Tusculan Disputations 1 ¶48–51 — Cicero (on the Stoics)

Cicero (on the Stoics), Tusculan Disputations 1 ¶48–51

M. As if it did not follow that whatever you speak of in that manner either is or is not. Are you not acquainted with the first principles of logic? For this is the first thing they lay down, Whatever is asserted (for that is the best way that occurs to me, at the moment, of rendering the Greek term, ἀξίωμα, if I can think of a more accurate expression hereafter, I will use it), is asserted as being either true or false. When, therefore, you say, “Miserable M. Crassus,” you either say this, “M. Crassus is miserable,” so that some judgment may be made whether it is true or false, or you say nothing at all. A. Well, then, I now own that the dead are not miserable, since you have drawn from me a concession that they who do not exist at all cannot be miserable. What then? We that are alive, are we not wretched, seeing we must die? for what is there agreeable in life, when we must night and day reflect that, at some time or other, we must die? M. Do you not, then, perceive how great is the evil from which you have delivered human nature? A. By what means?