July 31st Reading from The Daily Stoic (Round 2) - Your Career Is Not A Life Sentence

"How disgraceful is the layer whose dying breath passes while at court, at an advanced age, pleading for unknown litigants and still seeking the approval of ignorant spectators."

~ Seneca, On the Brevity of Life, 20.2

July 30th Reading from The Daily Stoic (Round 2) - Stoic Joy

"Trust me, real joy is a serious thing. Do you think someone can, in the charming expression, blithely dismiss death with an easy disposition? Or swing open the door to poverty, keep pleasures in check, or meditate on the endurance of suffering? The one who is comfortable with turning these thoughts over is truly full of joy, but hardly cheerful. It's exactly such a joy that I would wish for you to possess, for it will never run dry once you've laid claim to its source."

 ~ Seneca, Moral Letters, 23.4

July 29th Reading from The Daily Stoic (Round 2) - A Cure For The Self

"The person who has practiced philosophy as a cure for the self becomes great of soul, filled with confidence, invincible - and greater as you draw near."

~ Seneca, Moral Letters, 111.2

July 28th Reading from The Daily Stoic (Round 2) - Check Your Privilege

"Some people are sharp and others dull; some are raised in a better environment, others in worse, the latter, having inferior habits and nurture, will require more by way of proof and careful instruction to master these teachings and to be formed by them - in the same way that bodies in a bad state must be given a great deal of care when perfect health is sought."

~ Musonius Rufus, Lectures, 1.1.33-1.3.1-3

July 27th Reading from The Daily Stoic (Round 2) - Where Is Anything Better?

"Indeed, if you find anything in human life better than justice, truth, self-control, courage - in short, anything better than the sufficiency of your own mind, which keeps you acting according to the demands of true reason and accepting what fate gives you outside of your own power of choice - I tell you, if you can see anything better than this, turn to it heart and soul and take full advantage of this greater good you've found."

~ Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 3.6.1

July 26th Reading from The Daily Stoic (Round 2) - When Good Men Do Nothing

"Often injustice lies in what you aren't doing, not only in what you are doing."

~ Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 9.5

July 25th Reading from The Daily Stoic (Round 2) - What's On Your Tombstone?

"When you see someone often flashing their rank or position, or someone whose name is often bandied about in public, don't be envious; such things are bought at the expense of life . . . Some die on the first rungs of the ladder of success, others before they can reach the top, and the few that make it to the top of their ambition through a thousand indignities realize at the end it's only for an inscription on their gravestone."

~ Seneca, On the Brevity of Life, 20