Accustom thyself to believe that death is nothing to us … For life has no terrors for him who has thoroughly apprehended that there are no terrors for him in ceasing to live. Foolish, therefore, is the man who says that he fears death, not because it will pain when it comes, but because it pains in the prospect … Death, therefore, the most awful of evils, is nothing to us, seeing that, when we are, death is not come, and, when death is come, we are not.
letters, as recorded by Diogenes Laertius in Lives of Eminent Philosophers (volume 2), p. 651 – a basic component of Stoic philosophy
– a basic component of Stoic philosophy
Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?
attributed to, as quoted in Huberman, The Quotable Atheist, p. 106-107