Stoic Meditations

"For Cato did not outlive freedom, nor did freedom outlive Cato." On the Stoic conception of suicide.

“But the way by which we are asked to climb is steep and uneven.” What then? Can heights be reached by a level path? Yet they are not so sheer and precipitous as some think.

Nobody wants to do what is bad for them. So when the thief steals, he is under the wrong impression about what is and is not good for him. We should therefore pity him, and help him understand, if possible.

A student asks Epictetus whether we should really bother to learn logic. "Would you like me to provide you with an argument?" Yes. "How would you know if my argument is a good one, if you don't understand logic?" QED.

According to Epictetus, the root of our problems is that we don't know, or refuse to acknowledge, how the world works. As opposed as to how we wished it worked.

If someone gets the habit of writing ungrammatically, their art is bound to be destroyed and perish. In the same way the person of honor keeps their character by honest acts and loses it by dishonest.

What sets aside human beings from the rest of the animal world is our ability to reason and our propensity to be pro-social. So let's reason well, and be helpful to fellow humans.

Since plants do not even have the power of perception, ‘good’ and ‘evil’ are not applicable to them. Evidently, ‘good’ and ‘bad’ presume the power of using impressions.

The island of Gyara was the exile place of choice for troublesome people during the Roman Empire. How would you handle being sent into exile?

Because we’re the only animals who not only die but are conscious of it even while it happens, we are beset by anxiety.