来自古希腊的心灵鸡汤

首先要说的是，我并不喜欢喝鸡汤，觉得自己活了大半辈子了，自己熬出来的鸡汤够自己喝的。昨日有网友提到一个哲学家Epictetus, a western philosopher, an exponent of Stocisim, who was born a slave in Turkey, and spent most of his time in Greece. 今日得空上网搜了搜，发现这个生活在公元55-135间的哲学家传道的话，今日听来依然受益匪浅( they still ring so true today)。 特此抄录自己喜欢的和特别适合送给女儿的句子，也借此送给自己和感兴趣的朋友：

 

“Small-minded people blame others. Average people blame themselves. The wise see all blame as foolishness”

 

“To accuse others for one's own misfortune is a sign of want of education. To accuse oneself shows that one's education has begun. To accuse neither oneself nor others shows that one's education is complete.”

 

“Man is not worried by real problems so much as by his imagined anxieties about real problems” 

 

“The key is to keep company only with people who uplift you, whose presence calls forth your best.”

 

“Tentative efforts lead to tentative outcomes. Therefore, give yourself fully to your endeavors. Decide to construct your character through excellent actions and determine to pay the price of a worthy goal. The trials you encounter will introduce you to your strengths. Remain steadfast...and one day you will build something that endures: something worthy of your potential.” 

 

“No great thing is created suddenly, any more than a bunch of grapes or a fig. If you tell me that you desire a fig, I answer that there must be time. Let it first blossom, then bear fruit, then ripen.”

 

“Any person capable of angering you becomes your master; he can anger you only when you permit yourself to be disturbed by him.” 

 

“If you would cure anger, do not feed it. Say to yourself: 'I used to be angry every day; then every other day; now only every third or fourth day.' When you reach thirty days offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving to the gods.”

 

 “If anyone tells you that a certain person speaks ill of you, do not make excuses about what is said of you but answer, "He was ignorant of my other faults, else he would not have mentioned these alone.” 

 

“Caretake this moment. Immerse yourself in its particulars. Respond to this person, this challenge, this deed. Quit evasions. Stop giving yourself needless trouble. It is time to really live; to fully inhabit the situation you happen to be in now.”

 

“Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants.” 

 

“Don't seek to have events happen as you wish, but wish them to happen as they do happen, and all will be well with you.”

 

 

“No one is ever unhappy because of someone else.”

 

“It is our attitude toward events, not events themselves, which we can control. Nothing is by its own nature calamitous -- even death is terrible only if we fear it.” 

 

“It's not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters.” 

 

“Other people's views and troubles can be contagious. Don't sabotage yourself by unwittingly adopting negative, unproductive attitudes through your associations with others.”

 

“Nature hath given men one tongue but two ears, that we may hear from others twice as much as we speak.”

 

“I laugh at those who think they can damage me. They do not know who I am, they do not know what I think, they cannot even touch the things which are really mine and with which I live.” 

 

 “He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has.”

 

“Know, first, who you are, and then adorn yourself accordingly.”

 

“A ship should not ride on a single anchor, nor life on a single hope” 

 

“The greater the difficulty, the more glory in surmounting it. Skillful pilots gain their reputation from storms and tempests. ”

 

“Difficulty shows what men are. Therefore when a difficulty falls upon you, remember that God, like a trainer of wrestlers, has matched you with a rough young man. Why? So that you may become an Olympic conqueror; but it is not accomplished without sweat.”

 

“Remember that you ought to behave in life as you would at a banquet. As something is being passed around it comes to you; stretch out your hand, take a portion of it politely. It passes on; do not detain it. Or it has not come to you yet; do not project your desire to meet it, but wait until it comes in front of you. So act toward children, so toward a wife, so toward office, so toward wealth.” 

 

“It is better to die of hunger having lived without grief and fear, than to live with a troubled spirit, amid abundance”

 

“Don't live by your own rules, but in harmony with nature”

 

“For sheep don't throw up the grass to show the shepherds how much they have eaten; but, inwardly digesting their food, they outwardly produce wool and milk.”