“Show me someone who isn’t a slave! One is a slave to lust, another to greed, another to power, and all are slaves to fear. I could name a former Consul who is a slave to a little old woman, a millionaire who is the slave of the cleaning woman… No servitude is more abject than the self-imposed.”
Seneca, via The Daily Stoic (Page 287)
“Being unexpected adds to the weight of a disaster, and being a surprise has never failed to increase a person’s pain. For that reason, nothing should ever be unexpected by us. Our minds should be sent out in advance to all things and we shouldn’t just consider the normal course of things, but what could actually happen. For is there anything in life that Fortune won’t knock off its high horse if it pleases her?”
Seneca, via The Daily Stoic (Page 286)
“Training in the martial arts or combat is a deeply thoughtful study of movement. We sometimes think of soldiers as automatons, but what they’ve actually built is a steady pattern of unconscious behaviors. Any of us can build these.”
Ryan Holiday, via The Daily Stoic (Page 285)
“Upon the fields of friendly strife are sown the seeds that, upon other fields, on other days will bear the fruits of victory.”
Douglass MacArthur, via The Daily Stoic (Page 282)
“The art of living is more like wrestling than dancing, because an artful life requires being prepared to meet and withstand sudden and unexpected attacks.”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, via The Daily Stoic (Page 282)
“The point is not to have an iron will, but an adaptable will—a will that makes full use of reason to clarify perception, impulse, and judgment to act effectively for the right purpose. It’s not weak to change and adapt. Flexibility is its own kind of strength. In fact, this flexibility combined with strength is what will make us resilient and unstoppable.”
Ryan Holiday, The Daily Stoic (Page 281)
“Nature is merciful and does not try her children, man or beast, beyond their compass. It is only when the cruelty of man intervenes that hellish torments appear. For the rest—live dangerously; take things as they come; dread naught, all will be well.”
Winston Churchill, via The Daily Stoic (Page 280)
“The Stoic does two things when encountering hatred or ill opinion in others. They ask: Is this opinion inside my control? If there is a chance for influence or change, they take it. But if there isn’t, they accept this person as they are (and never hate a hater). Our job is tough enough already. We don’t have time to think about what other people are thinking, even if it’s about us.”
Ryan Holiday, The Daily Stoic (Page 279)
“Anyone can get lucky. There’s no skill in being oblivious, and no one would consider that greatness. On the other hand, the person who perseveres through difficulties, who keeps going when others quit, who makes it to their destination through hard work and honesty? That’s admirable, because their survival was the result of fortitude and resilience, not birthright or circumstance. A person who overcame not just the external obstacles to success but mastered themselves and their emotions along the way? That’s much more impressive. The person who has been dealt a harder hand, understood it, but still triumphed? That’s greatness.”
Ryan Holiday, The Daily Stoic (Page 278)
“Try praying differently, and see what happens: Instead of asking for ‘a way to sleep with her,’ try asking for ‘a way to stop desiring to sleep with her.’ Instead of ‘a way to get rid of him,’ try asking for ‘a way to not crave his demise.’ Instead of ‘a way to not lose my child,’ try asking for ‘a way to lose my fear of it.'”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, via The Daily Stoic (Page 276)
“Overconfidence is a great weakness and a liability. But if you are already humble, no one will need to humble you—and the world is much less likely to have nasty surprises in store for you. If you stay down to earth, no one will need to bring you—oftentimes crushingly so—back down.”
Ryan Holiday, The Daily Stoic (Page 274)
“Let us get used to dining out without the crowds, to being a slave to fewer slaves, to getting clothes only for their real purpose, and to living in more modest quarters.”
Seneca, On Tranquility Of Mind, via The Daily Stoic (Page 271)
“The things we fear pale in comparison to the damage we do to ourselves and others when we unthinkingly scramble to avoid them. An economic depression is bad; a panic is worse. A tough situation isn’t helped by terror—it only makes things harder. And that’s why we must resist it and reject it if we wish to turn this situation around.”
Ryan Holiday, The Daily Stoic (Page 271)
“No one is crushed by Fortune, unless they are first deceived by her… those who aren’t pompous in good times, don’t have their bubbles burst with change. Against either circumstance, the stable person keeps their rational soul invincible, for it’s precisely in the good times they prove their strength against adversity.”
Seneca, via The Daily Stoic (Page 270)
“I judge you unfortunate because you have never lived through misfortune. You have passed through life without an opponent—no one can ever know what you are capable of, not even you.”
Seneca, via The Daily Stoic (Page 265)
“In order to achieve victory, one must dedicate every second and every resource into preparation and training. LeBron James doesn’t take a summer break—he uses it to work on other aspects of his game. The U.S. military trains its soldiers day and night when not at war, in preparation for when they have to go to war; when they do go to war, they fight until it’s over. The same is true for us. We can’t do this life thing halfheartedly.”
Ryan Holiday, via The Daily Stoic (Page 265)
“Men, the philosopher’s lecture-hall is a hospital—you shouldn’t walk out of it feeling pleasure, but pain, for you aren’t well when you enter it.”
Epictetus, via The Daily Stoic (Page 264)
“Cato the Younger had enough money to dress in fine clothing. Yet he often walked around Rome barefoot, indifferent to assumptions people made about him as he passed. he could have indulged in the finest food. He chose instead to eat simple far. whether it was raining or intensely hot, he went bareheaded by choice. Why not indulge in some easy relief? Because Cato was training his soul to be strong and resilient. Specifically, he was learning indifference: an attitude of ‘let come what may’ that would serve him well in the trenches with the army, in the Forum and the Senate, and in his life as a father and statesman.”
Ryan Holiday, via The Daily Stoic (Page 263)
“Anything that must yet be done, virtue can do with courage and promptness. For anyone would call it a sign of foolishness for one to undertake a task with a lazy and begrudging spirit, or to push the body in one direction and the mind in another, to be torn apart by wildly divergent impulses.”
Seneca, via The Daily Stoic (Page 259)
“No person has the power to have everything they want, but it is in their power not to want what they don’t have, and to cheerfully put to good use what they do have.”
Seneca, via The Daily Stoic (Page 258)