pot), he dashed his head against a wall and cracked his skull open. Freedom is as near as that – is anyone really still a slave?54 Would you not rather your own son died like that than lived by reason of spinelessness to an advanced age?
Why be perturbed, then, about death when even a child can meet it bravely? Suppose you refuse to follow him: you will just be dragged after him. Assume the authority which at present lies with others. Surely you can adopt the spirited attitude of that boy and say, “No slave am I!” At present, you unhappy creature, slave you are, slave to your fellow-men, slave to circumstance and slave to life (for life itself is slavery if the courage to die be absent).
Have you anything that might induce you to wait? You have exhausted the very pleasures that make you hesitate and hold you back; not one of them has any novelty for you, not one of them now fails to bore you out of sheer excess. You know what wine or honey-wine tastes like: it makes no difference whether a hundred or a thousand flagons go through your bladder – all you are is a strainer. You are perfectly familiar with the taste of oysters or mullet. Your luxurious way of life has kept back not...
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