Pythagoras — "Concern should drive us into action and not into a depression. No man is free wh…"
Concern should drive us into action and not into a depression. No man is free who is not master of himself.
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More from Pythagoras
"The number seven held a sacred meaning since it correlated with the number of classical planets... as well as the number of strings on a lyre."
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"Friends are as companions on a journey, who ought to aid each other to persevere in the road to a happier life."
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About Pythagoras (c. 570-495 BCE)
Greek philosopher and mathematician whose school in Croton combined geometry (the Pythagorean theorem), number-mysticism, and a religious-vegetarian way of life. Closely associated with Thales of Miletus (earlier pre-Socratic and the first philosopher). For an intellectual contrast, see Heraclitus, pre-Socratic Greek philosopher of flux — Heraclitus called Pythagoras 'the chief of swindlers' — among the founding insults of the philosophical-rivalry tradition. Their 'all is flux' vs 'all is number' poles still organize the philosophy of mathematics today (Platonist vs anti-realist).
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Understanding this quote
What it means
When something worries you, let that worry push you to act rather than paralyze you. True freedom isn't about external circumstances — it's about governing your own impulses, emotions, and reactions. A person ruled by fear, appetite, or passion is a slave regardless of their social status. Self-mastery is the prerequisite for any meaningful autonomy.
Relevance to Pythagoras
Pythagoras founded a philosophical brotherhood in Croton demanding strict personal discipline — specific diet, silence, daily self-examination. He believed the soul's purification required mastering bodily desires. His mathematical worldview held that order and ratio govern the cosmos; a person mirroring that internal order through self-control embodied his highest ideal of the rational, liberated life.
The era
In 6th-century BCE Greece, most humans were literally enslaved or bound by tyrants. Pythagoras taught in Magna Graecia during constant political upheaval and factional violence. Stoic philosophy hadn't yet codified these ideas — Pythagoras was pioneering the notion that inner governance mattered more than civic status, radical when freedom meant only birthright or military conquest.
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