Quotes About Stoicism

the art of living is more like wrestling than dancing."46

The first tip I would offer to those wishing to give Stoicism a try is to practice what I have referred to as stealth Stoicism: You would do well, I think, to keep it a secret that you are a practicing Stoic. (This would have been my own strategy, had I not taken it upon myself to become a teacher of Stoicism.) By practicing Stoicism stealthily, you can gain its benefits while avoiding one significant cost: the teasing and outright mockery of your friends, relatives, neighbors, and coworkers.

The Stoics' advocacy of sexual reserve will sound prudish to modern readers, but they had a point. We live in an age of sexual indulgence, and for many people the consequences of this indulgence have been catastrophic in terms of their peace of mind.

Stoic techniques at once but to start with one technique and, having become proficient in it, go on to another. And a good technique to start with, I think, is negative visualization.

Like Buddhists, Stoics advise us to contemplate the world's impermanence. "All things human," Seneca reminds us, "are short-lived and perishable."19

What Stoics discover, though, is that willpower is like muscle power: The more they exercise their muscles, the stronger they get, and the more they exercise their will, the stronger it gets. Indeed, by practicing Stoic self-denial techniques over a long period, Stoics can transform themselves into individuals remarkable for their courage and self-control.

the "flux and change" of the world around us are not an accident but an essential part of our universe.20

Notice that the advice that we ignore what other people think of us is consistent with the Stoic advice that we not concern ourselves with things we can't control.

They tell us to live each day as if it were our last. They tell us to practice Stoicism in part so we will not fear death.

One of the most interesting developments in my practice of Stoicism has been my transformation from someone who dreaded insults into an insult connoisseur. For one thing, I have become a collector of insults: On being insulted, I analyze and categorize the insult. For another thing, I look forward to being insulted inasmuch as it affords me the opportunity to perfect my "insult game.

OTHER PEOPLE, as we have seen, are the enemy in our battle for tranquility. It was for this reason that the Stoics spent time developing strategies for dealing with this enemy

a good man will welcome "every experience the looms of fate may weave for him."3

And when asked what he had learned from philosophy, Diogenes replied, "To be prepared for every fortune.

The Stoics became experts on argument forms, such as "If A, then B; but A, therefore B" or "Either A or B; but not A, therefore B." These argument forms, which are called modus ponens and modus tollendo ponens, respectively, are still used by logicians.

Marcus Aurelius approvingly quotes this advice.

Ideally, a Stoic will be oblivious to the services he does for others, as oblivious as a grapevine is when it yields a cluster of grapes to a vintner. He will not pause to boast about the service he has performed but will move on to perform his next service, the way the grape vine moves on to bear more grapes.

take a fatalistic attitude toward their life and refuse to spend their final years wishing, pointlessly, that it could have been different than it was.

the regular practice of negative visualization has the effect of transforming Stoics into full-blown optimists.

Others may have it in their power to affect how and even whether you live, but they do not, say the Stoics, have it in their power to ruin your life. Only you can ruin it, by failing to live in accordance with the correct values. The Stoics believed in social reform, but they also believed in personal transformation.

The Stoics, for example, did not sit around apathetically, resigned to whatever the future held in store; to the contrary, they spent their days working to affect the outcome of future events.

Stoic philosopher Seneca, about whom I will have much to say in this book, "He who studies with a philosopher should take away with him some one good thing every day: he should daily return home a sounder man, or on the way to become sounder.

Whenever you undertake an activity in which public failure is a possibility, you are likely to experience butterflies in your stomach. I mentioned above that since becoming a stoic, I have become a collector of insults. I have also become a collector of butterflies.

N?u anh th?c s? mu?n thoát kh?i nh?ng th? làm cho anh phi?n mu?n, ?i?u anh ?ang c?n làm không ph?i là chuy?n ??n m?t n?i khác mà là tr? thành m?t con ng??i khác

What comes, comes, why bark?