The Practicing Stoic: A Philosophical User's Manual

“Tranquility can’t be grasped except by those who have reached an unwavering and firm power of judgment—the rest constantly fall and rise in their decisions, wavering in a state of alternately rejecting and accepting things. What is the cause of this back and forth? It’s because nothing is clear and they rely on the most uncertain guide—common opin

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The Stoic mind-set involves understanding what you can control and what you cannot. You ask yourself—what desires can I always obtain, and what things can I always avoid? The Stoic answer is if you only desire to be your best (to live with virtue) and if you only avoid moral mistakes (called vice), then you can always succeed because these are thin

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Haidt says that the answer—of the Buddha and Chinese sages like Lao Tzu in the East and the Greek Stoic philosophers in the West—constituted the “early happiness hypothesis” of ancient times. The principle was this: We are unhappy even in success because we seek happiness from success. Wealth, power, achievement, family, material comfort, and secur

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The true goal of life for Stoics isn’t to acquire as many external advantages as possible but to use whatever befalls us wisely, whether it be sickness or health, wealth or poverty, friends or enemies. The Stoic Sage, or wise man, needs nothing but uses everything well; the fool believes himself to “need” countless things, but he uses them all badl

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