Ancient philosophy

The philosophy of the Greco-Roman world from the sixth century bc to the sixth century ad laid the foundations for all subsequent Western philosophy. Its greatest figures are Socrates (fifth century bc) and Plato and Aristotle (fourth century bc). But the enormously diverse range of further important thinkers who populated the period includes the Presocratics and Sophists of the sixth and fifth centuries bc; the Stoics, Epicureans and sceptics of the Hellenistic age; and the many Aristotelian and (especially) Platonist philosophers who wrote under the Roman Empire, including the great Neoplatonist Plotinus. Ancient philosophy was principally pagan, and was finally eclipsed by Christianity in the sixth century ad, but it was so comprehensively annexed by its conqueror that it came, through Christianity, to dominate medieval and Renaissance philosophy. This eventual symbiosis between ancient philosophy and Christianity may reflect the fact that philosophical creeds in late antiquity fulfilled much the same role as religious movements, with which they shared many of their aims and practices. Only a small fraction of ancient philosophical writings have come down to us intact. The remainder can be recovered, to a greater or lesser extent, by piecing together fragmentary evidence from sources which refer to them.

Ancient philosophy was above all a product of Greece and the Greek-speaking parts of the Mediterranean, which came to include southern Italy, Sicily, western Asia and large parts of North Africa, notably Egypt. From the first century bc, a number of Romans became actively engaged in one or other of the Greek philosophical systems, and some of them wrote their own works in Latin (see Lucretius; Cicero; Seneca; Apuleius). But Greek remained the lingua franca of philosophy. Although much modern philosophical terminology derives from Latinized versions of Greek technical concepts, most of these stem from the Latin vocabulary of medieval Aristotelianism, not directly from ancient Roman philosophical writers.

2 The sixth and fifth centuries bc

The first phase, occupying most of the sixth and fifth centuries bc, is generally known as Presocratic philosophy. Its earliest practitioners (Thales; Anaximander; Anaximenes) came from Miletus, on the west coast of modern Turkey. The dominant concern of the Presocratic thinkers was to explain the origin and regularities of the physical world and the place of the human soul within it (see especially Pythagoreanism; Heraclitus; Anaxagoras; Empedocles; Democritus), although the period also produced such rebels as the Eleatic philosophers (Parmenides; Zeno of Elea; Melissus), whose radical monism sought to undermine the very basis of cosmology by reliance on a priori reasoning. The label Presocratic acknowledges the traditional view that Socrates (469399 bc) was the first philosopher to shift the focus away from the natural world to human values. In fact, however, this shift to a large extent coincides with the concerns of his contemporaries the Sophists, who professed to teach the fundamentals of political and social success and consequently were also much concerned with moral issues (see Sophists). But the persona of Socrates became, and has remained ever since, so powerful an icon for the life of moral scrutiny that it is his name that is used to mark this watershed in the history of philosophy. In the century or so following his death, many schools looked back to him as the living embodiment of philosophy and sought the principles of his life and thought in philosophical theory (see especially Socratic schools).

philosophy which embraces ethics, politics, physics, metaphysics (see FORMS, PLATONIC), epistemology (see INNATENESS IN ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY), aesthetics and psychology. The Academys most eminent alumnus was Aristotle, whose own school the Lyceum came for a time to rival the Academy's importance as an educational centre. Aristotles highly technical but also often provisional and exploratory school treatises may not have been intended for publication; at all events, they did not become widely disseminated and discussed until the late first century bc. The main philosophical treatises (leaving aside his important zoological works) include seminal studies in all the areas covered by Plato, plus logic, a branch of philosophy which Aristotle pioneered. These treatises are, like Platos, among the leading classics of Western philosophy. Platonism and Aristotelianism were to become the dominant philosophies of the Western tradition from the second century ad at least until the end of the Renaissance, and the legacy of both remains central to Western philosophy today.

4 Hellenistic philosophy
Down to the late fourth century bc, philosophy was widely seen as a search for universal understanding, so that in the major schools its activities could comfortably include, for example, biological and historical research. In the ensuing era of Hellenistic philosophy, however, a geographical split helped to demarcate philosophy more sharply as a self-contained discipline (see Hellenistic philosophy). Alexandria, with its magnificent library and royal patronage, became the new centre of scientific, literary and historical research, while the philosophical schools at Athens concentrated on those areas which correspond more closely to philosophy as it has since come to be understood. The following features were to characterize philosophy not only in the Hellenistic age but also for the remainder of antiquity. The three main parts of philosophy were most commonly labelled physics (a primarily speculative discipline, concerned with such concepts as causation, change, god and matter, and virtually devoid of empirical research), logic (which sometimes included epistemology) and ethics. Ethics was agreed to be the ultimate focus of philosophy, which was thus in essence a systematized route to personal virtue (see Aret) and happiness (see Eudaimonia). There was also a strong spiritual dimension. Ones religious beliefs that is, the way one rationalized and elaborated ones own (normally pagan) beliefs and practices concerning the divine were themselves an integral part of both physics and ethics, never a mere adjunct of philosophy. The dominant philosophical creeds of the Hellenistic age (officially 32331 bc) were Stoicism (founded by Zeno of Citium) and Epicureanism (founded by Epicurus) (see Stoicism; Epicureanism). Scepticism was also a powerful force, largely through the

1 Main features
Ancient philosophy is that of classical antiquity, which not only inaugurated the entire European philosophical tradition but has exercised an unparalleled influence on its style and content. It is conventionally considered to start with Thales in the mid sixth century bc, although the Greeks themselves frequently made Homer (c.700 bc) its true originator. Officially it is often regarded as ending in 529 ad, when the Christian emperor Justinian is believed to have banned the teaching of pagan philosophy at Athens. However, this was no abrupt termination, and the work of Platonist philosophers continued for some time in selfimposed exile (see Aristotle commentators; Neoplatonism 1; Simplicius 1). Down to and including Plato (in the first half of the fourth century bc), philosophy did not develop a significant technical terminology of its own unlike such contemporary disciplines as mathematics and medicine. It was Platos pupil Aristotle, and after him the Stoics (see Stoicism), who made truly decisive contributions to the philosophical vocabulary of the ancient world.

3 The fourth century bc

Socrates and the Sophists helped to make Athens the philosophical centre of the Greek world, and it was there, in the fourth century, that the two greatest philosophers of antiquity lived and taught, namely Plato and Aristotle. Plato, Socrates pupil, set up his school the Academy in Athens (see Academy). Platos published dialogues are literary masterpieces as well as philosophical classics, and develop, albeit unsystematically, a global

Academy (see Arcesilaus; Carneades), which in this period functioned as a critical rather than a doctrinal school, and also, starting from the last decades of the era, through Pyrrhonism (see Pyrrhonism)

5 The imperial era

The crucial watershed belongs, however, not at the very end of the Hellenistic age (31 bc, when the Roman empire officially begins), but half a century earlier in the 80s bc. Political and military upheavals at Athens drove most of the philosophers out of the city, to cultural havens such as Alexandria and Rome. The philosophical institutions of Athens never fully recovered, so that this decentralization amounted to a permanent redrawing of the philosophical map. (The chairs of Platonism, Aristotelianism, Stoicism and Epicureanism which the philosopher-emperor Marcus Aurelius (1) established at Athens in ad 176 were a significant gesture, but did not fully restore Athens former philosophical preeminence.) Philosophy was no longer, for most of its adherents, a living activity within the Athenian school founded by Plato, Aristotle, Zeno or Epicurus. Instead it was a subject pursued in small study groups led by professional teachers all over the GrecoRoman world. To a large extent, it was felt that the history of philosophy had now come to an end, and that the job was to seek the correct interpretation of the ancients by close study of their texts. One symptom of this feeling is that doxography the systematic cataloguing of philosophical and scientific opinions (see Doxography) concentrated largely on the period down to about 80 bc, as did the biographical history of philosophy written c. ad 300 by Diogenes Laertius. Another such symptom is that a huge part of the philosophical activity of late antiquity went into the composition of commentaries on classic philosophical texts. In this final phase of ancient philosophy, conveniently called imperial because it more or less coincides with the era of the Roman empire, the Hellenistic creeds were gradually eclipsed by the revival of doctrinal Platonism, based on the close study of Platos texts, out of which it developed a massively elaborate metaphysical scheme. Aristotle was usually regarded as an ally by these Platonists, and became therefore himself the focus of many commentaries (see Platonism, Early and Middle; Peripatetics; Neoplatonism; Aristotle Commentators). Despite its formal concern with recovering the wisdom of the ancients, however, this age produced many powerfully original thinkers, of whom the greatest is Plotinus.

6 Schools and movements

The early Pythagoreans constituted the first philosophical group that can be called even approximately a school. They acquired a reputation for secrecy, as well as for virtually religious devotion to the word of their founder Pythagoras. He himself said it (best known in its Latin form ipse dixit) was alleged to be their watchword. In some ways

it is more accurate to consider them a sect than a school, and their beliefs and practices were certainly intimately bound up in religious teachings about the souls purification. It is no longer accepted, as it long was, that the Athenian philosophical schools had the status of formal religious institutions for the worship of the muses. Their legal and institutional standing is in fact quite obscure. Both the Academy and the Lyceum were so named after public groves just outside the walls of Athens, in which their public activities were held. The Stoics too got their name from the public portico, or stoa, in which they met, alongside the Athenian agora. Although these schools undoubtedly also conducted classes and discussions on private premises too, it was their public profile that was crucial to their identity as schools. In the last four centuries bc, prospective philosophy students flocked to Athens from all over the Greek world, and the high public visibility of the schools there was undoubtedly cultivated partly with an eye to recruitment. Only the Epicurean school kept its activities out of the public gaze, in line with Epicurus policy of minimal civic involvement. A school normally started as an informal grouping of philosophers with a shared set of interests and commitments, under the nominal leadership of some individual, but without a strong party line to which all members owed unquestioning allegiance. In the first generation of the Academy, for example, many of Platos own leading colleagues dissented from his views on central issues. The same openness is discernible in the first generations of the other schools, even (if to a much lesser extent) that of the Epicureans. However, after the death of the founder the picture usually changed. His word thereafter became largely beyond challenge, and further progress was presented as the supplementation or reinterpretation of the founders pronouncements, rather than as their replacement. To this extent, the allegiance which in the long term bound a school together usually depended on a virtually religious reverence for the movements foundational texts, which provided the framework within which its discussions were conducted. The resemblance to the structure of religious sects is no accident. In later antiquity, philosophical and religious movements constituted in effect a single cultural phenomenon, and competed for the same spiritual and intellectual high ground. This includes Christianity, which became a serious rival to pagan philosophy (primarily Platonism) from the third century onwards, and eventually triumphed over it. In seeking to understand such spiritual movements of late antiquity as Hermetism, Gnosticism, Neo-Pythagoreanism, Cynicism (see Cynics 4) and even Neoplatonism itself, and their concern with such values as asceticism, self-purificaton and selfdivinization, it is inappropriate to insist on a sharp division between philosophy and religion . Ancient philosophy is traditionally understood as pagan and is distinguished

from the Christian Patristic philosophy of late antiquity (see Patristic philosophy). But it was possible to put pagan philosophy at the service of Judaism (see Philo of Alexandria) or Christianity (see for example Clement of Alexandria; Origen; Augustine; Boethius; Philoponus), and it was indeed largely in this latter capacity that the major systems of ancient philosophy eventually became incorporated into Medieval philosophy and Renaissance philosophy, which they proceeded to dominate. This extensive overlap between philosophy and religion also reflects to some extent the pervasive influence of philosophy on the entire culture of the ancient world. Rarely regarded as a detached academic discipline, philosophy frequently carried high political prestige, and its modes of discourse came to infect disciplines as diverse as medicine, rhetoric, astrology, history, grammar and law. The work of two of the greatest scientists of the ancient world, the doctor Galen and the astronomer Ptolemy, was deeply indebted to their respective philosophical backgrounds.

7 Survival
A very substantial body of works by ancient philosophical writers has survived in manuscript. These are somewhat weighted towards those philosophers above all Plato, Aristotle and the Neoplatonists who were of most immediate interest to the Christian culture which preserved them throughout the Middle Ages, mainly in the monasteries, where manuscripts were assiduously copied and stored. Some further ancient philosophical writings have been recovered through translations into Arabic and other languages, or on excavated scraps of papyrus. The task of reconstituting the original texts of these works has been a major preoccupation of modern scholarship. For the vast majority of ancient philosophers, however, our knowledge of them depends on secondary reports of their words and ideas in other writers, of whom some are genuinely interested in recording the history of philosophy, but others bent on discrediting the views they attribute to them. In such cases of secondary attestation, strictly a fragment is a verbatim quotation, while indirect reports are called testimonia. However, this distinction is not always rigidly maintained and indeed the sources on which we rely rarely operate with any explicit distinction between quotation and paraphrase. It is a tribute to the philosophical genius of the ancient world that, despite the suppression and distortion which its contributions have suffered over two millennia, they remain central to any modern conspectus of what philosophy is and can be.

Pre-Socratic Philosophy
Pre-Socratic philosophy is Greek philosophy before Socrates (but includes schools contemporary with Socrates which were not influenced by him[1]). In

Classical antiquity, the Presocratic philosophers were called physiologoi (in English, physical or natural philosophers).[2] Diogenes Lartius divides the physiologoi into two groups, Ionian and Italiote, led by Anaximander and Pythagoras, respectively.[3] Hermann Diels popularized the term presocratic in Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker (The Fragments of the PreSocratics) in 1903. However, the term pre-Sokratic was in use as early as George Grote's Plato and the Other Companions of Sokrates in 1865. Major analyses of pre-Socratic thought have been made by Gregory Vlastos, Jonathan Barnes, and Friedrich Nietzsche in his Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks. It may sometimes be difficult to determine the actual line of argument some Presocratics used in supporting their particular views. While most of them produced significant texts, none of the texts has survived in complete form. All that is available are quotations by later philosophers (often biased) and historians, and the occasional textual fragment. The Presocratic philosophers rejected traditional mythological explanations of the phenomena they saw around them in favor of more rational explanations. These philosophers asked questions about "the essence of things.

designed to test and refine the proposition by examining its consequences and discovering whether it was consistent with the known facts. The philosopher's task, Socrates believed, was to provoke people into thinking for themselves, rather than to teach them anything they did not already know. Socrates taught that every person has full knowledge of ultimate truth contained within his soul and needs only to be spurred to conscious reflection in order to become aware of it. In Plato's dialogue Meno Socrates guides an untutored slave to the formulation of Pythagorean theorem, thus demonstrating that such knowledge is innate in the soul, rather than learned form experience. Socrates described the soul not in terms of mysticism but as "that in virtue of which we are called wise or foolish, good or bad". In other words, Socrates considered the soul to be a combination of an individual's intelligence and character. It seems that Socrates had studied the speculations of the Ionians and the Atomists about the nature of the world, but had been disappointed by them and so had turned to the study of man himself. In this concern with moral questions Socrates is, in a sense, a descendant of the Sophists. Moreover he makes use of the dialectic method of the Sophists, though with him this method is always used in the service of the truth. The Socratic Method assumes a trust in reason and objective truth and emphasizes that one must, in acquiring knowledge, begin by being humble before reality. His contribution to the history of thought was not a systematic doctrine but a method of thinking and a way of life. He stressed the need for analytical examination of the grounds of one's beliefs, for clear definitions of basic concepts, and for a rational and critical approach to ethical problems. Socrates left no writings as records of his thought, but his teachings were preserved for later generations in the dialogues of his famous pupil Plato.

Plato was a more systematic and positive thinker than Socrates, but his writings, particularly the earlier dialogues, may be regarded as a continuation and elaboration of Socratic insights. Plato carried on Socrates' interest in moral questions and the Socratic idealism was organized by Plato into a philosophy. Plato's Biography Plato came from an ancient, noble Greek family; on his mothers side he was related to Solon, on his father's to the early kings of Athens. He seemed slated for an easy life. However, the Greece of his youth was no paradise for aristocrats. In the unrest following the Peloponnesian War, two of Plato's relatives led a rebellion against the oligarchical government and were killed in the attempt. Not long after, Socrates, who was Plato's mentor, was tried and condemned to death. Plato fled from Athens and traveled for years - perhaps as far as Egypt, where he may have studied mathematics and history under the priests. After a 12-ear return to Athens, he went on another intellectual pilgrimage, during which he was sold into slavery. Ransomed by his friends and back in Athens, he founded the Academy. It was supported by parents of students and by the aristocracy. Dionysius II was supposed to have given Plato 80 talents (the equivalent of over half a million dollars). Students of the school studied mathematics, philosophy, music and law. Plato believed that ideas were the sole reality. His most famous works were The Laws and The Republic, in both of which he described his utopia. In spite of his high-mindedness, he also had an earthy streak and an eye for human detail.

Socratic Philosophy
Socrates

Perhaps the greatest philosophical personality in history was Socrates. Unlike the Sophists, Socrates refused to accept payment for his teachings, maintaining that he had no positive knowledge to offer, except the awareness of the need for more knowledge. Despite his humble self-opinion, it was through Socrates that Greek philosophy attained its highest level. His avowed purpose was "to fulfill the philosopher's mission of searching into myself and other men".

Plato's Philosophy
Like Socrates he was concerned to show that there were objective standards of right and wrong and that justice was not just a matter of convention. Plato also continued the speculations of the preSocratic philosophers on change, and endeavored to reconcile Heraclitus' doctrine with that of Parmenides through his famous doctrine of the Forms. Thus Plato believed, with Heraclitus, that the things of the world are subject to change and impermanence, but that these things, observed by the senses, are participators in ideal Forms, which exist apart from the material world and are unchanging and, as such known only by the mind.

The Socratic Method

Socrates was not a systematic philosopher and was content to teach mainly by informal discussion, using the Socratic method of feigning ignorance and asking questions of people so as to expose their own lack of real knowledge. After a proposition had been stated, the philosopher asked a series of questions

Platonic Philosophy
Plato

The goal of the philosopher is to learn to know the eternal forms and to instruct others in that knowledge. Plato regarded ethics as the highest branch of knowledge; he stressed the intellectual basis of virtue, identifying virtue with wisdom. This view led to socalled "Socratic paradox that, as Socrates asserts in the Protagoras, no man does evil voluntarily". Plato also explored the fundamental problems of natural science, political theory, metaphysics, theology, and theory of knowledge and developed ideas that became permanent elements in Western thought. His theory of knowledge also is implicit in his theory of ideas. Plato stated that both the material objects perceived and the men perceiving them as constantly changing; but, since knowledge must be concerned only with unchangeable and universal objects, knowledge and perception are fundamentally different. The basis of Plato's philosophy is his theory of Ideas, or doctrine of forms. The theory of Ideas which is expressed in many of his dialogues, particularly the Republic and the Parmenides, divides existence into two realms, an "intelligible realm" of perfect, eternal and invisible Ideas, or forms, and a "sensible realm" of concrete, familiar objects. In the Republic Plato describes mankind as imprisoned ina cave and as mistaking shadows on the wall for reality; he regards the philosopher as the man who penetrates the world outside the cave of ignorance and achieves a vision of the true reality, the realm of Ideas. Plato's concept of the Absolute Idea of the Good, which is the highest form and includes all others, has been a main source of pantheistic and mystical religious doctrines in Western culture.

tyrant of Syracuse. Returning to Athens he founded the Academy in 387, aiming to train men as philosopher rulers. Attempting to put his ideas into practice, Plato returned to Syracuse in 367 and again in 361 as tutor to Dionysius II. The young ruler resented Plato's efforts and broke with his uncle, Dion, who was eventually assassinated. Plato returned to Athens and the Academy where he taught until his death. Probably the greatest formative influence on the young Plato was Socrates. Although not regarding himself as a disciple of Socrates, Plato counted the older man his and was deeply distressed by his death at the hands of Athenian democrats. He used many of Socrates' ideas in his Dialogues and also used him as a mouthpiece for his own thoughts.

philosophy similarly developed out of a critical elaboration of Platonic principles. The standards of personal and social behavior, according to Aristotle, must be found in the scientific study of the natural tendencies of individuals and societies rather than in a heavenly realm of pure forms. Less insistent therefore than Plato on a rigorous conformity to absolute principles, Aristotle regarded ethical rules as practical guides to a happy and well-rounded life. This emphasis on happiness, as the active fulfillment of natural capacities, expressed the attitude towards life of the cultivated Greek of his time. In political theory, Aristotle took a more realistic position than Plato. He agreed that a monarchy ruled by a wise king would be the ideal political structure, but recognized that societies differ in their needs and traditions and that a limited democracy is usually the best compromise. In his theory of knowledge, Aristotle rejected the Platonic doctrine that knowledge is innate and insisted that it can be acquired only by generalization from experience. His work on aesthetics interpreted art as a means of pleasure and intellectual enlightenment rather than an instrument of moral education. His analysis of Greek tragedy has served as a model of literary criticism from the ancient to modern period. In the writings of Plato and Aristotle the dominant strains of idealism and materialism in Greek philosophy reached, respectively, their highest expression, producing a body of thought that continues to influence philosophical inquiry. Subsequent Greek philosophy, reflecting period of civil unrest and individual insecurity, was less concerned with the nature of the world than with the problems of the individual human being. During this period four major schools of largely materialistic philosophy arose: that of the Cynics, and those espousing Epicureanism, Skepticism and Stoicism.

Aristotelian Philosophy
Aristotle
Aristotle, the most illustrious pupil of Plato, ranks with his teacher among the most profound and influential thinkers of the Western world. After studying many years at Plato's Academy, Aristotle became the tutor of the Macedonian king Alexander III. He later returned to Athens to found the Lyceum, a school that, like Plato's Academy, remained for centuries one of the great centers of learning in Greece. In his lectures at the Lyceum, Aristotle defined the basic concepts and principles of many many of the theoretical sciences, such as logic, biology, physics, and psychology. In founding the science of logic he developed the theory of deductive inference, he represented by the syllogism, and a set of rules of scientific method.

Aristotle's Philosophic Leanings

The early works of Aristotle were Platonic in spirit, and it was only gradually that he came to take up the independent position and to criticize the Platonic theory. Aristotle was the first to study in a systematic way the method and the scope of philosophy as a distinct branch of enquiry, and it may be said that, with him, philosophy becomes fully selfconscious. His theory of Logic still remains substantially the basis of that sphere of philosophy. Aristotle's political and ethical

Plato's Life and Influences

Born in Athens to a distinguished family with political connections, he was tempted to enter government service but was disillusioned by the extreme nature of contemporary politics. The execution of the philosopher Socrates in 399 BC shocked him profoundly and in company with friends he fled to Megara where Euclid taught. Plato traveled in Greece and possibly Egypt, Italy and Sicily during the next few years, befriending Dion, brother of Dionysius,

Billionaire
By Bruno Mars
A C#m I wanna be a billionaire so fricking bad

F#m E Buy all of the things I never had A C#m Uh, I wanna be on the cover of Forbes magazine F#m E Smiling next to Oprah and the Queen [Chorus] D E F#m Oh every time I close my eyes D E F#m I see my name in shining lights D E F#m E A different city every night oh I D E I swear the world better prepare F#m For when I'm a billionaire [Travis "Travie" McCoy] (F#m, E throughout the verses) F#m Yeah I would have a show like Oprah E I would be the host of, everyday Christmas Give Travie a wish list I'd probably pull an Angelina and Brad Pitt And adopt a bunch of babies that ain't never had sh-t Give away a few Mercedes like here lady have this And last but not least grant somebody their last wish Its been a couple months since I've single so You can call me Travie Claus minus the Ho Ho Get it, hehe, I'd probably visit where Katrina hit And damn sure do a lot more than FEMA did

Yeah can't forget about me stupid Everywhere I go Imma have my own theme music

Go in your pocket pull out your wallet And put it in the air and sing [Bruno Mars] I wanna be a billionaire so fricking bad Buy all of the things I never had Uh, I wanna be on the cover of Forbes magazine Smiling next to Oprah and the Queen [Chorus] I wanna be a billionaire so frickin bad!

[Chorus] D E F#m Oh every time I close my eyes D E F#m I see my name in shining lights D E F#m E A different city every night oh I D E I swear the world better prepare F#m For when I'm a billionaire D E F#m Oh oooh oh oooh for when I'm a Billionaire D E Oh oooh oh oooh... [Travis "Travie" McCoy] I'll be playing basketball with the President Dunking on his delegates Then I'll compliment him on his political etiquette Toss a couple milli in the air just for the heck of it But keep the fives, twentys (?) completely separate And yeah I'll be in a whole new tax bracket We in recession but let me take a crack at it I'll probably take whatevers left and just split it up So everybody that I love can have a couple bucks And not a single tummy around me would know what hungry was Eating good sleeping soundly I know we all have a similar dream

Today My Life Begins

By Bruno Mars
Verse 1: C G i've been working hard so long Dm Dm seems like pain has been my only friend

C G my fragile heart's been done so wrong Dm Dm i wondered if i'd ever heal again Dm Em ohh just like all the seasons never stay the same F G all around me i can feel a change (ohh)

Chorus: C G Am I will break these chains that bind me, happiness will find me F C leave the past behind me, today my life begins G Am a whole new world is waiting it's mine for the taking F C i know i can make it, today my life begins Verse 2: C G Yesterday has come and gone Dm Dm and i've learn how to leave it where it is C G and i see that i was wrong Dm Dm for ever doubting i could win Dm Em ohh just like all the seasons never stay the same F G All around me i can feel a change (ohh)

C G Am I will break these chains that bind me, happiness will find me F C leave the past behind me, today my life begins G Am a whole new world is waiting it's mine for the taking F Dm i know i can make it, today my life begins Dm G life's to short to have regrets Am Dm so i'm learning now to leave it in the past and try to forget G only have one life to live Dm G so you better make the best of it Repeat Chorus (2x) Chorus: C G Am I will break these chains that bind me, happiness will find me F C leave the past behind me, today my life begins G Am a whole new world is waiting it's mine for the taking F C i know i can make it, today my life begins