Death Did Not Frighten Socrates
Men are disturbed not by things, but by the views which they take of things. Death is nothing terrible, else it would have appeared so to Socrates. The terror is the notion that death is terrible. When you are hindered, disturbed, or grieved, do not impute it to others. Impute it to your own views. The uninstructed person reproaches others for his misfortunes. The person entering instruction reproaches himself. The person perfectly instructed reproaches neither.
Key Insight
The test is not whether the event is large. The test is whether a trained mind would have to take it as a catastrophe. Socrates is the control case. If death did not appear terrible to him, the terror is not in the dying. It is in the story you added.
“Thus death is nothing terrible, else it would have appeared so to Socrates. But the terror consists in our notion of death, that it is terrible.”Explore full theme analysis
