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The virtuous (stoic) life: Wisdom
The first stoic virtue for life
Wisdom is one of four cardinal stoic virtues. The rest are courage, temperance and justice. I will be writing on all the virtues in the next few weeks. This is the first in a series of posts on living a virtuous life.
“Virtue is a habit of the mind, consistent with nature, and moderation, and reason. … It has then four divisions — prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance. Prudence [i.e., practical wisdom] is the knowledge of things which are good, or bad, or neither good nor bad. … Justice is a habit of the mind which attributes its proper dignity to everything, preserving a due regard to the general welfare. … Fortitude [i.e., courage] is a deliberate encountering of danger and enduring of labour. … [And] temperance is the form and well-regulated dominion of reason over lust and other improper affections of the mind.” — Cicero’s De Inventione (II.53–54)
For the Stoics, wisdom isn’t just intellectual knowledge. It’s practical. It’s knowing how to live well, make good choices, and take on life’s many obstacles with clarity and calm.
Socrates, often seen as a trailblazer of Stoicism, believed wisdom is the foundation of all virtue. He taught that to know what is right is to do what is right. Epictetus, another prominent Stoic, often spoke about wisdom as…
