Advanced Analytical Stoicism for Today
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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.
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Stoic Quotes
November 26, 2023
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
November 19, 2023
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
November 12, 2023
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
November 5, 2023
Drunkenness is nothing but a state of self-induced insanity.
Seneca
Letter 83
October 29, 2023
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
October 22, 2023
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
October 15, 2023
Refusal to be influenced by one's body assures one's freedom.
Seneca
Letter 65, paragraph 9
October 8, 2023
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
October 1, 2023
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
September 24, 2023
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
September 17, 2023
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
September 10, 2023
I should not be unfeeling as a statue.
Epictetus
Discourses 3.2.4
September 3, 2023
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
August 27, 2023
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
August 20, 2023
The right way to seize a philosopher, Crates, is by the ears. Persuade me then and drag me off by them.
Zeno of Citium
August 13, 2023
Wellbeing is attained by little things and nevertheless is no little thing itself.
Zeno of Citium
August 6, 2023
Steel your sensibilities, so that life shall hurt you as little as possible.
Zeno of Citium
July 30, 2023
A bad feeling is a commotion of the mind repugnant to reason and against nature.
Zeno of Citium
July 23, 2023
We have two ears and one mouth, so we should listen more than we say.
Zeno of Citium
July 16, 2023
He who does not prevent a sin, when he can, commands it.
Seneca
The Tragedies
July 9, 2023
Without philosophy the mind is sickly.
Seneca
The Moral Letters to Lucilius
July 2, 2023
Do not be like an instrument, which issues forth sweet sounds and yet never hears itself.
Cleanthes
June 25, 2023
It is difficulties that show what men are.
Epictetus
June 18, 2023
Thou shalt not blame or flatter any.
Epictetus
June 11, 2023
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
June 4, 2023
It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, that is poor.
Seneca
The Moral Letters to Lucilius
May 28, 2023
If one doesn't know his mistakes, he won't want to correct them.
Seneca
The Moral Letters to Lucilius
May 21, 2023
What is wisdom? Always desiring the same things, and always refusing the same things.
Seneca
The Moral Letters to Lucilius
May 14, 2023
Be not anxious to please the multitude.
Quintus Sextius
May 7, 2023
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
April 30, 2023
It is not death, but a bad life, which destroys the soul.
Quintus Sextius
April 23, 2023
Accustom your soul, after it has conceived all that is great of divinity, to conceive something great of itself.
Quintus Sextius
April 16, 2023
The essence of good and evil is a certain disposition of the will.
Epictetus
April 9, 2023
Virtue alone keeps us from making errors in living.
Musonius Rufus
Lectures 2.1
April 2, 2023
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."
March 26, 2023
Since it is Reason which shapes and regulates all other things, it ought not itself to be left in disorder.
Epictetus
March 19, 2023
If one does not know to which port one is sailing, no wind is favorable.
Seneca
March 12, 2023
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
March 5, 2023
A good judge condemns wrongful acts but does not hate them.
The Moral Essays
Seneca
February 26, 2023
Man conquers the world by conquering himself.
Zeno of Citium
February 19, 2023
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
February 12, 2023
A good intellect is the choir of divinity.
Quintus Sextius
February 5, 2023
It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, that is poor.
Seneca
January 29, 2023
Things it was hard to bear, it is pleasant to relate.
Seneca
January 22, 2023
All the good are friends of each other.
Zeno of Citium
January 15, 2023
To live, indeed, is not in our power; but to live rightly is.
Quintus Sextius
January 8, 2023
It is the upright mind that holds true sovereignty.
Seneca
January 1, 2023
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
Our Logo
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.