George Long: Philosophy

George Long was English classical scholar. Explore interesting quotes on philosophy.
George Long: 132   quotes 0   likes

“By drawing an object the children will also learn a fundamental doctrine of philosophy”

George Long

An Old Man's Thoughts on Many Things, Of Education I
Context: By drawing an object the children will also learn a fundamental doctrine of philosophy; but I don't recommend letting them know what the doctrine is. They will discover it some time. We do not draw objects as they are: we draw them as they seem to be. To the eye things are what they seem to be, but they are in reality, if you know what that means, something else.

Children , Learning , Drawing

“A man who leads a life of tranquillity and reflection, who is not disturbed at home and meddles not with the affairs of the world, may keep his mind at ease and his thoughts in one even course. But such a man has not been tried. All his Ethical philosophy and his passive virtue might turn out to be idle words, if he were once exposed to the rude realities of human existence.”

George Long

The Philosophy of Antoninus

Life , World , Home , Reality

“In the wretched times from the death of Augustus to the murder of Domitian, there was nothing but the Stoic philosophy which could console and support the followers of the old religion under imperial tyranny and amidst universal corruption.”

George Long

The Philosophy of Antoninus

Death , Religion , Support , Universe

“The Stoics made three divisions of philosophy, Physic, Ethic, and Logic.”

George Long

The Philosophy of Antoninus
Context: The Stoics made three divisions of philosophy, Physic, Ethic, and Logic.... It appears, however, that this division was made before Zeno's time and acknowledged by Plato.... Logic is not synonymous with our term Logic in the narrower sense of that word.

“From the time of Zeno to Simplicius, a period of about nine hundred years, the Stoic philosophy formed the characters of some of the best and greatest men. Finally it became extinct, and we hear no more of it til the revival of letters in Italy.”

George Long

M. Aurelius Antoninus

Men , Time

“He [Marcus Aurelius Antoninus] advises us to examine well all the impressions on our minds and to form a right judgment of them, to make just conclusions, and to inquire into the meanings of words, and so far to apply Dialectic, but he has no attempt at any exposition of Dialectic, and his philosophy is in substance purely moral and practical. …an examination implies a use of Dialectic, which Antoninus accordingly employed as a means towards establishing his Physical, Theological, and Ethical principles.”

George Long

The Philosophy of Antoninus

“Even among the earliest Stoics, Logic or Dialectic does not occupy the same place as in Plato: it is considered only as an instrument which is to be used for the other divisions of Philosophy.”

George Long

The Philosophy of Antoninus

“Fine thoughts and moral dissertations from men who have not worked and suffered may be read, but they will be forgotten. No religion, no Ethical philosophy is worth anything, if the teacher has not lived the "life of an apostle," and been ready to die "the death of a martyr." "Not in passivity [the passive affects], but in activity, lie the evil and the good of the rational social animal, just as his virtue and his vice lie not in passivity, but in activity"”

George Long

IX. 16
The Philosophy of Antoninus

Life , Death , Men , Lie

“This is his [Marcus Aurelius Antoninus'] conclusion (II. 17): "What then is that which is able to conduct a man? One thing and only one, Philosophy. But this consists in keeping the divinity within a man free from violence and unharmed, superior to pains and pleasures, doing nothing without a purpose nor yet falsely and with hypocrisy, not feeling the need of another man's doing or not doing anything; and besides, accepting all that happens and all that is allotted, as coming from thence, wherever it is, from whence he himself came; and, finally, waiting for death with a cheerful mind as being nothing else than a dissolution of the elements of which every living being is compounded. But if there is no harm to the elements themselves in each continually changing into another, why should a man have any apprehension about the change and dissolution of all the elements [himself]? for it is according to nature; and nothing is evil that is according to nature."”

George Long

The Philosophy of Antoninus

Death , Pain , Pleasure , Feeling