“Won’t you be walking in your predecessors’ footsteps? I surely will use the older path, but I find a shorter and smoother way, I’ll blaze a trail there. The ones who pioneered these paths aren’t our masters, but our guides. Truth stands open to everyone, it hasn’t been monopolized.”
Seneca, via The Daily Stoic (Page 251)
Quotes from The Daily Stoic
“What wisdom or help would you be able to find today if you stopped caring about affiliations and reputations? How much more could you see if you just focused on merit?”
Ryan Holiday, The Daily Stoic (Page 253)
“It is essential for you to remember that the attention you give to any action should be in due proportion to its worth, for then you won’t tire and give up, if you aren’t busying yourself with lesser things beyond what should be allowed.”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, via The Daily Stoic (Page 251)
“If you give things more time and energy than they deserve, they’re no longer lesser things. You’ve made them important by the life you’ve spent on them. And sadly, you’ve made the important things—your family, your health, your true commitments—less so as a result of what you’ve stolen from them.”
Ryan Holiday, The Daily Stoic (Page 251)
“It’s ruinous for the soul to be anxious about the future and miserable in advance of misery, engulfed by anxiety that the things it desires might remain its own until the very end. For such a soul will never be at rest—by longing for things to come it will lose the ability to enjoy present things.”
Seneca, via The Daily Stoic (Page 250)
“Outward transformation—in our clothes, in our cars, in our grooming—might feel important but is superficial compared with the inward change.”
Ryan Holiday, The Daily Stoic (Page 249)
“One of the most fundamental principles of martial arts is that strength should not go against strength. That is: don’t try to beat your opponent where they are strongest. But that’s exactly what we do when we try to undertake some impossible task we haven’t bothered to think through. Or we let someone put us on the spot. Or we say yes to everything that comes our way.”
Ryan Holiday, The Daily Stoic (Page 247)
“For nothing outside my reasoned choice can hinder or harm it—my reasoned choice alone can do this to itself. If we would lean this way whenever we fail, and would blame only ourselves and remember that nothing but opinion is the cause of a troubled mind and uneasiness, then by God, I swear we would be making progress.”
Epictetus, Discourses, via The Daily Stoic (Page 246)
“You become the sum of your actions, and as you do, what flows from that—your impulses—reflect the actions you’ve taken. Choose wisely.”
Ryan Holiday, The Daily Stoic (Page 244)
“An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”
Ben Franklin, via The Daily Stoic (Page 242)
“You’re welcome to take all of the words of the great philosophers and use them to your own liking (they’re dead; they don’t mind). Feel free to tweak and edit and improve as you like. Adapt them to the real conditions of the real world. The way to prove that you truly understand what you speak and write, that you truly are original, is to put them into practice. Speak them with your actions more than anything else.”
Ryan Holiday, The Daily Stoic (Page 241)
“As an organizer I start from where the world is, as it is, not as I would like it to be. That we accept the world as it is does not in any sense weaken our desire to change it into what we believe it should be—it is necessary to begin where the world is if we are going to change it to what we think it should be.”
Saul Alinsky, Rules for Radicals, via The Daily Stoic (Page 237)
“We tell ourselves that we need the right setup before we finally buckle down and get serious. Or we tell ourselves that some vacation or time alone will be good for a relationship or an ailment. This is self-deceit at its finest. It’s far better that we become pragmatic and adaptable—able to do what we need to do anywhere, anytime. The place to do your work, to live the good life, is here.”
Ryan Holiday, The Daily Stoic (Page 232)
“Trust me, real joy is a serious thing. Do you think someone can, in the charming expression, blithely dismiss death with an easy disposition? Or swing open the door to poverty, keep pleasures in check, or meditate on the endurance of suffering? The one who is comfortable with turning these thoughts over is truly full of joy, but hardly cheerful. It’s exactly such a joy that I would wish for you to possess, for it will never run dry once you’ve laid claim to its source.”
Seneca, Moral Letters, via The Daily Stoic (Page 227)
“[Real virtue] is its own reward. Virtue is the one good that reveals itself to be more than we expect and something that one cannot have in degrees. We simply have it or we don’t. And that is why virtue—made up as it is of justice, honesty, discipline, and courage—is the only thing worth striving for.”
Ryan Holiday, The Daily Stoic (Page 224)
“When you see someone often flashing their rank or position, or someone whose name is often bandied about in public, don’t be envious; such things are bought at the expense of life… Some die on the first rungs of the ladder of success, others before they can reach the top, and the few that make it to the top of their ambition through a thousand indignities realize at the end it’s only for an inscription on their gravestone.”
Seneca, On The Brevity Of Life, via The Daily Stoic (Page 222)
“It can be so easy to get distracted by, even consumed by, horrible news from all over the world. The proper response of the Stoic to these events is not to not care, but mindless, meaningless sympathy to these events does very little either (and comes at the cost of one’s own serenity, in most cases). If there is something you can actually do to help these suffering people, then, yes, the disturbing news (and your reaction to it) has relevance to your reasoned choice. If emoting is the end of your participation, then you ought to get back to your own individual duty—to yourself, to your family, to your country.”
Ryan Holiday, The Daily Stoic (Page 221)
“As we begin to make progress in our lives, we’ll encounter the limitations of the people around us. It’s like a diet. When everyone is eating unhealthy, there is a kind of natural alignment. But if one person starts eating healthy, suddenly there are opposing agendas. Now there’s an argument about where to go for dinner. Just as you must not abandon your new path simply because other people may have a problem with it, you must not abandon those other folks either. Don’t simply write them off or leave them in the dust. Don’t get mad or fight with them. After all, they’re at the same place you were not long ago.”
Ryan Holiday, The Daily Stoic (Page 214)
“When you’ve done well and another has benefited by it, why like a fool do you look for a third thing on top—credit for the good deed or a favor in return?”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, via The Daily Stoic (Page 212)
“Great teachers are usually hardest on their most promising students. When teachers see potential, they want it to be fully realized. But great teachers are also aware that natural ability and quick comprehension can be quite dangerous to the student if left alone. Early promise can lead to overconfidence and create bad habits. Those who pick things up quickly are notorious for skipping the basic lessons and ignoring the fundamentals. Don’t get carried away. Take it slow. Train with humility.”
Ryan Holiday, The Daily Stoic (Page 211)
