“In the face of warfare and inevitable death, there is no wisdom but in ataraxia, “to look on all things with a mind at peace"."”
Here, clearly, the old pagan joy of life is gone, and an almost exotic spirit touches a broken lyre. History, which is nothing if not humorous, was never to facetious as when she gave to this abstemious and epic pessimist the name of Epicurean.
The Story of Philosophy (1926)
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Will Durant 85
American historian, philosopher and writer 1885–1981Related quotes
“A free man thinks of death least of all things; and his wisdom is a meditation not of death but of life.”
Homo liber de nulla re minus, quam de morte cogitat, et ejus sapientia non mortis, sed vitae meditatio est.
Part IV, Prop. LXVII
Ethics (1677)
Speech at the Philip Scott College (27 September 1923), quoted in On England, and Other Addresses (1926), p. 157.
1923
“A hero looks death in the face, real death, not just the image of death.”
Source: Culture and Value (1980), p. 50e
Context: A hero looks death in the face, real death, not just the image of death. Behaving honourably in a crisis doesn't mean being able to act the part of a hero well, as in the theatre, it means being able to look death itself in the eye.
For an actor may play lots of different roles, but at the end of it all he himself, the human being, is the one who has to die.
1104: The Crickets sang
The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson (1960)