April 30th Reading from The Daily Stoic - What Is In Keeping With Your Character?

"Just as what is considered rational or irrational differs for each person, in the same way good or evil and useful or useless differs for each person. This is why we need education, so that we might learn how to adjust our preconceived notions of the rational and irrational in harmony with nature, In sorting this out, we don't simply rely on our estimate of the value of external things, but also apply the rule of what is in keeping with one's character."

~ Epictetus, Discourses, 1.2.5-7

NOTE: It seems like Epictetus is arguing for moral relativism here. I am certain that he is not, really. He is saying that our ideas of good and evil are relative, but that this is why we need to study, to get at the reality behind our ideas.

April 29th Reading from The Daily Stoic - Washing Away the Dust of Life

"Watch the stars in their courses and imagine yourself running alongside them. Think constantly on the changes of the elements into each other, for such thoughts wash away the dust of earthly life."

~ Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 7.47

April 28th Reading from The Daily Stoic - What Makes You A Servant

"Tantalus: The highest power is -
 Thyestes: No power, if you desire nothing."

~ Seneca, Thyestes, 440

April 27th Reading from The Daily Stoic - Turn It Inside Out

"Turn it inside out and see what it is like - what it becomes like when old, sick, or prostituting itself. How short-lived the praiser and praised, the one who remembers and the remembered. Remembered in some corner of these parts, and even there not in the same way by all, or even by one. And the whole earth is but a mere speck."

~ Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 8.21

April 26th Reading from The Daily Stoic - Things Happen In Training

"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, 6.20

April 25th Reading from The Daily Stoic - There's Nothing Wrong With Being Wrong

"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, 6.21

April 24th Reading from The Daily Stoic - A Productive Use For Contempt

"Just as when meat or other foods are set before us we think, this is a dead fish, a dead bird or pig; and also, this fine wine is only the juice of a bunch of grapes, this purple-edged robe just sheep's wool dyed in a bit of blood from a shellfish; or of sex, that it is only rubbing private parts together followed by a spasmic discharge - in the same way our impressions grab actual events and permeate them, so we see them as they really are."

~ Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 6.13