Stoic #11
It’s not at all that we have too short a time to live, but that we squander a great deal of it. Life is long enough, and it’s given in sufficient measure to do many great tings if we spend it well. But when it’s poured down the drain of luxury and neglect, when it’s…
Daily Stoic #9
What is the fruit of these teachings? Only the most beautiful and proper harvest of the truly educated – tranquility, fearlessness, and freedom. We should not trust the masses who say only the free can be educated, but rather the lovers of wisdom who say that only the educated are free. -Epictetus, Discourses, 2.1.21-23a
Daily Stoic #8
Does the light of a lamp shine and keep its glow until its fuel is spent? Why shouldn’t your truth, justice, and self-control shine until you are extinguished? Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 12.15
Daily Stoic #7
Leisure without study is death – a tomb for the living person Seneca, Moral Letters, 82.4
Daily Stoic #6
Being unexpected adds to the weight of a disaster, and being a surprise has never failed to increase a person’s pain. For that reason, nothing should ever be unexpected by us. Our Minds Should be sent out in advance to all things and we shouldn’t just consider the normal course of things, but what could…
Daily Stoic #5
Remember that your ruling reason becomes unconquerable when it rallies and relies on itself, so that it won’t do anything contrary to its own will, even if its position is irrational. How much more unconquerable if its judgments are careful and made rationally? Therefore, the mind freed from passions is an impenetrable fortress – a…
Daily Stoic #4
Remember that to change your mind and to follow someone’s correction are consistent with a free will. For the action is yours alone – to fulfill its purpose in keeping with your impulse and judgement, and yes, with your intelligence. Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 8.16
Daily Stoic #3
“Whenever you suffer pain, keep in mind that it’s nothing to be ashamed of and that it can’t degrade your guiding intelligence, nor keep it from acting rationally and for the common good. And in most cases you should be helped by the saying of Epicurus, that pain is never unbearable or unending, so you…
Daily Stoic #2
“The Chief task in life is simply this: to identify and separate matters so that I can say clearly to myself which are externals not under my control, and which have to do with the choices I actually control. Where then do I look for good and evil? Not to uncontrollable externals, but within myself…
Daily Stoic #1
“No, it is events that give rise to fear – when another has power over them or can prevent them, that person becomes able to inspire fear. How is the fortress destroyed? Not by iron or fire, but by judgments . . . here is where we must begin, and it is from this front…