The Daily Stoic

“power doesn’t corrupt, it reveals.”

We’re not trying to ace tests or impress teachers. We are reading and studying to live, to be good human beings—always and forever.

Everyone had a job—a specific duty. Even people who did bad things—they were doing their job of being evil because evil is a part of life.

He was much more interested in hearing what the other person had to say than making sure he was heard or—as most of us insist upon—winning the argument.

Are you looking forward to the weekend so you can have some peace and quiet? Maybe, you think, after things settle down or after I get this over with. But how often has that ever actually worked?

Whenever you get an impression of some pleasure, as with any impression, guard yourself from being carried away by it, let it await your action, give yourself a pause. After that, bring to mind both times, first when you have enjoyed the pleasure and later when you will regret it and hate yourself. Then compare to those the joy and satisfaction you’d feel for abstaining altogether.

use Stoicism to manage these difficulties. But don’t forget to ask: Is this really the life I want? Every time you get upset, a little bit of life leaves the body. Are these really the things on which you want to spend that priceless resource? Don’t be afraid to make a change—a big one.

Keep constant guard over your perceptions, for it is no small thing you are protecting, but your respect, trustworthiness and steadiness, peace of mind, freedom from pain and fear, in a word your freedom

there is nothing good or bad outside my own reasoned choice

Seriously—what you take for granted, others wouldn’t even think to dream of.