The Daily Stoic: 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living

We can get very good at what we’re paid to do, or adept at a hobby we wish we could be paid to do. Yet our own lives, habits, and tendencies might be a mystery to us.

Anne Lamott once observed that all writers “are little rivers running into one lake,” all contributing to the same big project.

Is it possible to be free from error? Not by any means, but it is possible to be a person always stretching to avoid error.

No one should be ashamed at changing his mind—that’s what the mind is for.

Today, you could try to increase your wealth, or you could take a shortcut and just want less.

Epictetus is reminding you that serenity and stability are results of your choices and judgment, not your environment. If you seek to avoid all disruptions to tranquility—other people, external events, stress—you will never be successful. Your problems will follow you wherever you run and hide. But if you seek to avoid the harmful and disruptive ju

“When philosophy is wielded with arrogance and stubbornly, it is the cause for the ruin of many. Let philosophy scrape off your own faults, rather than be a way to rail against the faults of others.” —SENECA, MORAL LETTERS

“How many have laid waste to your life when you weren’t aware of what you were losing, how much was wasted in pointless grief, foolish joy, greedy desire, and social amusements—how little of your own was left to you. You will realize you are dying before your time!” —SENECA, ON THE BREVITY OF LIFE

Bil Keane, the cartoonist—worth remembering: “Yesterday’s the past, tomorrow’s the future, but today is a gift. That’s why it’s called the present.”