Stoic Meditations

Here is a basic Stoic equation: external thing or activity + virtue = good, while its opposite is: external thing or activity + vice = bad. So, is your profession good or bad, according to this approach?

People think that externals are good, and then, after having won their wish, and suffered much, they find them evil, or empty, or less important than they had expected.

Fortune sometimes favors villains and turns against good people. That's why our happiness should depend on our own decisions, not the vagaries of chance.

External goods like fine clothing, gourmet food, and nice houses ought to be regarded as the playthings of children, not the shackles of adults.

Nature has not given us such a generous and free-handed space of time that we can have the leisure to waste any of it.

The Stoic concept of preferred and dispreferred indifferents always gets people confused or, the other common human response to lack of understanding, scoffing.

We are in love with our vices; we uphold them and prefer to make excuses for them rather than shake them off. The reason is unwillingness, the excuse, inability.

Do you find yourself in the thralls of fear, jealousy, or anger? Do you act inconsistently in life? Then you ain't wise yet.

One of the major differences between Stoics and Aristotelians has always been the treatment of disruptive emotions, such as anger and fear. They are helpful, in small measure, for Aristotle, but definitely to avoid for the Stoics.

We have become alternately merchants and merchandise, and we ask, not what a thing truly is, but what it costs.