Quintus Sextius

Quintus Sextius the Elder (c. 50 BC) was a Roman philosopher, whose philosophy combined pythagoreanism with stoicism.

Sentences of Sextus

 * The sage and the contemner of wealth most resemble God.


 * You have in yourself some thing similar to God, and therefore use yourself as the temple of God, on account of that which in you resembles God.


 * The greatest honor which can be paid to God is to know and imitate him.


 * Consider lost all the time in which you do not think of divinity.


 * A good intellect is the choir of divinity.


 * Be not anxious to please the multitude


 * Accustom your soul after (it has conceived all that is great of) divinity, to conceive something great of itself.


 * Nothing is so peculiar to wisdom as truth.


 * To live, indeed, is not in our power; but to live rightly is.


 * There is danger, and no negligible one, to speak of God even the things that are true.


 * You should not dare to speak of God to the multitude.


 * He who is worthy of God is also a god among men.


 * He best honors God who makes his intellect as like God as possible.


 * It is not death; but a bad life, which destroys the soul.

Quotes about Quintus Sextius

 * We then had read to us a book by Quintus Sextius the Elder. He is a great man, if you have any confidence in my opinion, and a real Stoic, though he himself denies it. Ye Gods, what strength and spirit one finds in him! This is not the case with all philosophers; there are some men of illustrious name whose writings are sapless. They lay down rules, they argue, and they quibble; they do not infuse spirit simply because they have no spirit. But when you come to read Sextius you will say: "He is alive; he is strong; he is free; he is more than a man; he fills me with a mighty confidence before I close his book." I shall acknowledge to you the state of mind I am in when I read his works: I want to challenge every hazard; I want to cry: "Why keep me waiting, Fortune? Enter the lists! Behold, I am ready for you!" I assume the spirit of a man who seeks where he may make trial of himself where he may show his worth … I want something to overcome, something on which I may test my endurance. For this is another remarkable quality that Sextius possesses: he will show you the grandeur of the happy life and yet will not make you despair of attaining it; you will understand that it is on high, but that it is accessible to him who has the will to seek it.
 * Seneca, Moral letters to Lucilius, LXIV, 2-5


 * Sotion used to tell me why Pythagoras abstained from animal food, and why, in later times, Sextius did also. In each case, the reason was different, but it was in each case a noble reason. Sextius believed that man had enough sustenance without resorting to blood, and that a habit of cruelty is formed whenever butchery is practised for pleasure. Moreover, he thought we should curtail the sources of our luxury; he argued that a varied diet was contrary to the laws of health, and was unsuited to our constitutions.
 * Seneca, Moral letters to Lucilius, CVIII, 17-18