After hearing author Ryan Holiday on a podcast, I was intrigued with his knowledge of Stoicism and just how the philosophy aligned with my core values. After purchasing The Daily Stoic: 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living and Lives of the Stoics: The Art of Living from Zeno to Marcus Aurelius I decided to document my journey. Here I will share my anecdote while learning and reflecting on Stoicism and how I plan to apply it to my life.
“How appropriate that the gods put under our control only the most powerful ability that governs all the rest — the ability to make the right use of external appearances — and that they didn't put anything else under our control. Was this simply because they weren't willing to give us more? I think if it had been possible they would have given us more, but it was impossible.”
- Epictetus, Discourses, 1.1.7–8
“For even peace itself will supply more reason for worry. Not even safe circumstances will bring you confidence once your mind has been shocked — once it gets in the habit of blind panic, it can't provide for its own safety. For it doesn't really avoid danger, it just runs away. Yet we are exposed to greater danger with our backs turned.”
- Seneca, Moral Letters, 104.10b
“Leisure without study is death — a tomb for the living person.”
- Seneca, Moral Letters, 82.4
“Show me someone who isn't a slave! One is a slave to lust, another to greed, another to power, and all are slaves to fear. I could name a former Consul who is a slave to a little old woman, a millionaire who is the slave of the cleaning woman &helips; No servitude is more abject than the self-imposed.”
- Seneca, Moral Letters, 47.17
“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 actually happen. For is there anything in life that Fortune won't knock off its high horse if it pleases her?”
- Seneca, Moral Letters, 91.3a–4
“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 person has no more secure place of refuge for all time.”
- Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 8.48