Monday, September 16, 2002

I'm of the opinion that if you read enough philosophers, eventually you'll find one who seems to really groove with things you have thought about yourself. For me I just really enjoy Epictetus. How can you resist things like this:
If we had sense we ought to do nothing else, in public and in private, than praise and bless god and pay him due thanks. Ought we not, as we dig and plough and eat, to sing the hymn to god? "Great is god that he has given us these instruments wherewith we shall till the earth. Great is god that he has given us hands, and power to swallow, and a belly, and the power to grow without knowing it, and to draw breath in our sleep." At every moment we ought to sing these praises and above all the greatest and divinest praise, that god gave us the faculty to comprehend these gifts and to use the way of reason.
--from discourses, section On Providence


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