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5 Signs You Lack Gratitude According to Cicero

1/19/2017

Marcus Tullius Cicero was a Roman philosopher, politician, lawyer, orator, political theorist, and constitutionalist. Cicero tried to lead by the example of his life, and by many accounts he was ethical, moderate, and constantly strove to better himself and gain knowledge. One of his more famous quotations comes from Pro Planico, a legal defense he mounted for a friend, in which he states:

"In truth, O judges, while I wish to be adorned with every virtue, yet there is nothing which I can esteem more highly than the being and appearing grateful. For this one virtue is not only the greatest, but is also the parent of all the other virtues."[1]

What does Cicero mean here when he says that gratitude is the parent of all other virtues? In the past, I have written about how having a grateful attitude can make you happier. Gratitude most certainly is a feeling of happiness or appreciation about benefits which you enjoy. But I doubt that Cicero saw gratitude as "only a stepping stone to personal happiness," to quote psychologist Robert Emmons.

In Pro Planico, Cicero sites the specific virtues arising from the positive feeling of gratitude, such as showing affection for one's parents, reverence, appreciation of friends, acts of kindness, and so forth. Gratitude often inspires us to do good things; this likely is what Cicero meant when he said that gratitude is the parent of all other virtues. Really it is fair to say that gratitude is both a happy feeling, and a behavior common to those of high moral standards. On the other hand, you are probably ungrateful if you do these 5 things:

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The Revolution Inside

1/7/2017

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Peace and justice are two goals which the politically inclined often seek, but they are simultaneously inner qualities which a philosophical person must posses, not just external conditions which we would like to see in the world. If we want to see the world change we must first concern ourselves with healing our own lives.

In Xenophon's Memoirs of Socrates, Hippias tells Socrates that instead of always asking questions about justice, he would do better simply to say, once and for all, what justice is. Socrates replies: "If I don't reveal my views on justice in words, I do so by my conduct." A modern parallel to Socrates' statement can be found in Martin Luther King's quote, "Peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek, but a means by which we arrive at that goal.”

What Socrates wanted to show is that we can never understand justice if we do not live it. King similarly noted that we won't achieve peace through our actions if outwardly we are irrationally angry and inwardly we are a mess of anxiety and nuerosis. We can't expect the world to give us better than we give the world.

In antiquity, philosophy was a way of life akin to therapy or care of the soul. Socrates, the Cynics, Aristotle, the Epicureans and the Stoics all stressed that we can achieve autarkia, or inner freedom independent of external events.[1] Autarkia is a self-sufficiency and peace of mind where we feel that we lack nothing, relying on our inner resources. To be liberated, we must turn our attention to the revolution within and to what we can control; our thoughts, emotions, and actions. In order to obtain autarkia or inner freedom, we must train ourselves for it.

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