The Daily Stoic

There is a fascinating statue of Seneca and Nero done by the Spanish sculptor Eduardo Barrón in 1904. Even though it depicts a scene centuries after the fact, it manages to capture the timeless elements of the two men’s characters. Seneca , well into old age, sits with his legs crossed, draped in a beautiful toga but otherwise unadorned. Spread across his lap and onto the simple bench is a documen...

Epictetus tells us the story of a Stoic philosopher named Agrippinus, who, during Nero’s reign, was delivered some awful news one morning: He was exiled. Effective immediately. Agrippinus’s response? “Very well, we shall take our lunch in Aricia.”  Meaning: We might as well get this show on the road. No use bemoaning or weeping about it. Hey, is anyone else hungry?   That’s how a Stoic responds—th...

There's a long-standing connection between philosophy and soldiering. Marcus Aurelius , Cato , Socrates, and many other philosophers were all soldiers. James Stockdale , whose A-4E Skyhawk was shot down over Vietnam, was too. As he recounts: “After ejection I had about thirty seconds to make my last statement in freedom before I landed…And so help me, I whispered to myself: ‘Five years down t...

The causes of things are complicated, and rarely do they go how we’d like them to go . So it’s easy to point the finger—at other people, at unfair conditions, at the weather, at the advice we got. If it hadn’t been for _______, I’d have won. Why did so-and-so have to get involved like that? It’s all _______’s fault. And yet, the causes of things are also quite simple—at least according to the Stoi...

We are what our choices make us. Do we walk the fifteen minutes to work, or do we take an Uber? Hit the snooze button, or get up early? Do we have the difficult conversation, or hide from it? Is good enough really good enough?  Will you resolve to be better this year? Or just stay the same? It’s your choice. And what you choose is who you are.  The Stoics believed that a beautiful life was the res...

The first Saturday Q&A episode. In each of these episodes, Ryan will answer questions from fans about Stoicism. You can also find these videos on the Daily Stoic YouTube channel . See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info .

In his fascinating biography, The House of Percy , Bertram Wyatt-Brown describes a beautiful scene involving William Alexander Percy, the son of a senator, a poet, and lifelong student of the Stoics. Percy is sitting on a hill looking down into the ruins of an ancient Greek amphitheatre, thinking of Marcus Aurelius . “Though pagan,” Wyatt-Brown writes, “the Stoics recognized the brotherhood of man...

Although we know nearly nothing about Seneca’s family life or how his children turned out, we know at least that he gave good advice. We know that as a wealthy, powerful, and famous man, the deck was stacked against him. These are corrosive, corrupting influences, particularly on children. Yet it was clearly quite important to Seneca to raise a normal kid—and to encourage everyone else to do the s...

There are lots of ways to spot a foolish person. They say dumb things. They make unforced errors. They make the same unforced error over and over again. You tend to recognize one when you see one.  Seneca, quoting Epicurus , had a good test: “The fool, with all his other faults, has this also—he is always getting ready to live.”  Indeed, just about the most foolish thing you can hear—coming from s...

There is something strange you find when you study the early Stoics. Not Marcus Aurelius and Seneca and Epictetus , but the Stoics who influenced them. The names you don’t hear much: Cleanthes. Posidonius. Panaetius. Aristo. Antipater. Chrysippus. What you find—beside the fact that these were living, breathing, human beings with all sorts of interesting experiences—is that you start to notice just...

Reputation is a powerful thing. The desire to keep it, maintain it, to not betray it, was a force that made someone like Cato unstoppable. On the other hand, the desire to make it—to have a name that people know—can just as easily be a kind of deceiving, seductive distraction. Marcus Aurelius warned against chasing fame, because of how worthless it was and how easily it could be achieved by ignobl...

Here’s an interesting exercise. Pull up a Spotify playlist for hits from the ‘90s . Or turn on a satellite radio station built around that time. As you listen to the songs, note how many you recognize and how many you’ve never heard of. Now go back an era or two and do the same thing for the ‘80s or for the second wave of classic rock. Then do it again for real oldies. As you keep going backwards,...

In a famous exchange— which we wrote about a while back —Agrippinus explained why he was spurning an invitation to attend some banquet being put on by Nero. Not only was he spurning it, he said, but he had not even considered associating with such a madman.  A fellow philosopher, the one who had felt inclined to attend, asked for an explanation. Agrippinus responded with an interesting analogy. He...

One question you hear the comedian Marc Maron ask a lot of standups and actors at the beginning of his interviews is: Who did you come up with? Who were your guys? By that he means, who were the comedians starting out around the same time as you? Who was there at the beginning with you? It’s interesting how almost every one of Maron’s guests seems to be part of some kind of a cohort of fellow come...

We all want to be liked. We want the acceptance of our peers. We want to be chosen. We want the stamp of approval—from the critics, from the crowd, from the market. This makes sense...except it doesn’t.  Is it not true that most people are not very bright, hold regressive or alarming opinions, and generally follow the herd? And yet somehow we think it’s vindication when they love us? It’s nonsense...

Nobody cared more about statues than the Greeks and the Romans. In fact, the only reason we know what many of the Stoics looked like is because they were preserved in marble by sculptors many thousands of years ago. It wasn’t just philosophers who knew the value of statues. Leaders put up statues in nearly every important place within the realms that they ruled so that we might look upon and be in...

The viciousness of the mob is one of the darker themes in Roman history. There was the angry crowd that tore Saturninus to pieces during Marius’s time. There were the grieving, angry citizens who, riled up by Mark Antony’s funeral oration after the death of Caesar, murdered the poet Cinna just because he had the same name as one of the conspirators.  It’s scary what a group of people can do when t...

On this day of American Thanksgiving, we’re supposed to make time for thanks, to actively think about that word that has become almost cliché in wellness circles: gratitude. But what is gratitude? Some people think of it as being thankful for all the good things you have in your life. Others see it as the act of acknowledging what people have done for you or what you appreciate about others.  Whil...

Queen Elizabeth I was a remarkable woman. She was uncommon and special is so many ways. She was believed to have known nine languages. She was considered one of the best educated women of her time. And she presided over many English battle victories.  And yet in one other way, she was incredibly common—not unlike so many of us: She basically refused to think of her own mortality. Maybe she was too...

One of the most inspiring themes in the history of Stoicism is how the Stoics responded to tyrants and to adversity. There was Cato , refusing to roll over and just let Caesar destroy the Republic to which Cato had dedicated his life. There was Thrasea defying Nero, “Nero can kill me, but he cannot harm me.” There was Agrippinus shrugging off exile, refusing to kowtow to anyone who wanted him to b...

Some people will love you. Some people will hate you. One day, Marcus Aurelius wrote, the crowd will cheer and worship you. Other days they’ll hit you with brickbats and hate.  You get a lucky break sometimes—get more credit and attention than you deserve. Other times you’ll get held to an impossibly unfair standard. They’ll build you up, and then tear you down—and act like it was your fault you g...

We talk about the importance of positive thinking. Of making sure we are surrounded by good vibes and good energy. Of cutting out the negative influences of social media and the news. Of looking for the good in everything we see. And, of course, that is important. But it can also be dangerous. Because it sets us up to be disappointed, even horrified, when our bubble is pierced. When we are forced...

There is so much on our plate. We have emails to respond to. Calls to make. There is that meeting in a couple hours. The folks we met with yesterday are waiting on an answer or a decision we promised we’d make. Twitter beckons. So do our hopes and dreams.  And yet as many directions as we find ourselves pulled in, it’s safe to assume that Marcus Aurelius was under even more tension. Make no mistak...

The cycle would be almost humorous by now if it were not so sad. Politicians who have sat idly by, not doing their jobs to address the vexing, pressing problems of our time, rush in when tragedy strikes. Whether it’s a natural disaster that caught a city off guard, or another senseless mass shooting, these folks are there—or rather are there on Twitter— to offer their “thoughts and prayers” to the...

We all want more peace, right? More stillness. The quiet confidence that comes from being on the right path, as Seneca described it , and not being distracted by all those which crisscross ours.  Well, how do you get that?  It’s simple, Marcus Aurelius wrote . Stop caring what other people think. Stop caring what they do. Stop caring what they say. All that matters, he writes, is what you do . Eve...