Cicero (on the Stoics) · 106–43 BCE
On Duties 3.78 — Cicero (on the Stoics)
Translation by Walter Miller (1913)
Cicero (on the Stoics), On Duties 3.78
Do you not see that in the light of this proverb no excuse is available either for the Gyges of the story or for the man who I assumed a moment ago could with a snap of his fingers sweep together everybody's inheritance at once? For as the morally wrong cannot by any possibility be made morally right, however successfully it may be covered up, so what is not morally right cannot be made expedient, for Nature refuses and resists.
Cite this passage
Cicero (on the Stoics), On Duties 3.78, tr. Walter Miller (1913)
https://whatwouldstoicsdo.com/passage/on-duties/3.78
Cicero, On Duties (De Officiis), tr. Walter Miller (Loeb, 1913). Text: Perseus Digital Library (CC BY-SA 4.0). Sources and licences
In plain English
AI-written notesHiding a wrong does not make it right, and what is not right cannot be made advantageous, because nature resists it. So neither Gyges with his invisibility ring nor the man who could grab everyone's inheritance with a snap of the fingers has any excuse.
Themes and situations
- Virtue and character
- Justice and fairness
- Nature and the cosmos
- An ethical dilemma
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