“Remember: taking the money, wanting the money—proverbially or literally—makes you a servant to the people who have it. Indifference to it, turns the highest power into no power, at least as far as your life is concerned.”
Ryan Holiday, The Daily Stoic (Page 130)
Quotes from The Daily Stoic
“When your sparring partner scratches or head-butts you, you don’t then make a show of it, or protest, or view him with suspicion or as plotting against you. And yet you keep an eye on him, not as an enemy or with suspicion, but with a healthy avoidance. You should act this way with all things in life. We should give a pass to many things with our fellow trainees. For, as I’ve said, it’s possible to avoid without suspicion or hate.”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, via The Daily Stoic (Page 128)
“If anyone can prove and show to me that I think and act in error, I will gladly change it—for I seek the truth, by which no one has ever been harmed. The one who is harmed is the one who abides in deceit and ignorance.”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, via The Daily Stoic (Page 127)
“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson, via The Daily Stoic (Page 127)
“To be rational today, we have to do just three things: First, we must look inward. Next, we must examine ourselves critically. Finally, we must make our own decisions—uninhibited by biases or popular notions.”
Ryan Holiday, The Daily Stoic (Page 122)
“For centuries, people have assumed that wealth would be a wonderful cure-all for their unhappiness or problems. Why else would they have worked so hard for it? But when people actually acquired the money and status they craved, they discovered it wasn’t quite what they had hoped. The same is true of so may things we covet without really thinking.”
Ryan Holiday, The Daily Stoic (Page 122)
“Income taxes are not the only taxes you pay in life. They are just the financial form. Everything we do has a toll attached to it. Waiting around is a tax on traveling. Rumors and gossip are the taxes that come from acquiring a public persona. Disagreements and occasional frustration are taxes placed on even the happiest of relationships. Theft is a tax on abundance and having things that other people want. Stress and problems are tariffs that come attached to success. And on and on and on. There are many forms of taxes in life. You can argue with them, you can go to great—but ultimately futile—lengths to evade them, or you can simply pay them and enjoy the fruits of what you get to keep.”
Ryan Holiday, The Daily Stoic (Page 117)
“The things that some people manage to be experts in: fantasy sports, celebrity trivia, derivatives and commodities markets, thirteenth-century hygiene habits of the clergy. We can get very good at what we’re paid to do, or adept at a hobby we wish we could be paid to do. Yet our own lives, habits, and tendencies might be a mystery to us.”
Ryan Holiday, The Daily Stoic (Page 116)
“Atreus: Who would reject the flood of fortune’s gifts?
Thyestes: Anyone who has experienced how easily they flow back.”
Seneca, Thyestes, via The Daily Stoic (Page 113)
“If you want to learn, if you want to improve your life, seeking out teachers, philosophers, and great books is a good start. But this approach will only be effective if you’re humble and ready to let go of opinions you already have.”
Ryan Holiday, The Daily Stoic (Page 113)
“When you first rise in the morning tell yourself: I will encounter busybodies, ingrates, egomaniacs, liars, the jealous and cranks. They are all stricken with these afflictions because they don’t know the difference between good and evil. Because I have understood the beauty of good and the ugliness of evil, I know that these wrong-doers are still akin to me… and that none can do me harm, or implicate me in ugliness—nor can I be angry at my relatives or hate them. For we are made for cooperation.”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, via The Daily Stoic (Page 108) | Read Matt’s Blog on this quote ➜
“Trust, but verify.”
Russian Proverb, via The Daily Stoic (Page 107)
“When we experience success, we must make sure that it doesn’t change us—that we continue to maintain our character despite the temptation not to. Reason must lead the way no matter what good fortune comes along.”
Ryan Holiday, The Daily Stoic (Page 106)
“How much harder is it to do the right thing when you’re surrounded by people with low standards? How much harder is it to be positive and empathetic inside the negativity bubble of television chatter? How much harder is it to focus on your own issues when you’re distracted with other people’s drama and conflict? We’ll inevitably be exposed to these influences at some point, no matter how much we try to avoid them. But when we are, there is nothing that says we have to allow those influences to penetrate our minds. We have the ability to put our guard up and decide what we actually allow in.”
Ryan Holiday, The Daily Stoic (Page 104)
“You can buy a Plume Blanche diamond-encrusted sofa for close to two hundred thousand dollars. It’s also possible to hire one person to kill another person for five hundred dollars. Remember that next time you hear someone ramble on about how the market decides what things are worth. The market might be rational… but the people who comprise it are not.”
Ryan Holiday, The Daily Stoic (Page 97)
“There are two ways to be wealthy—to get everything you want or to want everything you have. Which is easier right here and right now? The same goes for freedom. If you chafe and fight and struggle for more, you will never be free. If you could find and focus on the pockets of freedom you already have? Well, then you’d be free right here, right now.”
Ryan Holiday, The Daily Stoic (Page 95)
“The diseases of the rational soul are long-standing and hardened vices, such as greed and ambition—they have put the soul in a straitjacket and have begun to be permanent evils inside it. To put it briefly, this sickness is an unrelenting distortion of judgment, so things that are only mildly desirable are vigorously sought after.”
Seneca, Moral Letters, via The Daily Stoic (Page 93)
“A degree on a wall means you’re educated as much as shoes on your feet mean you’re walking. It’s a start, but hardly sufficient. Just as you can walk plenty well without shoes, you don’t need to step into a classroom to understand the basic, fundamental reality of nature and of our proper role in it.”
Ryan Holiday, The Daily Stoic (Page 92)
“People seek retreats for themselves in the country, by the sea, or in the mountains. You are very much in the habit of yearning for those same things. But this is entirely the trait of a base person, when you can, at any moment, find such a retreat in yourself. For nowhere can you find a more peaceful and less busy retreat than in your own soul—especially if on close inspection it is filled with ease, which I say is nothing more than being well-ordered. Treat yourself often to this retreat and be renewed.”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, via The Daily Stoic (Page 91)
“I may wish to be free from torture, but if the time comes for me to endure it, I’ll wish to bear it courageously with bravery and honor. Wouldn’t I prefer not to fall into war? But if war does befall me, I’ll wish to carry nobly the wounds, starvation, and other necessities of war. Neither am I so crazy as to desire illness, but if I must suffer illness, I’ll wish to do nothing rash or dishonorable. The point is not to wish for these adversities, but for the virtue to make adversities bearable.”
Seneca, Moral Letters, via The Daily Stoic (Page 90)
