Ulfketill

Hermes addressed Marcus and said, "and you, Verus, what did you think the noblest ambition in life?" In a low voice he answered modestly, "To imitate the gods." By imitating the gods he meant Having the fewest possible needs, and doing good to the greatest possible number.

Wene þec þy betran, efn elne þis a þenden þu lifge. Train yourself for the better way, ever with courage as long as you live.

@Augusta465 You speak rightly Yet do not measure character in words, but in the moment when choice is hidden and burdened. I do believe people should be taught virtue not as ornament or opinion, but as practice.

@ulfketill A strong character isn’t built from knowing these values, but from choosing them when it’s inconvenient, unnoticed, and uncomfortable.

Compassion, Generosity, Charity, Respect, Honesty, Courage, Rectitude, Loyalty, Honour, Benevolence, Discipline, Temperance, Patience, Endurance, Humility, Justice, Clarity of Mind, Steadfastness, Apatheia, Prohairesis, Self-Mastery, and Restraint.

The world is upheld through the continual change of the elements, and of all things formed from them. Let this be accepted as an axiom. Nothing endures in fixed form; all is transformation. To understand this is enough do not resist what is in its nature to become.

I like to help others not to escape the world but to stand more firmly within it by character, example and steadiness in spirit. To honor the gods not in abstraction, but in conduct made real. That's why I post on here.

Do not concern yourself with afterlives, rebirths, heavens, or hells. Concern yourself with duty: whether you stand upright here and now, in the present. For eternity is not conquered by speculation, but by the manner in which a man lives at this moment and by his present deeds.

It is not death but a bad life that destroys the soul.

Whatever we see when awake is death; and when asleep a dream. Therefore, cling not to appearances, but govern the soul uprightly while time is still granted.

If all men despise you, yet you keep your soul upright, their hatred is nothing. For no man can injure your character unless you surrender it yourself. Slander does not diminish a man; only the abandonment of virtue in response to it.

Pierre Hadot was a believer in practical philosophy all his works are great.

That masculine urge to read about your Anglo-Saxon ancestors. Linktr.ee/thechadpastora….

Nice theory and good to have on the shelf.

Y Gododdin, Welsh poem about the Battle of Catraeth. Very small book but not many translations out there.

Thomas Moore Johnson, was a Neoplatonist from Missouri late 19th Century and he's got some good works in this collection.

Anything by Algis Uzdavinys is elite when coming to Neoplatonism or late Greek philosophical thought.

Easy to start learning Hermeticism with.

Sköll and Hati are not mere beasts of myth, but symbols of the cyclical advance of chaos upon the luminous order of the cosmos The Sun and Moon are consumed only when the inward solar principle has already faded in mankind.

The first sign of initiation is the loss of explanation

Padmasambhava said, "If you want to genuinely practice the Dharma, do what is virtuous, even the most minute deed. Renounce what is evil, even the tiniest deed. The largest ocean is made from drops of water; even Mount Sumeru and the four continents are made of tiny atoms"