The health of the soul is to have its faculties, reason, high spirit and desire happily tempered, with the reason in command and reining in the other… - Philo of Alexandria

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The health of the soul is to have its faculties, reason, high spirit and desire happily tempered, with the reason in command and reining in the other two, like restive horses. The special name of this health is temperance, that is σωφροσύνη or “thought-preserving,” for it creates a preservation of one of our powers, namely that of wise-thinking.

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About Philo of Alexandria

Philo (20 BCE – 50 CE), known also as Philo of Alexandria and as Philo Judeaus, was a Hellenized Jewish philosopher born in Alexandria, Egypt. The few biographical details concerning him are found in his own works, especially in Legatio ad Gaium, ("embassy to Gaius") and in Flavius Josephus (Antiquities xviii.8, § 1; comp. ib. xix.5, § 1; xx.5, § 2).

Also Known As

Native Name: Φίλων τοῦ Ἀλεξανδρείας
Alternative Names: Philo Judeaus Philo Alexandrinus Philo Judæus Philo Philo the Jew Philio of Alexandria Philio Judæus Philio Alexandrinus
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Additional quotes by Philo of Alexandria

Moses … takes one form of desire, that one whose field of activity is the belly, and admonishes and disciplines it as the first step, holding that the other forms will cease to run riot as before and will be restrained by having learnt that their senior and as it were the leader of their company is obedient to the laws of temperance.

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And yet these things for which we should strive eagerly, things so closely akin to ourselves, so truly our own, we treat with great slackness and constant indifference and thus destroy the germs of excellence, while those things in which deficiency were a merit we desire with an insatiable yearning.

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