Stoic Meditations

Human beings are neither mindless drones in a beehive nor entirely self-contained individuals. We are highly social animals, and a number of ethical implications follow from this biological fact. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/support

A nice analogy from Epictetus between our choices in life and those we have when we go on a trip. Even when the trip doesn't end well... --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/support

Material things per se are indifferent, but the use we make of them is not indifferent. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/support

Trust is crucial for intimate relationships, for friendships, and even among fellow citizens. Research shows that nations with the highest degree of self-reported happiness among its citizens are those in which people feel like they can trust each other. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/support

We know how to analyze arguments, and have the skill a person needs to evaluate competent logicians. But in life what do we do? What today we say is good, tomorrow we'll swear is bad. That's because we don't pay attention. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/support

When I see that one thing, virtue, is supreme and most important, I cannot say that something else is, just to make you happy. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/support

Some become captivated by all these things and don’t want to proceed further. One is captivated by deductive or equivocal arguments, someone else by yet another ‘inn’ of this kind; and there they stay and rot as if seduced by the Sirens. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/support

People act like a traveller headed for home who stops at an inn and, finding it comfortable, decides to remain there. You’ve lost sight of your goal, man. You were supposed to drive through the inn, not park there. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/support

Why should we, as though we were born to live forever, waste our tiny span of life in declaring anger against any one? Life is a matter which does not admit of waste, and we have no spare time to throw away. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/support

Is anyone surprised at being cold in winter? At being sick at sea? Or at being jostled in the street? The mind is strong enough to bear those evils for which it is prepared. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/support

Seneca gives us a rationale and detailed instructions on how too keep a philosophical journal. And modern cognitive science confirms that it works in order to improve self-analysis and let go of negative emotions. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/support

Money is what wearies out the law-courts, sows strife between father and son, concocts poisons, and gives swords to murderers just as to soldiers: it is stained with our blood. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/support

Do you ask, what is your greatest fault? It is, that you keep your accounts wrongly: you set a high value upon what you give, and a low one upon what you receive. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/support

A person will never be well off to whom it is a torture to see any one better off than themselves. Have I less than I hoped for? Well, perhaps I hoped for more than I ought. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/support

It makes no sense to get angry with children or non-human animals, because they can't reason. So why get angry with an adult who has temporarily lost the use of reason? --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/support

Revenge takes up much time, and throws itself in the way of many injuries while it is smarting under one. We all retain our anger longer than we feel our hurt. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/support

Let us  be more gentle one to another: we are bad people, living among bad people. There is only one thing which can afford us peace, and that is to agree to forgive one another. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/support

Say to fortune: Do what you will, you are too feeble to disturb my serenity: this is forbidden by reason, to whom I have entrusted the guidance of my life: to become angry would do me more harm than your violence can do me. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/support

Seneca runs us through a long list of reasons why people do us wrong. And then concludes that we should be magnanimous, not vengeful, toward them, in part because they are human beings like us, and like us they make mistakes. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/support

Let us replace all of anger’s symptoms by their opposites; let us make our countenance more composed than usual, our voice milder, our step slower. Our inward thoughts gradually become influenced by our outward demeanor. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/support