Great Souls Undertake Useful Projects

What Cicero and Teddy Roosevelt teach us about work and life.

Cicero (106BC — 43BC) was one of Ancient Rome’s most famous orators. He famously wrote to a friend that “if you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need”.

Similarly, Epicurus — the ancient Greek philosopher who lended his name to Epicureanism — left the hustle and bustle of Athens to cultivate a garden with his friends. There, they lived off the land, and endlessly pondered philosophical questions.

Buddhist monks too withdraw from society to join monasteries de to their religious practice. In fact, the work monk is derived from the Greek word monos, which means alone. Here, like the Epicureans, they can forever meditate and contemplate life’s big questions.

We might take all of this to suggest that we too, in our quest for an enlightened, spiritual life, should quit our jobs, and withdraw to a nearby mountaintop.

But while a garden and a library might be everything you need, we weren’t born for ourselves — and this is something that Cicero himself asserted in On Living and Dying Well.

Cicero says that we were born to serve other people, and that life’s greatest law is “the good of the people”. According to the great orator, great souls…