Book List

Here is a list of some of my favorite books. They’re roughly in order.

Discourses – Epictetus
Meditations – Marcus Aurelius
Never Split the Difference – Chris Voss
So Good They Can’t Ignore You – Cal Newport
Leadership Tactics and Strategies – Jocko Willink
Word on Fire Bible, The Gospels – Bishop Robert Barron
The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People – Stephen Covey
Start with Why – Simon Sinek
This Is Marketing – Seth Godin
Thinking, Fast and Slow – Daniel Kahneman
Extreme Ownership – Jocko Willink and Leif Babin
The Elements of Style – William Strunk Jr.
Understanding Michael Porter – Joan Magretta
The Art of Learning – Josh Waitzkin
The Dip – Seth Godin
The Alchemist – Paulo Coelho
Tools of Titans – Tim Ferriss
Autonomy – Lawrence Burns
The Black Swan – Nassim Talib
The 4-Hour Workweek – Tim Ferriss
Blink – Malcolm Gladwell
Deep Work – Cal Newport
Influence – Robert Cialdini
Thinking in Bets – Annie Duke
The Obstacle is the Way – Ryan Holiday
Stillness is the Key – Ryan Holiday
Antifragile – Nassim Talib
Stumbling on Happiness – Daniel Gilbert
Purple Cow – Seth Godin
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance – Robert Pirsig
Ego is the Enemy – Ryan Holiday
Self Reliance and Other Essays – Ralph Waldo Emerso
The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing – Al Ries & Jack Trout
The Success Equation: Untangling Skill and Luck in Business, Sports, and Investing – Michael J. Mauboussin
The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business – Charles Duhigg

Favorite Book Takeaways

Here are some of my favorite passages from books that have particular stood out to me (and for which I’ve taken the time to write our my notes).

Aurelius, Marcus

Meditations:

“There’s nothing more insufferable than people who boast about their own humility” 168

“That an individual’s mind is God and of God” 167

“The student as a boxer, not a fencer.
The fencer’s weapon is picked up and put down again.
The boxer’s is part of him. All he has to do is clench his fist.” 163

“It never ceases to amaze me: we all love ourselves more than other people, but care more about their opinion than our own.” 162

“Everything you’re trying to reach…you could have right now…If you only let go of the past, entrust the future to Providence, and guide the present toward reverence and justice.

Reverence: so you accept what you’re allotted. Nature intended it for you, and you for it.

Justice: so that you’ll speak the truth, frankly and without evasions, and act as you should – and as other people deserve.” 161

“Constant transitions.
Not the “not” but the “not yet” 157

“‘If you don’t have a consistent goal in life, you can’t live it in a consistent way.’

Unhelpful, unless you specify the goal.

There is no common benchmark for all the things that people think are good – except for a few, the ones that affect us all. So the goal should be a common one – a civic one. If you direct all energies toward that, your actions will be consistent. And so will you.” 155

“That kindness is invincible, provided it’s sincere – not ironic or an act. What can even the most vicious person do it you keep treating him with kindness and gently set him straight – if you get the chance – correcting him cheerfully at the exact moment that he’s trying to do you harm. ‘No, no, my friend. That isn’t what we’re here for. It isn’t me who’s harmed by that. It’s you.’ And show him, gently and without pointing fingers, that it’s so. That bees don’t behave like this – or any other animals with a sense of community. Don’t do it sardonically or meanly, but affectionately – with no hatred in your heart. And not ex cathedra or to impress third parties, but speaking directly. Even if there are other people around.” 154

“How much more damage anger and grief do than the things that cause them.” 153

“A straightforward, honest person should be like someone who stinks: when you’re in the same room with him, you should know it.” 151

“You can see the difference between the branch that’s been there since the beginning, remaining on the tree and growing with it, and the one that’s been cut off and grafted back.” 150

“No role is so well suited to philosophy as the one you happen to be in right now.” 149

“Have I done something for the common good? Then I share in the benefits.” 148

“Characteristics of the rational soul…It reaches its intended goal, no matter where the limit of life is set.”147

“Learn to ask of all actions, ‘Why are they doing that?’ starting with your own.” 143

“Leaves that the wind drives earthward, such are the generations of men.” 141

“To live your brief life rightly, isn’t that enough?” 140

“When faced with people’s bad behavior, turn around and ask when you have acted like that.’ 139

“To feel grief, anger or fear is to try to escape from something decreed by the ruler of all things.” 138

“To stop talking about what a good man is like, and just be one.” 137

“To follow the logos in all things is to be relaxed and energetic, joyful and serious at once.” 136

“…it will help you a great deal to keep the gods in mind as well. What they want is not flattery, but for rational things to be like them.” 134

“..what benefits the whole can’t harm the parts, and the whole does nothing that doesn’t benefit it.” 132

“If they’ve made a mistake, correct them gently and show them where they went wrong. If you can’t do that then the blame lies with you. Or no one.” 132

“Are you ever going to achieve goodness? Ever going to be simple, whole and naked…be satisfied with what you have, and accept the present – all of it. And convince yourself that everything is the gift of the gods, that things are good and always will be, whatever they decide and have in store for the preservation of that perfect entity.” 131

“Or by doing them a favor and expecting something in return, instead of looking to the action itself for your reward…Isn’t it enough that you’ve done what your nature demands? You want a salary for it too? As if your eyes expected a reward for seeing, or your feet for walking.” 128

“Starting praying like this and you’ll see:
Not ‘some way to sleep with her’ – but a way to stop wanting to
Not ‘some way to get rid of him’ – but a way to stop trying
Not ‘some way to save my child’ – but a way to lose your fear” 127

“To decompose is to be recomposed” 125

“Do what nature demands. Get a move on…and don’t worry whether anyone will give you credit for it. And don’t go expecting Plato’s Republic; be satisfied with even the smallest progress, and treat the outcome of it all as unimportant.” 124

“When you face someone’s insults, hatred, whatever…look at his soul. Get inside him. Look at what sort of person he is. You’ll find you don’t need to strain to impress him.

But you do have to wish him well. He’s your closest relative. The gods assist him just as they do you,” 123

“A rock thrown in the air. It loses nothing by coming down, gained nothing by going up.” 122

“Today I escaped from anxiety. Or no, I discarded it, because it was within me, in my own perceptions – not outside.” 121

“Work: Not to rouse pity, not to win sympathy or admiration.” 121

“If the problem is something in your own character, who’s stopping you from setting your mind straight?

And if it’s that you’re not doing something you think you should be, why not just do it?” 110

“‘Why is this so unbearable? Why can’t I endure it?’ You’ll be embarrassed to answer.” 108

“Everything is here for a purpose…And why were you born? For pleasure? See if that answer will stand up to questioning.” 104

“Don’t be overheard complaining about life at court. Not even to yourself.” 103

“The first step: Don’t be anxious….The second step: Concentrate on what you have to do…Then do it, without hesitation, and speak the truth as you see it. But with kindness. With humility. Without hypocrisy.” 102

“Be satisfied if you can live the rest of your life, however short, as your nature demands.” 101

“…nothing is good except what leads to fairness, and self-control, and courage, and free will.” 101

“You’ve given aid and they’ve received it. And yet, like an idiot, you keep holding out for more: to be credited with a Good Deed, to be repaid in kind. Why?” 97

“Perfection of character: to live your last day, every day, without frenzy, or sloth, or pretense” 97

“It’s quite possible to be a good man without anyone realizing it. Remember that. And this too: you don’t need much to live happily. ” 96

“…pain is neither unbearable nor unending, as long as you keep in mind its limits and don’t magnify them in your imagination.” 95

“Everywhere, at each moment, you have the option:
– to accept this event with humility
– to treat this person as he should be treated
– to approach this thought with care, so that nothing irrational creeps in” 93

“Kingship: to earn a bad reputation by good deeds” 91

“Wash yourself clean. With simplicity, with humility, with indifference to everything but right and wrong. Care for other human beings. Follow God.” 90

“When people injure you, ask yourself what good or harm they thought would come it.” 89

“Frightened of change? But what can exist without it?” 88

“Straight, not straightened.” 87

“Don’t be ashamed to need help. Like a soldier storming a wall, you have a mission to accomplish. And if you’ve been wounded and you need a comrade to pull you up? So what?” 86

“…we need to practice acceptance. Without disdain. But remembering that our own worth is measured by what we devote our energy to.” 85

“Ambition means tying your well-being to what other people say or do.
Self-indulgence means tying it to the things that happen to you.
Sanity means tying it to your own actions.” 81

“You don’t have to turn this into something. It doesn’t have to upset you. Things can’t shape our decision by themselves.” 81

“When you need encouragement, think of the qualities the people around you have: this one’s energy, that one’s modesty, another’s generosity, and so on.” 80

“The only thing that isn’t worthless: to live this life out truthfully and rightly. And be patient with those who don’t.” 80

“If the gods have made decisions about me and the things that happen to me, then they were good decisions.” 79

“The best revenge is not to be like that.” 69

“But your good fortune is what you make for yourself. Good fortune: good character, good intentions, and good actions.” 65

“Honor and revere the gods, treat human beings as they deserve, be tolerant with others and strict with yourself.” 64

“…the spirit God gave each of us to lead and guide us, a fragment of himself. Which is our mind, our logos.” 62

“So other people hurt me? That’s their problem.” 61

“Existence flows past us like a river: the ‘what’ is in constant flux, the ‘why’ has a thousand variations. Nothing is stable, not even what’s right here. The infinity of past and future gapes before us – a chasm whose depths we cannot see.

So it would take an idiot to feel self-important or distress. Or any indignation, either. As if the things that irritate us lasted.” 61

“In a sense, people are our proper occupation. Our job is to do them good and put up with them.” 60

“The impediment to action advances action.
What stands in the way becomes the way.” 60

“At dawn, when you have trouble getting out of bed, tell yourself ‘ I have to go to work – as a human being. What do I have to complain of, if I’m going to do what I was born for – the things I was brought into the world to do?” 53

“It’s unfortunate that this has happened.
No, it’s fortunate that this has happened…it could have happened to anyone. But not everyone could have remained unharmed by it.” 48

“To be like the rock that the waves keep crashing over.” 48

“There is nothing bad in undergoing change – or good in emerging from it.” 46

“Love the discipline you know, and let it support you. Entrust everything willingly to the gods, and then make your way through life – no one’s master and no one’s slave.” 44

“…what the life of the good man is like – someone content with what nature assigns him, and satisfied with being just and kind himself.” 43

“Ask yourself at every moment, ‘Is this necessary?’” 43

“Beautiful things of any kind are beautiful in themselves and sufficient to themselves. Praise is extraneous.” 41

“Many lumps of incense on the same altar. One crumbles now, one later, but it makes no difference.” 40

“People try to to get away from it all – to the country, to the beach, to the mountains. You always wish that you could too. Which is idiotic: you can get away from it anytime you like. By going within.

Nowhere you can go is more peaceful – more free of interruptions – than your own soul.” 37

“How to act:
Never under compulsion, out of selfishness, without forethought, with misgivings.
Don’t gussy up your thoughts.
No surplus words or unnecessary actions.
Let the spirit in you represent a man, an adult, a citizen, a Roman, a ruler. Taking up his post like a soldier and patiently awaiting his recall from life. Needing no oath or witness.
Cheerfulness. Without requiring other people’s help. Or serenity supplied by others.
To stand up straight—not straightened.” 30

“You need to get used to winnowing your thoughts, so that if someone says, ‘What are you thinking about?’ you can respond at once (and truthfully) that you are thinking about this or thinking that. And it would be obvious at once from your answer that your thoughts were straightforward and considerate ones.” 29

“…all you have to do is to be attentive to the power inside you and worship it sincerely.” 21

“You could leave life right now. Let that determine what you do and say and think.” 20

“…death and life, success and failure, pain and pleasure, wealth and poverty, all these happen to good and bad alike, and they are neither noble nor shameful – and hence neither good nor bad.” 20

“Whatever the nature of the whole does, and whatever serves to maintain it, is good for every part of nature.” 18

“Concentrate every minute like a Roman – like a man – on doing what’s in front of you with precise and genuine seriousness, tenderly, willingly, with justice. And on freeing yourself from all other distractions. Yes, you can – if you do everything as if it were the last thing you were doing in your life,” 18

Things Marcus Aurelius wrote that he was grateful for…

“That whenever I felt like helping someone who was short of money, or otherwise in need, I never had to be told that I had no resources to do it with.” 13

“That I had the kind of brother I did. One whose character challenged me to improve my own.” 12

“That I wasn’t more talented in rhetoric or poetry, or other areas. If I’d felt that I was making better progress I might have never given them up.” 12

“Everything was to be approached logically and with due consideration, in a calm and orderly fashion but decisively, and with no loose ends.” 11

“His constancy to friends – never getting fed up with them, or playing favorites.” 9

“The sense he gave of staying on the path rather than being kept on it.” 9

“…not to be always ducking my responsibilities to the people around me because of ‘pressing business‘” 8

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

Self-Reliance:

“…To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men, – that is genius. Speak your latent conviction, and it shall be the universal sense; for the inmost in due time becomes the outmost.”

“…the highest merit we ascribe to Moses, Plato, and Milton is that they set at naught books and traditions, and spoke not what men, but what they thought. A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within, more than lustre of the firmament of bards and sages. Yet he dismisses without notice his thought, because it is his. In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts; they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty.”

“There is a time in every man’s education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide;”

“The power which resides in him is new in nature, and none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor does he know until he has tried.”

“A man is relieved and gay when he has put his heart into his work and done his best.“

“Infancy conforms to nobody; all conform to it; so that one babe commonly makes four or five out of the adults who prattle and play to it. So God has armed youth and puberty and manhood no less with its own piquancy and charm, and made it enviable and gracious and its claims not to bee put by, if it will stand by itself.”

“Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind”

“No law can be sacred to me but that of my nature. Good and bad are but names very readily transferable to that or this; the only right is what is after my constitution, the only wrong what is against it.”

“Your goodness must have some edge to it, – else it is none.”

“My life is for itself and not a spectacle. I much prefer that it should be of a lower strain, so it be genuine and equal, than that it should be glittering and unsteady.”

“…the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.“

“For nonconformity the world whips you with its displeasure. And therefore a man must know how to estimate a sour face.

“The other terror that scares us from self-trust is our consistency; a reverence for our past act or word because the eyes of others have no data for computing our orbit than our past acts, and we are loath to disappoint them.”

“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.”

“To be great is to be misunderstood’

“Honor is venerable to us because it is no ephemera. It is always ancient virtue. We worship it to-day because it is not of to-day.”

“We lie in the lap of immense intelligence, which makes us receivers of its truth and organs of its activity. When we discern justice, when we discern truth, we do nothing of ourselves, but allow a passage to its beams.”

“The relations of the soul to the divine spirit are so pure that it is profane to seek to interpose helps.”

(After speaking about the danger of relying on past wisdom, and how that keeps us from living in the present) “This should be plain enough. Yet see what strong intellects dare not yet hear God himself unless he speak the phraseology of I know not what David, or Jeremiah, or Paul. We shall not always set so great a price on a few texts, on a few lives. We are like children who repeat by rote the sentences of grandames and tutors, and, as they grow older, of the men of talents and character they chance to see, – painfully recollecting the exact words they spoke; afterwards, when they come into the point of view which those had who uttered these sayings, they understand them and are willing to let the words go; for at any time they can use words as good when occasion comes. If we live truly, we shall see truly.”

(After speaking about the anecdotal man who is willing to try various enterprises without fear of failure or of having an unconventional path) ” He walks abreast with his days and feels no shame in not “studying a profession” for he does not postpone his life, but lives already.”

“…prayer as a means to effect a private end is meanness and theft. It supposes dualism and not unity in nature and consciousness.”

“The soul is no traveler; the wise man stays at home…I have no churlish objection to the circumnavigation of the globe for the purposes of art, of study, and benevolence, so that the man is first domesticated, or does not go abroad with the hope of finding somewhat greater than he knows. He who travels to be amused, or to get somewhat which he does not carry, travels away from himself, and grows old even in youth among old things…He carries ruins to ruins.”

“That which each can do best, none but his Maker can teach him. No man yet knows what it is, nor can, till that person exhibited it. Where is the master who could have taught Shakespeare?” Where is the master who could have instructed Franklin, or Washington, or Bacon, or Newton? Every great man in unique”

“Society never advances. It recedes as fast on one side as it gains on the other.

Nature

“…the simple perception of natural forms is a delight.”

“To the attentive eye, each moment of the year has its own beauty, and in the same field, it beholds, every hour, a picture which was never seen before, and which shall never be seen again. The heavens change every moment, and reflect their glory or gloom on the plains beneath.”

“But the beauty of Nature which is seen and felt as beauty, is the least part. The shows of day, the dewy morning, the rainbow, mountains, orchards in blossom, stars, moonlight, shadows in still water, and the life, if too eagerly hunted, become shows merely, and mock us with their unreality. Go out of the house to see the moon, and tis mere tinsel; it will not please as when its light shines upon your necessary journey.”

“Beauty is the mark God sets upon virtue. Every natural action is graceful.”

“…love of beauty is Taste…creation of beauty is Art.”

“A man’s power to connect his thought with its proper symbol, and so to utter it, depends on the simplicity of his character.”

“We know more from nature than we can at will communicate”

“Parts of speech are metaphors, because the whole of nature is a metaphor of the human mind.”

“…is nature ever the ally of Religion: lends all her pomp and riches to the religious sentiment. Prophet and priest, David, Isaiah, Jesus, have drawn deeply from this source. This ethical character so penetrates the bone and marrow of nature, as to seem the end for which it was made.”

“Nothing in nature is exhausted in its first use. When a thing has served an end to the uttermost, it is wholly new for an ulterior service.”

“A rule of one art, or a law of one organization, holds true throughout nature.”

“…what difference does it make, whether Orion is up there in heaven, or some god paints the image in the firmament of the soul?…Whether nature enjoy a substantial existence without, or is only in the apocalypse of the mind, is alike useful and alike venerable to me. Be it what it may, it is ideal to me, so long as I cannot try the accuracy of my senses.”

“The least change in our point of view, gives the whole world a pictorial air. A man who seldom rides needs only to get into a coach and traverse his own town, to turn the street into a puppet-show.”

“Whilst thus the poet animates nature with his own thoughts, he differs from the philosopher only herein, that the one proposes Beauty as his main end; the other Truth.”

“…religion and ethics, which may be fitly called, -the practice of ideas, or the introduction of ideas into life,”

“Idealism sees the world in God. It beholds the whole circle of persons and things, of actions and events, of country and religion, not as painfully accumulated, atom after atom, act after act, in an aged creeping Past, but as one vast picture, which God paints on the instant eternity, for the contemplation of the soul.”

“The happiest man is he who learns from nature the lesson of worship.”

“Idealism is a hypothesis to account for nature by other principles than those of carpentry and chemistry.”

“…that spirit, that is, the Supreme Being, does not build up nature around us, but puts it forth through us, as the life of the tree puts forth new branches and leaves through the pores of the old.”

“This view, which admonishes me where the sources of wisdom and power lie, and points to virtue as to, ‘The golden key which opes the palace of eternity,’ carries upon its face the highest certificate of truth, because it animates me to create my own world through the purification of my soul.”

“When I behold a rich landscape, it is less to my purpose to recite correctly the order and superposition of the strata, than to know why all thought or multitude is lost in a tranquil sense of unity.”

“The foundations of man are not in matter, but in spirit.”

“The invariable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous in the common.”

“He should see that he can live all history in his own person”

“The progress of the intellect is to the clearer vision of causes, which neglects surface differences. To the poet, to the philosopher, to the saint, all things are friendly and sacred, all events profitable, all days holy, all men divine. For the eye is fastened on the life, and slights the circumstance.”

“…nobody could draw a tree without in some sort becoming a tree; or draw a child by studying the outlines of its form merely.”

“The Gothic church plainly originated in a rude adaptation of the forest trees…No one can walk in a road cut through pine woods, without being struck with the architectural appearance of the grove.”

“Our admiration of the antique is not admiration of the old, but of the natural.”

“…fallacy lay in the immense concession that the bad are successful; that justice is not done now…what constitutes a manly success, instead of confronting and convicting the world from the truth; announcing the presence of the soul; the omnipotence of the will; and so establishing the standard of good and ill, of success and falsehood.”

“Every act rewards itself, or, in other words integrates itself, in a twofold manner; first in the thing, or in real nature; and secondly in the circumstance, or in apparent nature. Men call the circumstance the retribution.”

“…in nature nothing can be given, all things are sold.”

“You cannot do wrong without suffering wrong.”

“Every thing has two sides, a good and an evil. Every advantage has its tax. I learn to be content. But the doctrine of compensation is not the doctrine of indifferency. The thoughtless say, on hearing these representations, – What boots it to do well? there is one event to good and evil; if I gain any good I must pay for it; if I lose any good I gain some other; all actions are indifferent. There is a deeper fact in the soul than compensation, to wit, its own nature.”

(When contrasting the trade-offs inherent in worldly actions with the different nature of virtue” There is no penalty to virtue; no penalty to wisdom; they are proper additions of being. In a virtuous action I properly am; in a virtuous act I add to the world…there is no tax on the good of virtue, for that is the incoming of God himself, or absolute existence, without any comparative.”

Epictetus

Discourses

Book I, 2
“…reflection will show that people are put off by nothing as much as what they think is unreasonable, and attracted to nothing more than what to them seems reasonable…Which is why education has no goal more important than bringing our preconception of what is reasonable and unreasonable in alignment with nature.“

Book I, 4
“What I want to see isn’t the weights but how you’ve profited from using them...I want to know how you put impulse and repulsion into practice, and desire and avoidance as well.”

Book I, 6
“It is easy to praise providence for everything that happens in the world provided you have both the ability to see individual events in the context of the whole and a sense of gratitude.”

“Why should I worry about what happens if I am armed with the virtue of fortitude? Nothing can trouble or upset me, or even seems annoying. Instead of meeting misfortune with groans and tears, I will call upon the faculty especially provided to deal with it. ‘But my nose is running!’ What do you have hands for, idiot, if not to wipe it? ‘But how is it right that there be running noses in the first place?’ Instead of thinking up protests, wouldn’t it be easier just to wipe your nose?”

Book I, 9
“For in fact it is silly and pointless to try to get from another person what one can get from oneself. Since I can get greatness of soul and nobility from myself, why should I look to get a farm, or money, or some office, from you? I will not be so insensible of what I already own.”

Book I, 11
“…it isn’t death, pain, exile, or anything else you care to mention that accounts for the way we act, only our opinion about death, pain, and the rest…

Book I, 13
“If you have been placed in a position above others, are you automatically going to behave like a despot? Remember who you are and whom you govern – that they are kinsmen, brothers by nature, fellow descendants of Zeus.”

Book I, 15
“Philosophy does not claim to secure for us anything outside of our control.”

Book I, 17
“Which, I suppose, is why Stoics put logic at the head of our curriculum – for the same reason that, before a quantity of grain can be measured, we must settle on a standard of measurement. If we don’t begin by establishing standards of weight and volume, how are we going to measure or weigh anything?”

Book I, 18
“Philosophers say that people are all guided by a single standard. When they assent to a thing, it is because they feel it must be true, when they dissent, it is because they feel something isn’t true, and when they suspend judgement, it is because they feel that the thing is unclear…If all of this is true, then what grounds do we have for being angry with anyone?

“Since when are you so intelligent as to go around correcting other people’s mistakes? We get angry because we put too high a premium on things that they can steal. Don’t attach such value to your clothes, and you won’t get angry with the thief who takes them.

Book I, 19
“…everything we do is done for our own ends…[Zeus] made the rational animal, man, incapable of attaining any of his private ends without at the same time providing for the community. The upshot is that it is not anti-social to be constantly acting in one own’s self-interest.”

Book I, 22
“The operations of the will are in our power; not in our power are the body, the body’s parts, property, parents, siblings, children, country of friends. Where should we put the good, then – to which of the two classes are we going to assign it? To the class of things in our power.”

Book I, 24
“The true man is revealed in difficult times. So when trouble comes, think of yourself as a wrestler whom God, like a trainer, has paired with a tough young buck. For what purpose? To turn you into Olympic-class material.“

Book I, 29
“…the thief was better than I am at staying awake. But he acquired the lamp at a price; he became a thief for its sake, he lost his ability to be trusted, for a lamp he became a brute. And he imagine he came out ahead!”

“A student fresh out of school who gets into difficulty is like someone practised in the solving of syllogisms; if anyone gives him an easy one, he say, ‘Give me a knotty one instead, I want a bit of practice.’ In the same way, athletes don’t like to be paired with pushovers. ‘He can’t life me,’ one says, ‘this other guy is better built.’ No, when the crises comes, we groan and say, ‘I wanted to keep on learning.’ Keep learning what? If you didn’t learn these things in order to demonstrate them in practice, what did you learn them for?”

Book I, 30
“‘How did you categorize exile, imprisonment, chains, death and disgrace, when you were in school?’
‘I said they were indifferent.’
‘And what do you call them now? They haven’t changed, I presume?’
‘No.’
‘Well, have you changed?’
‘No.’
‘Then define for me now what the ‘indifferents’ are.’
‘Whatever things we cannot control.’
‘Tell me the upshot.’
‘They are nothing to me.’
‘Remind me what you thought was good.’
‘The will and the right use of impressions.’
‘And the goal of life is what?’
‘To follow God.'”

Book II, 1
“Death and pain are not frightening, it’s the fear of pain and death we need to fear.”

Book II, 2
“…it is stupid to say, ‘Tell me what to do!’ What should I tell you? It would be better to say, ‘Make my mind adaptable to any circumstance.'”

Book II, 5
“So in life our first job is this, to divide and distinguish things into two categories: externals I cannot control, but the choices I make with regard to them I do control.“

“Don’t ever speak of ‘good’ or ‘bad’, ‘advantage’ or ‘harm’, and so on, of anything that is not in your responsibility.”

“It isn’t easy to combine and reconcile the two – the carefulness of a person devoted to the externals and the dignity of one who’s detached – but it’s not impossible. Otherwise, happiness would be impossible.”

“That’s what we need: the star athlete’s concentration together with his coolness, as if it were just another ball we were playing.

“Your job, then, is to appear before the court, say what you have to say and make the best of the situation. Then the judge declares you guilty. ‘I wish you well, judge. I did my part, you can decide if you did yours.'”

Book II, 6
“‘Don’t bother me; don’t you realize the problems I’ve got? You think I can listen to poetry in my position?’
‘Why, what is it?’
‘I’m sentenced to death!’
‘And the rest of us aren’t?'”

Book II, 8
“You carry the living God inside you and are blind to the fact that you desecrate him with your dirty words and dirty thoughts – none of which you would dare repeat if there were even a mere statue of a god near by. God himself is there within, seeing and overhearing everything you do and say – and do you care?”

Book II, 10
“…if ‘good’ as well as ‘bad’ really relate to our choices, then consider whether your position does not amount to saying something like, ‘Well, since that guy hurt himself with the injustice he did me, shouldn’t I wrong him in order to hurt myself in retaliation?’“

Book II, 13
“Take a lyre player: he’s relaxed when he performs alone, but put him in front of an audience, and it’s a different story, no matter how beautiful his voice or how well he plats the instrument. Why? Because he not only wants to perform well, he wants to be well received – and the latter lies outside his control.”

Book II, 14
“In our school ,we picture the philosopher’s goal more or less as follows: bring the will in line with events, so that nothing happens contrary to our wishes and, conversely, nothing fails to happen that we want to happen. Pursue it, and the reward is that neither desire nor aversion will fail in their aims; and we will fill all our roles in society – as son, father, brother, citizen, man, woman, neighbour, fellow voyager, rule or ruled – without conflict, fear, or rancour.”

“Philosophers say that the first thing to learn is that God exists, that he governs the world, and that we cannot keep our actions secret, that even our thoughts and inclinations are known to him…All our thoughts and behaviour should be shaped on the divine model.”

Book II, 15
[On our inclination to stick with our past decisions, even after learning that they were foolish]
“‘But we must stick with a decision.’
‘For heaven’s sake, man, that rule only applies to sound decisions.”

Book II, 16
“‘Where does the good lie?’
‘In the will.’
‘And evil?’
‘Also in the will.’

“‘Please, God,’ we say, ‘relieve me of my anxiety.’ Listen, stupid, you have hands. God gave them to you himself. You might as well get on your knees and pray that your nose won’t run. A better idea would be to wipe your nose and forgo the prayer. The point is, isn’t there anything God gave you for your present problem? You have the gifts of courage, fortitude and endurance. With ‘hands’ like these, do you still need somebody to help wipe your nose?”

Book II, 17
“‘I want to be free from fear and emotion, but at the same time I want to be a concerned citizen and philosopher, and attentive to my other duties, toward God, my parents, my siblings, my country, and my guests.'”

Book II, 18
“Start by wanting to please yourself, for a change, and appear worthy in the eyes of God. Desire to become pure, and, once pure, you will be at ease with yourself, and comfortable in the company of God.”

“Don’t let the force of the impression when first it hits you knock you off your feet; just say to it, ‘Hold on a moment; let me see who you are and what you represent.'”

Book II, 19
“…it is no great achievement to memorize what you have read while not formulating an opinion on your own.”

“Just pay attention to the way you behave and you will discover the school of philosophy you really belong to.”

Book III, 22
“You look for peace and happiness in the wrong places; and you’re suspicious of anyone who tries to point you in the right direction. Don’t look for it in externals; it isn’t in the body,”

Book III, 23
“First, tell yourself what you want to be, then act your part accordingly.”

“…the school of a philosopher is a hospital. When you leave, you should have suffered, not enjoyed yourself. Because you enter, not in a state of health, but with a dislocated shoulder, it may be, or an abscess, a fistula, or head pain.”

Book IV, 1
“Free is the person who lives as he wishes and cannot be coerced, impeded or compelled, whose impulses cannot be thwarted, who always gets what he desires and never has to experience what he would rather avoid…No bad person…lives the way he wants, and no bad man is free.”

“There are tame lions that people cage, raise, feed and take with them wherever they go. Yet who will call such a lion free? The easier its life, the more slavish it is. No lion endowed with reason and discretion would choose to be one of these pet specimens.”

“…when we love, hate or fear such things, then the people who administer them are bound to become our masters.”

“…he brought you into the world as a mortal, to pass your time on earth with a little endowment of flesh, to witness his design and share for a short time in his feast and celebration. So why not enjoy the feast and pageant while it’s given you to do so; then, when he ushers you out, go with thanks and reverence for what you were privileged for a time to see and hear…If the conditions don’t suit you, leave. He doesn’t need a heckler in the audience. He wants people keen to participate in the dance and revels.”

“…we assert that in their nature human beings are gentle, honest and cooperative – that’s pretty ridiculous, is it not? No, that isn’t either – which is why no one suffers harm even if they are flogged, jailed, or beheaded. The victim may be majestic in suffering, you see, and come through a better, more fortunate person; while the one who really comes to harm, who suffers the most and most pitifully, is the person who is transformed from human being to wolf, snake or hornet.”

“…just and fairness are good, vice and injustice bad.”

“Freedom is not achieved by satisfying desire, but by eliminating it.”

Book IV, 4
“True peace is characterized by nothing so much as steadiness and imperturbability.”

“If you keep yourself calm, poised, and dignified, if you observe rather than are observed, if you don’t envy people with greater success, don’t let externals disconcert you – if you do all this, what more do you need? Books? Yes, but how, or for what purpose?
‘Isn’t reading a kind of preparation for life?
But life is composed of things other than books. It is as if an athlete, on entering the stadium, were to complain that he’s not outside exercising.
…it is enough for us to learn what is written on the topic and be able to explicate it before someone else; it is enough if we can analyse an argument or develop a hypothesis.
…And rather than reckon, as we are used to doing, ‘How many lines I read, or wrote, today,’ we would pass in review how ‘I applied impulse today the way the philosophers recommend, how I desisted from desire, and practised aversion only on matters that are under my control. I wasn’t flustered by A or angered by B; I was patient, restained and cooperative.“

“Be happy when you find the doctrines you have learned and analysed are being tested by real events.”

Enchiridion

Ch.1
“We are responsible for some things, while there are others for which we cannot be held responsible. The former include our judgement, our impulse, our desire, aversion and our mental faculties in general.”

“Is this something that is, or is not, in my control? And if it’s not, one of the things that you control, be with the reaction, ‘Then it’s none of my concern.'”

Ch.2
“…if your resentment is directed at illness, death or poverty, you are headed for dissapointment. Remove it from anything not in our power to control and direct it instead toward things contrary to our nature that we do control”

Ch.5
“It is not events that disturb people, it is their judgements concerning them. Death, for example, is nothing frightening, otherwise it would have frightened Socrates. But the judgement that death is frightening – now, that is something to be afraid of.“

“An ignorant person is inclined to blame others for his own misfortune. To blame oneself is proof of progress. But the wise man never has to blame another or himself.”

Ch.8
“Don’t hope that events will turn out the way you want, welcome events in whichever way they happen: this is the path to peace.”

Ch.12
“It is better to die of hunger free of grief and apprehension than to live affluent and uneasy.”

Ch.19
“If the essence of the good lies within us, then there is no place for jealousy or envy, and you will not care about being a general, a senator or a consul – only about about being free. And the way to be free is to look down on externals.”

Ch.20
“If someone succeeds in provoking you, realize that your mind is complicit in the provocation.“

Ch.21
“Keep the prospect of death, exile and all such apparent tragedies before you every day.”

Ch.25
[After detailing the apparent advantages that someone will miss out on if they stick to their virtues, and how we should accept this as part of the price for living a good life] “It would be unfair and greedy on your part, then, to decline to pay the price that these privileges entail and hope to get them free.”

Ch.27
“Just as a target is not set up in order to be missed, so evil is no natural part of the world’s design.”

Ch.29
“Reflect on what every project entails in both its initial and subsequent stages before taking it up.”

[After talking further about the worldly price that comes with being a philosopher] Ponder whether you’re prepared to pay this price for serenity, freedom, and calm. If not, then don’t go near it -“

Ch.30
“Another person will not hurt you without your cooperation: you are hurt the moment you believe yourself to be.”

Ch.31
“Realize that the chief duty we owe the gods is to hold the correct beliefs about them: that they exist, that they govern the world justly and well, and that they have put you here for one purpose – to obey them and welcome whatever happens…And this cannot happen unless you stop applying “good” and “bad” to externals and only describe things under our control that way.

Ch.32
“Approach the gods with a dignified attitude, think of them as your advisers. But once their advice has been given, remember the source and consider who you would be slighting if you were to set that advice aside.”

Ch.33
“Settle on the type of person you want to be and stick to it, whether alone or in company.“

“If you learn that someone is speaking ill of you, don’t try to defend yourself against the rumours; respond instead with, ‘Yes, and he doesn’t know the half of it, because he could have said more.'”

Ch.34
“…reflect on both intervals of time: the time you will have to experience the pleasure, and the time after its enjoyment that you will beat yourself up over it. Contrast that with how happy and pleased you’ll be if you abstain.”

Ch.42
“Whenever anyone criticizes or wrongs you, remember that they are only doing or saying what they think is right. They cannot be guided by your views, only their own; so if their views are wrong, they are the ones who suffer insofar as they are misguided.”

Ch.45
“Someone bathes in haste; don’t say he bathes badly, but in haste. Someone drinks a lot of wine; don’t say he drinks badly, but a lot. Until you know their reasons, how do you know that their actions are vicious?”

Ch.46
“Never identify yourself as a philosopher or speak much to non-philosophers about your principles; act in line with those principles...so don’t make a show of your philosophical learning to the uninitiated, show them by your actions what you have absorbed.”

Ch.48
“And the signs of a person making progress: he never criticizes, praises, blames, or points the finger, or represents himself as knowing or amounting to anything. If he experiences frustration or disappointment, he points the finger at himself. If he’s praised, he’s more amused than elated.”

Ch.51
“How long will you wait before you demand the best of yourself, and trust reason to determine what is best?”

“…the chance for progress, to keep or lose, turns on the events of a single day.”

Ch.52
“The first and most important field of philosophy is the application of principles such as ‘Do not lie.’ Next comes the proofs, such as why we should not lie. The third field supports and articulates the proofs, by asking, for example, ‘How does this prove it? What exactly is a proof, what is logical inference, what is contradiction, what is truth, what is falsehood? Thus, the third field is necessary because of the second and the second because of the first. The most important, though, the one that should occupy most of our time, is the first. But we do just the opposite. We are preoccupied with the third field and give that all our attention, passing the first by altogether. The result is that we lie – but have no difficulty proving why we shouldn’t.“

Seneca

Letters from a Stoic

“For we are mistaken when we look forward to death; the major portion of death has already passed. Whatever years are behind us are in death’s hands.”

” ‘Contented poverty is an honourable estate.’ Indeed, if it be contended, it is not poverty at all.”

III

“But if you consider any man a friend whom you do not trust as you trust yourself, you are mightily mistake and you do not sufficiently understand what true friendship means”

“No good thing renders its possessor happy, unless his mind is reconciled to the possibility of loss; nothing, however, is lost with less discomfort than that which, when lost, cannot be missed.”

“He is a great man who uses earthenware dishes as if they were silver; but he is equally great who uses silver as if it were earthenware.”

“There is this difference between ourselves and the other school (the Cynics); our ideal wise man feels his troubles, but overcomes them; their wise man does not even feel them. But we and they alike hold this idea, that the wise man is self-sufficient.”

“the wise man is self-sufficient, that he can do without friends, not that he desires to do without them.”

“Unblest is he who thinks himself unblest.”

” ‘Live among men as if God behold you; speak with God as if men were listening.’ “

” ‘Cherish some man of high character, and keep him ever before your eyes, living as if he were watching you, and ordering all your actions as if he beheld them.’ … We can get rid of most sins, if we have a witness who stands near us when we are likely to go wrong.”

XII

“When a man has said: ‘I have lived!’, every morning he arises he receives a bonus.”

XIII

“Manliness gains much strength by being challenged,”

“we suffer more often in imagination than in reality.”

XIV

“the wise man regards the reason for all his actions, but not the results.”

XVII

“If you wish to have leisure for your mind, either be a poor man, or resemble a poor man.”

XVIII

“It shows much more courage to remain dry and sober when the mob is drunk and vomiting; but it shows greater self-control to refuse to withdraw oneself and to do what the crowd does, but in a different way.”

“Set aside a certain number of days, during which you shall be content with the scantiest and cheapest fare, with coarse and rough dress, saying to yourself the while: ‘Is this the condition that I feared?’ “

“If you would not have a man flinch when the crisis comes, train him before it comes.”

XXIII

“We have reached the heights if we know what it is that we find joy in, and if we have not placed our happiness in the control of externals.”

“…look toward the true good, and rejoice only in that which comes from your own store. And what do I mean by ‘from your own store?’ I mean from your very self, that which is the best part of you.”

“Do you ask me what this real good is, and whence it derives? I will tell you: it comes from a good conscience, from honourable purposes, from right actions, from contempt of the gifts of chance, from an even and calm way of living which treads but one path.”

“It is bothersome always to be beginning life”

XXV

“…when you have progressed so far that you have also respect for yourself, you may send away your attendant; but until then, set as a guard over yourself the authority of some man, whether your choice be the great Cato or Scipio, or Laelius – or any man in whose presence even abandoned wretches would check their bad impulses. Meantime, you are engaged in making of yourself the sort of person in whose company you would not dare to sin.”