Is it not a shame that philosophers should be in doubt about moral questions on which even peasants have no doubts at all?
Cicero: “Is it not a shame that philosophers should be in doubt about moral questions on which even peasants have no doubts at…”
Editor's note · Context
Cicero expresses his frustration with philosophical debates, suggesting that fundamental moral truths are often clearer to ordinary people than to academics.
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But while they steer clear of the one kind of injustice, they fall into the other: they are traitors to social life, for they contribute to it none of their interest, none of their effort, none of their means.
For whereas there are many, as I have said before, who place the achievements of war above those of peace, so one may find many to whom adventurous, hot-headed counsels seem more brilliant and more impressive than calm and well-considered…
Now, those who care for the interests of a part of the citizens and neglect another part, introduce into the civil service a dangerous element--dissension and party strife.
But the trouble about this matter is that it is in the greatest souls and in the most brilliant geniuses that we usually find ambitions for civil and military authority, for power, and for glory, springing up; and therefore we must be the…





