Chapter 1: The Consolation of Being Unconventional
Socrates
1. Bravery is a tenacious spirit. Bravery should also include knowledge and knowing Distinguish between good and evil.
2. Money and power themselves are not necessary and sufficient conditions for virtue, and poverty itself cannot indicate a person's moral value.
3. Living without systematic thinking is like making pottery or shoes without following technical procedures, or not knowing that there are technical procedures at all. No one can make good pottery by intuition alone. Or shoes come. So why think that living a life more complex than this does not require constant reflection on its premises and goals?
Chapter 2 Consolation for the Lack of Money
Epicurus
1. The task of philosophers is to help us interpret the pain and suffering that we do not understand. The pulse of desire, thus saving us from making false plans for happiness. We should stop acting on our first instincts. Instead, we should first examine whether our desires are rational.
2. Unless someone sees that we exist, we do not exist; before someone can understand our words, what we say is meaningless; and only when friends are around us can we confirm ourselves; friends know Me and caring about me constitute a force that prevents us from falling into insensitivity. True friends do not measure us by worldly standards; they value us for who we are; like ideal parents, their love for us does not depend on our appearance or status.
3. After eliminating the pain of scarcity, the pleasure brought by a light meal and a sumptuous banquet is the same.
4. Wealth that exceeds nature is as useless as water that overflows a container.
5. If we were not naturally susceptible to suggestion, advertising would not be so fashionable. We want the same thing when it is beautifully decorated on the wall, but when it is relegated to the sidelines or we don’t hear good reviews about it, we lose interest.
6. I I don’t have many needs for my body
I just want to get rid of the pain and enjoy myself
I am spontaneous and have no resentment
Why cast a golden boy to hold a candle?
Drinking at night during the feast?
Don’t envy the luxurious house with gold and silver makeup
Painted buildings and carved beams with melodious bagpipes
Don’t envy the lush forests and flowing springs
Greenery Like a felt, I am surrounded by good friends
Why use so much money when my heart is so happy?
It is a good time, and the wind and prosperity are welcome
The prosperity is dotted with luxuriant grass. 苋
What more can you ask for when you are happy?
(Lucretius)
Chapter 3? Consolation for frustration
Seneca
A calm attitude in the face of disaster
1. We are most tolerant of setbacks when we are prepared and understood, and least prepared and unpredictable. Setbacks hurt us the most. The task of philosophy is to teach us to land in the softest way when our wishes encounter the stubborn wall of reality.
2. What drives us to anger is a dangerously over-optimistic view of the world and of others.
3. Anger comes from a belief that certain setbacks are not written into the contract of life. This belief originates from an almost comic optimism, but its results are tragic.
4. If you want to prove how easily we can lose our wealth, we only need to raise our wrist and stare for a moment at the blood flowing in the fragile green blood vessels; what is a human being? It's the blood vessels that can rupture at the slightest touch...a fragile, naked, and unprotected body, dependent on help from others and at the mercy of fate. If we believe that any part of the world is safe from disaster, we are mistaken... Creation never created anything that is immutable.
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5. I have never trusted any Fate, not even when she seemed willing to make peace with her. I put everything she had given me - money, official position, power - in one place so that she could take it back at any time without disturbing me. I kept a wide distance between me and the things so that she would only remove them rather than forcefully strip them from me.
6. What progress have I made, you ask? I started becoming my own friend.
7. We should build a firewall between outside noise and our inner sense of punishment.
8. Why cry for part of life, when all of life is a tear-jerker.
Chapter 4 The Consolation of Imperfections
Montaigne
1. Admit that we are far from the rational, peaceful creatures that most thinkers in ancient times thought. How far. In contrast to the hysterical, gibbering, rude and restless nature of our minds, animals in many ways appear to be models of health and virtue.
2. There is no more wonderful occupation than learning; learning allows us to understand the infinity of matter in this life, and the incomparable greatness of nature, heaven, earth, and ocean; learning teaches us piety and self-denial , broad-minded, it pulls our souls out of the darkness and allows us to see all things.
3. A kind and ordinary life, striving to seek wisdom and never staying away from stupidity, is enough.
Chapter 5? Consolation for the Broken Heart
Schopenhauer
1. In concluding a marriage, one party seems to have to be sacrificed, either personal interests or the species Benefits, the well-being of the next generation are at the expense of this generation.
2. The only innate error of human beings is to think that we are born to pursue happiness... As long as we persist in this innate error... the world will appear to us to be full of contradictions. Because with every step we take, no matter how big or small, we must realize that this world and life are by no means arranged to maintain a happy life. The vague hopes in our dreams hover before our eyes with capricious and captivating images, tempting us to trace their origins, only to be ultimately vain... If the mistaken notion of having great expectations for the world is eradicated from our minds, they say, Much benefit.
3. Artists and philosophers not only show us our experiences; they outline aspects of our lives that we recognize as our own but could never understand so clearly on our own. They explain our living conditions to us, help us understand our problems, and make us feel less isolated. The true meaning of art is to summarize thousands of things, and our situation is just one of thousands. (Schopenhauer)
4. Life is very sad, and I decided to spend my whole life thinking about it
Chapter 6: Comfort in Difficulties
Nietzsche
1. A person can handle his impulses like a gardener, although few people know this. He can cultivate the seedlings of anger, compassion, curiosity, and vanity into fruitful and profitable ones like beautiful fruits on the trellis. Rich.
2. It is extremely foolish to generally regard painful states as opposites that should be eliminated...almost as foolish as wanting to eliminate bad weather.
3. Looking at these deep valleys that were once covered by glaciers, it is difficult for us to imagine that one day there might be land with lush vegetation and irrigated streams in the same place. It is the same in human history: the most barbaric force opens a path, mainly destructive; but its work is necessary, so that later a more elegant civilization can build its edifice there. Those terrible energies called evil are actually human mud and stone builders.
4. Human self-fulfillment is achieved not by avoiding pain, but by recognizing pain as a natural and necessary step toward any good. (Nietzsche)
5. Bitterness and joy are closely connected. Whoever wants to get as much of this side must taste as much of the other side. Just look at the histories of the most perfect individuals and nations. Isn't there any big tree that has grown to such an impressive height without going through wind, frost, rain, and snow? Isn't it true that misfortune and external resistance, some kind of hatred, jealousy, and stinginess are all... Favorable conditions, without any greatness, even virtue can hardly grow?
6. We must learn to endure inevitable suffering. Like the harmony of the world, our lives are made up of dissonant chords and different tones: soft, rough, smooth, light and loud. What can a musician sing if he likes only part of it? He has to master all of them and blend them together. Likewise, we must mix all good and evil together, because they are one and the same in our lives. We are like a field full of fruits. There is nothing discarded below. If you don’t see it, people and things welcome excrement under any circumstances. (Montaigne)