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On Virtue explores modern Stoicism in an advanced and analytical way. Using material from Zeno of Citium and Epictetus, On Virtue explores how modern Stoicism can adapt to contemporary lifestyles in a manner that retains ancient Stoicism's timeless insights into the human condition. Most of all, On Virtue shares the depth of thinking on Stoic Virtue that has kept Stoicism modern and profound for more than 23 centuries.

If a thing is in your interest, it is also in my own interest ... We have neither successes nor setbacks as individuals; our lives have a common end.

Letters from a Stoic

Seneca

Letter 48

Zeno holds that the wise person's chief strength is that he is careful not to be tricked and sees to it that he is not deceived.

From Cicero

Academica

Book 2.66

We should cherish old age and enjoy it. It is full of pleasure if you know how to use it. Fruit tastes most delicious just when its season is ending.

Seneca

Letter 12

Drunkenness is nothing but a state of self-induced insanity.

Seneca

Letter 83

What is death? Either a transition or an end. I am not afraid of coming to an end, this being the same as never having begun, nor of transition, for I shall never be in confinement quite so cramped anywhere else as I am here.

Seneca

Letter 65

Zeno, defining the soul as the inborn pneuma [spiritus], teaches as follows: that which causes the death of the body when it departs [...] is the inborn pneuma.

Tertullian

On the Soul 5.3

Refusal to be influenced by one's body assures one's freedom.

Seneca

Letter 65, paragraph 9

Of [the three areas of study], the principal and most urgent is that which has to do with the passions, for these are produced in no other way than by the disappointment of our desires and the incurring of our aversions.

Epictetus

Discourses 3.2.1, 3

We need to set our affections on some good person and keep them constantly before our eyes, so that we may live as if they were watching us.

Seneca (quoting Epicurus)

Letter to Lucilius 11

Only by exhibiting actions in harmony with the sound words which he has received will anyone be helped by philosophy.

Musonius Rufus

Lectures 1.6

As far as words go, do not shrink from sympathizing with him, and even, if the opportunity arises, from groaning with him; but be careful not to groan inwardly too.

Epictetus

Handbook 16

I should not be unfeeling as a statue.

Epictetus

Discourses 3.2.4

Nothing could be said to be living according to nature except the thing that demonstrates its virtue through the actions which it performs in accordance with its own nature.

Musonius Rufus

Lectures 17.1

Even in the mind of the wise man, a scar remains after the wound is quite healed.

Zeno of Citium

Quoted by Seneca

On Anger 1.16

The right way to seize a philosopher, Crates, is by the ears. Persuade me then and drag me off by them.

Zeno of Citium

Wellbeing is attained by little things and nevertheless is no little thing itself.

Zeno of Citium

Steel your sensibilities, so that life shall hurt you as little as possible.

Zeno of Citium

A bad feeling is a commotion of the mind repugnant to reason and against nature.

Zeno of Citium

We have two ears and one mouth, so we should listen more than we say.

Zeno of Citium

He who does not prevent a sin, when he can, commands it.

Seneca

The Tragedies

Without philosophy the mind is sickly.

Seneca

The Moral Letters to Lucilius

Do not be like an instrument, which issues forth sweet sounds and yet never hears itself.

Cleanthes

It is difficulties that show what men are.

Epictetus

Thou shalt not blame or flatter any.

Epictetus

Virtue alone affords everlasting and peace-giving joy; even if some obstacle arises, it is but like an intervening cloud, which floats beneath the sun but never prevails against it.

Seneca

The Moral Letters to Lucilius

It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, that is poor.

Seneca

The Moral Letters to Lucilius

If one doesn't know his mistakes, he won't want to correct them.

Seneca

The Moral Letters to Lucilius

What is wisdom? Always desiring the same things, and always refusing the same things.

Seneca

The Moral Letters to Lucilius

Be not anxious to please the multitude.

Quintus Sextius

It is characteristic of a civilized and humane temperament not to respond to wrongs as a beast would and not to be implacable towards those who offend, but to provide them with a model of decent behavior.

Musonius Rufus

Lectures 10.6

It is not death, but a bad life, which destroys the soul.

Quintus Sextius

Accustom your soul, after it has conceived all that is great of divinity, to conceive something great of itself.

Quintus Sextius

The essence of good and evil is a certain disposition of the will.

Epictetus

Virtue alone keeps us from making errors in living.

Musonius Rufus

Lectures 2.1

I ask that you adhere to these principles and that you practice the words which you praise. In this way alone will you please me most and be most helped yourself.

Musonius Rufus

Lectures 8.12

To the king who praised Musonius's lecture and said to him, "In return for these things, demand whatever you want from me, for I would not refuse you anything."

Since it is Reason which shapes and regulates all other things, it ought not itself to be left in disorder.

Epictetus

If one does not know to which port one is sailing, no wind is favorable.

Seneca

Neither death, nor exile, nor pain, nor anything of this kind is the real cause of our doing or not doing any action, but our inward opinions and principles.

Epictetus

A good judge condemns wrongful acts but does not hate them.

The Moral Essays

Seneca

Man conquers the world by conquering himself.

Zeno of Citium

So what makes a human being beautiful? Must it not be the presence of a human being's excellence? If you for your part want to appear beautiful, young man, you should strive for this, the excellence that characterizes a human being.

Discourses of Epictetus 3.1.6, 7

A good intellect is the choir of divinity.

Quintus Sextius

It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, that is poor.

Seneca

Things it was hard to bear, it is pleasant to relate.

Seneca

All the good are friends of each other.

Zeno of Citium

To live, indeed, is not in our power; but to live rightly is.

Quintus Sextius

It is the upright mind that holds true sovereignty.

Seneca

If we do not refer each of our actions to some standard, we shall be acting at random; if to an improper standard, we shall fail utterly. There is a general and a particular standard. [...] The particular end relates to the occupation and choice of each individual.

Epictetus

Discourses 3.23.3-5

In 152 BC, the Stoic Crates of Mallus constructed the earliest known globe of Earth. In the First Century, Epictetus located human good and evil within each person's "sphere of choice" (Discourses 1.4.2, 27; 2.16.1). The logo for the Stoic School represents Crates' globe as well as Epictetus' sphere. The straight lines in the middle divide the sphere into four sections representing the four cardinal virtues that make up one Virtue. Our logo is a symbol of global good through virtuous choices.