September 30th Reading from The Daily Stoic - You Can't Touch Me

"If you lay violent hands on me, you'll have my body, but my mind will remain with Stilpo."

~ Zeno, quoted in Diogenes Laertius' Lives of the Eminent Philosophers, 7.1.24

September 29th Reading from The Daily Stoic - Your Actual Needs Are Small

"Nothing can satisfy greed, but even a small measure satisfies nature. So it is that the poverty of an exile brings no misfortune, for no place of exile is so barren as not to produce ample support for a person."

~ Seneca, On Consolation to Helvia, 10.1b

September 28th Reading from The Daily Stoic - You Hold The Trump Card

"How appropriate that the gods put under our control only the most powerful ability that governs all the rest - the ability to make the right use of external appearances - and that they didn't put anything else under our control. Was this simply because they weren't willing to give us more? I think if it had been possible they would have given us more, but it was impossible."

~ Epictetus, Discourses, 1.1.7-8

September 27th Reading from The Daily Stoic - What Will Prosperity Reveal?

"For even peace itself will supply more reason for worry. Not even safe circumstances will bring you confidence once your mind has been shocked - once it gets in the habit of blind panic, it can't provide for its own safety. For it doesn't really avoid danger, it just runs away. Yet we are exposed to greater danger with our backs turned."

~ Seneca, Moral Letters, 104.10b

September 26th Reading from The Daily Stoic - What Time Off Is For

"Leisure without study is death - a tomb for a living person."

~ Seneca, Moral Letters, 82.4

September 25th Reading from The Daily Stoic - The Vulnerability of Dependence

"Show me someone who isn't a slave! One is a slave to lust, another to greed, another to power, and all are slaves to fear. I could name former Consul who is a slave to a little old woman, a millionaire who is the slave of the cleaning woman . . . No servitude is more abject than the self-imposed."

~ Seneca, Moral Letters, 47.17

September 24th Reading from The Daily Stoic - It Could Happen To You

"Being unexpected adds to the weight of a disaster, and being a surprise has never failed to increase a person's pain. For that reason, nothing should ever be unexpected by us. Our minds should be sent out in advance to all things and we shouldn't just consider the normal course of things, but what could actually happen. For is there anything in life that Fortune won't knock off its high horse if it pleases her?"

~ Seneca, Moral Letters, 91.3a-4

September 23rd Reading from The Daily Stoic - The Most Secure Fortress

"Remember that your ruling reason becomes unconquerable when it rallies and relies on itself, so that it won't do anything contrary to its own will, even if its position is irrational. How much more unconquerable if its judgments are careful and made rationally? Therefore, the mind freed from passions is an impenetrable fortress - a person has no more secure place of refuge for all time."

~ Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 8.48

September 22nd Reading from The Daily Stoic - No Pain, No Gain

"Difficulties show a person's character. So when a challenge confronts you, remember that God is matching you with a younger sparring partner, as would a physical trainer. Why? Becoming an Olympian takes sweat! I think no one has a better challenge than yours, if only you would use it like an athlete would that younger sparring partner."

~ Epictetus, Discourses, 1.24.1-2

September 21st Reading from The Daily Stoic - Maintain Composure, Maintain Control

"When forced, as it seems, by circumstances into utter confusion, get a hold of yourself quickly. Don't be locked out of the rhythm any longer than necessary. You'll be able to keep the beat if you are constantly returning to it."

~ Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 6.11

September 20th Reading from The Daily Stoic - Life Isn't A Dance

"The art of living is more like wrestling than dancing, because an artful life requires being prepared to meet and withstand sudden and unexpected attacks."

~ Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 7.61

September 19th Reading from The Daily Stoic - Flexibility of the Will

"Remember that to change your mind and follow someone's correction are consistent with a free will. For the action is yours alone - to fulfill its purpose in keeping with your impulse and judgment, and yes, with your intelligence."

~ Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 8.16

September 18th Reading from The Daily Stoic - Dealing With Pain

"Whenever you suffer pain, keep in mind that it's nothing to be ashamed of and that it can't degrade your guiding intelligence, nor keep it from acting rationally and for the common good. And in most cases you should be helped by the saying of Epicurus, that pain is never unbearable or unending, so you can remember these limits and not add to them in your imagination. Remember too that many common annoyances are pain in disguise, such as sleepiness, fever, and loss of appetite. When they start to get you down, tell yourself you are giving in to pain."

~ Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 7.64

September 17th Reading from The Daily Stoic - Dealing With Haters

"What if someone despises me? Let them see to it. But I will see to it that I won't be found doing or saying anything contemptible. What if someone hates me? Let them see to that. But I will see to it that I'm kind and good-natured to all, and prepared to show even the hater where they went wrong. Not in a critical way, or to show off my patience, but genuinely and usefully."

~ Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 11.13

September 16th Reading from The Daily Stoic - Anyone Can Get Lucky, Not Everyone Can Persevere

"Success comes to the lowly and to the poorly talented, but the special characteristic of a great person is to triumph over the disasters and panics of human life."

~ Seneca, On Providence, 4.1

September 15th Reading from The Daily Stoic - A Garden Is Not For Show

"First practice not letting people know who you are - keep your philosophy to yourself for a bit. In just the manner that fruit is produced - the seed buried for a season, hidden, growing gradually so it may come to full maturity. But if the grain sprouts before the stalk is fully developed, it will never ripen . . . that is the kind of plant you are, displaying fruit too soon, and the winter will kill you."

~ Epictetus, Discourses, 4.8.35b-37

September 14th Reading from The Daily Stoic - A Different Way To Pray

"Try praying differently, and see what happens: Instead of asking for 'a way to sleep with her,' try asking for 'a way to stop desiring to sleep with her.' Instead of 'a way to get rid of him,' try asking for 'a way to not crave his demise.' Instead of 'a way to not lose my child,' try asking for 'a way to lose my fear of it.'"

~ Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 9.40.(6)

September 13th Reading from The Daily Stoic - Protecting Our Inner Fortress From Fear

"No, it is events that give rise to fear - when another has power over them or can prevent them, that person becomes able to inspire fear. How is the fortress destroyed? Not by iron or fire, but by judgments . . . here is where we must begin, and it is from this front that we must seize the fortress and throw out the tyrants."

~ Epictetus, Discourses, 4.1.85-86, 87a

September 12th Reading from The Daily Stoic - Be Down To Earth, Or Be Brought Down

"Zeno always said that nothing was more unbecoming than putting on airs, especially with the young."

~ Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Eminent Philosophers, 7.1.22

September 11th Reading from The Daily Stoic - What Would Less Look Like?

"Let us get used to dining out without the crowds, to being a slave to fewer slaves, to getting clothes only for their real purpose, and to living in more modest quarters."

~ Seneca, On Tranquility of Mind, 9.3b

September 10th Reading from The Daily Stoic - Preparing On The Sunny Day

"Here's a lesson to test your mind'e mettle: take part of a week in which you have only the most meager and cheap food, dress scantily in shabby clothes, and ask yourself if this is really the worst that you feared. It is when times are good that you should gird yourself for tougher times ahead, for when Fortune is kind the soul can build defenses against her ravages. So it is when soldiers practice maneuvers in peacetime, erecting bunkers with no enemies in sight and exhausting themselves under no attack so that when it comes they won't grow tired."

~ Seneca, Moral Letters, 18.5-6

A Couple of Latin Poems I Wish I Could Tattoo On The Inside of My Children's Eyelids

     My readings from Brevissima have recently included some poems that I wish I could impart to my children - really, that I wish I could have tattooed on their inner eyelids! From The Distichs of Cato (4th century C.E.), 4.29:

Non pudeat, quae nescieris, te velle doceri:

Scire aliquid laus est; culpa est nil discere velle.

Roughly rendered in English:

"There is no shame in wishing to be taught the things you did not know:

It is praiseworthy to know something; it is a fault to with to learn nothing."

     Earlier in the Brevissima, but at least 1100 years later chronologically, there is also this similar poem from Johann Glandorp (1501-1564), Disticha, 76:

Scire aliquid, pulchrum; nil discere velle, pudendum:

Fac igitur discas nocte dieque, puer.

Roughly rendered in English:

"It is beautiful to know something; to wish to learn nothing is a thing of shame:

Therefore make sure you learn night and day, boy."

September 9th Reading from The Daily Stoic - Nothing To Fear But Fear Itself

"But there is no reason to live and no limit to our miseries if we let our fears predominate."

~ Seneca, Moral Letters, 13.12b

September 8th Reading from The Daily Stoic - Do Not Be Deceived By Fortune

"No one is crushed by Fortune, unless they are first deceived by her . . . those who aren't pompous in good times, don't have their bubbles burst with change. Against either circumstance, the stable person keeps their rational soul invincible, for its precisely in the good times they prove their strength against adversity."

~ Seneca, On Consolation to Helvia, 5.4b, 5b-6

September 7th Reading from The Daily Stoic - Our Hidden Power

"Consider who you are. Above all, a human being, carrying no greater power than your own reasoned choice, which oversees all other things, and is free from any other master."

~ Epictetus, Discourses, 2.10.1

September 6th Reading from The Daily Stoic - They Can Throw You In Chains, But . . .

"You can bind up my leg, but not even Zeus has the power to break my freedom of choice."

~ Epictetus, Discourses, 1.1.23

September 5th Reading from The Daily Stoic - Focus On What Is Yours Alone

"Remember, then, if you deem what is by nature slavish to be free, and what is not your own to be yours, you will be shackled and miserable, blaming both gods other people. But if you deem as your own only what is yours, then no one will ever be able to coerce or to stop you, you will find no one to blame or accuse, you will do nothing against your will, you will have no enemy, no one will harm you, because no harm can affect you."

~ Epictetus, Enchiridion, 1.3

September 4th Reading from The Daily Stoic - How Can You Know Whether You've Never Been Tested?

"I judge you unfortunate because you have never lived through misfortune. You have passed through life without an opponent - no one can ever know what you are capable of, not even you."

~ Seneca, On Providence, 4.3

September 3rd Reading from The Daily Stoic - First, A Hard Winter Training

"We must undergo a hard winter training and not rush into things for which we haven't prepared."

~ Epictetus, Discourses, 1.2.32

September 2nd Reading from The Daily Stoic - The Philosopher's School Is A Hospital

"Men, the philosopher's lecture hall is a hospital - you shouldn't walk out of it feeling pleasure, but pain, for you aren't well when you enter it."

~ Epictetus, Discourses, 3.23.30

September 1st Reading from The Daily Stoic - A Strong Soul Is Better Than Good Luck

"The rational soul is stronger than any kind of fortune - from its own share it guides its affairs here or there, and is itself the cause of a happy or miserable life."

~ Seneca, Moral Letters, 98.2b