“Don’t listen at what people say. Don’t look at people’s appearances. Look at people’s actions, and the patterns of their behavior. For instance, I talk about Howard Hughes in [The Laws of Human Nature] as somebody who’s got a very weak character, who was a horrific businessman. People were lured in by his image of this sort of maverick aviator, a great Hollywood person, et cetera. But if you looked at the patterns of his behavior, you would have seen that he was actually quite toxic. So stop looking at what people say about themselves. Look at their actions.”
Robert Greene, Daily Stoic YouTube
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“Failure to read what is happening in another’s soul is not easily seen as a cause of unhappiness: but those who fail to attend to the motions of their own soul are necessarily unhappy.”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations (Page 12)
“Three standout qualities [that a healthy relationship can be built on] are: humility, being open to feedback, and being in touch with their emotions. Humility is necessary because without it, growth is not possible. Being open to feedback is valuable because through mutual honesty you create a safe and vibrant home together. Being in touch with your emotions is needed because you need to know/accept yourself deeply to be able to love your partner well.”
Yung Pueblo
“Say to yourself first thing in the morning: today I shall meet people who are meddling, ungrateful, aggressive, treacherous, malicious, unsocial. All this has afflicted them through their ignorance of true good and evil. But I have seen that the nature of good is what is right, and the nature of evil what is wrong; and I have reflected that the nature of the offender himself is akin to my own—not a kinship of blood or seed, but a sharing in the same mind, the same fragment of divinity. Therefore I cannot be harmed by any of them, as none will infect me with their wrong. Nor can I be angry with my kinsman or hate him. We were born for cooperation, like feet, like hands, like eyelids, like the rows of upper and lower teeth. So to work in opposition to one another is against nature: and anger or rejection is opposition.”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations (Page 10)
“You’re not trying to become non attached. You’re trying to move towards non attachment every time you get scared of a loss. For most people, they’ve never been non attached for one second in their whole life. So even the fact that they can move towards that is helpful for them. So the goal is not to become completely non attached. No. It’s work towards no one person, place, or thing leaving you can completely take away your whole existence and your sense of wholeness.”
Phil Stutz, Stutz
