HKB
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Often appears with: justice as a virtue · friendship and loyalty · the passions and the emotions · temperance and self-mastery · taxation, tribute, and revenue · spirit of gravity · repentance about one’s condition · public good · pleasure, pain, and the good life · performance and good mien · matrimony and flattery · marriage and betrothal
Usually: detachment (4) · speech or oration (3) · argument (2) · irony (2) · coming of age (1) · deception discovered (1) · temptation (1) · censure (1) · exhortation (1)
“Properly speaking, it is impossible for a man to hate himself.” Thomas, Aquinas, Saint, Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) · insight
“For what is it when one kisses his mistress' freckle neck, another the wart on her nose? When a father shall swear his squint-eyed child is more lovely than Venus? What is this, I say, but mere folly? And so, perhaps you'll cry it is; and yet 'tis this only that joins friends together and continues them so joined.” Desiderius Erasmus, The Praise of Folly · insight
Zarathustra insists that to become light and fly one must love oneself with a healthy self-love, and he attacks early moral training that prevents children from loving themselves.
For to its possessor is all possession well concealed, and of all treasure-pits one’s own is last excavated—so causeth the spirit of gravity. Almost in the cradle are we apportioned with heavy words and worths: “good” and “evil”—so calleth itself this dowry. For the sake of it we are forgiven for living. And therefore suffereth one little children to come unto one, to forbid them betimes to love themselves—so cause…
He adds that legal rules for rights and obligations are changeable and aimed at public good, so they originate from adjusted self-love, and not an innate regard for the common welfare.
conduct and behaviour. This system, therefore, comprehending the interest of each individual, is of course advantageous to the public; though it be not intended for that purpose by die inventors. (2) In the second place we may observe, that all kinds of vice and virtue run insensibly into each other, and may approach by such imperceptible degrees as will make it very difficult, if not absolutely impossible, to deter…
Aquinas argues that one cannot hate oneself in the proper sense because willing good necessarily follows nature, though hatred of oneself can occur accidentally through mistaken goods or misperceived identity.
*On the contrary,* The Apostle says (Eph. 5:29) that "no man ever hated his own flesh." *I answer that,* Properly speaking, it is impossible for a man to hate himself. For everything naturally desires good, nor can anyone desire anything for himself, save under the aspect of good: for "evil is outside the scope of the will," as Dionysius says (Div. Nom. iv). Now to love a man is to will good to him, as stated above …
Folly claims friendship and matrimony depend on overlooking faults and admiring imperfections, arguing that mutual “blindness” and Self-love glue relationships together and avoid jealousy.
did not deserve the name of life; and other than such it could not well be, did not these kind of diversions wipe away tediousness, next cousin to the other. But perhaps there are some that neglect this way of pleasure and rest satisfied in the enjoyment of their friends, calling friendship the most desirable of all things, more necessary than either air, fire, or water; so delectable that he that shall take it out …
Folly insists that peace with oneself is the condition for loving others, arguing that self-love is necessary for grace in art and daily life, and that people prefer their own way over change.
nor one companion another, unless all of them had their interchangeable failings, one while flattering, other while prudently conniving, and generally sweetening one another with some small relish of folly. And now you'd think I had said all, but you shall hear yet greater things. Will he, I pray, love anyone that hates himself? Or ever agree with another who is not at peace with himself? Or beget pleasure in anothe…