Stoic Meditations

Either you’re going to be depressed when your wish is not realized or foolishly pleased with yourself if it is, overjoyed for the wrong reasons. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/support

The more we value things outside our control, the less control we have. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/support

Very little is needed for everything to be upset and ruined, only a slight lapse in reason. It’s much easier for a mariner to wreck his ship than it is for him to keep it sailing safely. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/support

If you forfeit an external possession, make sure to notice what you get in return. If it is something more valuable, never say, ‘I have suffered a loss.’ --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/support

Formerly, when you were devoted to worthless pursuits, your friends found you congenial company. But you can’t be a hit in both roles. To the extent you cultivate one you will fall short in the other. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/support

Freedom is not achieved by satisfying desire, but by eliminating it. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/support

A plant or animal fares poorly when it acts contrary to its nature; and a human being is no different. Well, then, biting, kicking, wanton imprisonment and beheading–is that what our nature entails? No; rather, acts of kindness, cooperation and good will. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/support

Whoever told you, ‘Walking is your irrevocable privilege’? I said only that the will to walk could not be obstructed. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/support

What makes for freedom and fluency in the practice of writing? Knowledge of how to write. The same goes for the practice of playing an instrument. It follows that, in the conduct of life, there must be a science to living well. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/support

So you admit that you have at least one master. And don’t let the fact that Caesar rules over everyone, as you say, console you: it only means that you’re a slave in a very large household. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/support

Who wants to live with delusion and prejudice, being unjust, undisciplined, mean and ungrateful? ‘No one.’ No bad person, then, lives the way he wants, and no bad person is free. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/support

Everyone is fond of contemplation. Some make it the object of their lives: to us it is an anchorage, but not a harbor. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/support

There are three kinds of life, and it is a stock question which of the three is the best: the first is devoted to pleasure, the second to contemplation, the third to action. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/support

What is the sage’s purpose in devoting themselves to leisure? They know that in leisure as well as in action they will accomplish something by which they will be of service to posterity. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/support

It is by no means desirable that one should merely strive to accumulate property without any love of virtue. Similarly, virtue placed in leisure without action is but an incomplete and feeble good thing, because she never displays what she has learned. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/support

We have a habit of saying that the highest good is to live according to nature: now nature has produced us for both purposes, for contemplation and for action. … Nature has [also] bestowed upon us an inquiring disposition. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/support

We are born by accident into a specific nation, but we naturally belong to the human cosmopolis. Reflecting on the nature of virtue and practicing it every day is one way to serve both our fellow citizens and humanity at large. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/support

The duty of a human being is to be useful to his fellow human beings; if possible, to many of them; failing this, to a few; failing this, to oneself: for when we help others, we advance the general interests of humanity. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/support

If the state is so rotten as to be past helping, if evil has entire dominion over it, the wise man will not labour in vain or waste his strength in unprofitable efforts. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/support

Epicurus says, “The wise man will not take part in politics, except upon some special occasion.” Zeno says, “The wise man will take part in politics, unless prevented by some special circumstance.” --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/support