bodhi tree swaying

I’ve been reading a little about the Stoics recently. They were a Greek/Roman school of philosophers who started about 300 BCE and who continued teaching until 529 CE, when the Christian emperor Justinian I banned pagan philosophies.

There are a lot of similarities between Stoicism and Buddhism. Here are two quotes that parallel each other very closely.

“…as the material of the carpenter is wood, and that of statuary bronze, so the subject-matter of the art of living is each person’s own life.”
– Epictetus

“Irrigators guide water; fletchers shape arrows; carpenters bend wood; the wise control themselves.”
– The Buddha