Lives of the Stoics: The Art of Living from Zeno to Marcus Aurelius QUOTES

1 " It´s a populist irony--the strongman comes to power by making impossible and destructive promises to the disenfranchised. Do they actually have any intention of helping these people? Of course not. In fact, they´ll actively stymie any reforms that will actually make the system more fair. All that matters is their iron grip on their ignorant base and the power that comes from it. "

― Ryan Holiday , Lives of the Stoics: The Art of Living from Zeno to Marcus Aurelius

2 " A wise man can make use of whatever comes his way, he said, but is in want of nothing. “On the other hand,” he said, “nothing is needed by the fool for he does not understand how to use anything but he is in want of everything.” There is no better definition of a Stoic: to have but not want, to enjoy without needing. "

― Ryan Holiday , Lives of the Stoics: The Art of Living from Zeno to Marcus Aurelius

3 " You owe it to yourself and to the world to actively engage with the brief moment you have with this planet. You cannot retreat exclusively into ideas. You must contribute. "

― Ryan Holiday , Lives of the Stoics: The Art of Living from Zeno to Marcus Aurelius

4 " Epictetus was reminded daily how little control he had, even of his own person. As he came to study and understand Stoicism, he adopted this lesson into what he described as our “chief task in life.” It was, he said, simply “to identify and separate matters so that I can say clearly to myself which are externals not under my control, and which have to do with the choices I actually control. "

― Ryan Holiday , Lives of the Stoics: The Art of Living from Zeno to Marcus Aurelius

5 " When the student is ready, the old Zen saying goes, the teacher appears. "

― Ryan Holiday , Lives of the Stoics: The Art of Living from Zeno to Marcus Aurelius

6 " If the breaking day sees someone proud, The ending day sees them brought low. No one should put too much trust in triumph, No one should give up hope of trials improving. Clotho mixes one with the other and stops Fortune from resting, spinning every fate around. No one has had so much divine favor That they could guarantee themselves tomorrow. God keeps our lives hurtling on, Spinning in a whirlwind. "

― Ryan Holiday , Lives of the Stoics: The Art of Living from Zeno to Marcus Aurelius

7 " To Agrippinus, there should be no hemming and hawing about the right thing. There should be no weighing of options. “He who once sets himself about such considerations,” Epictetus said about Agrippinus, “and goes to calculating the worth of external things, approaches very near to those who forget their own character.” Character is fate, is how Heraclitus—one of the Stoics’ favorite influences—put it. "

― Ryan Holiday , Lives of the Stoics: The Art of Living from Zeno to Marcus Aurelius

8 " It’s an example that should challenge every talented and brilliant person: You owe it to yourself and to the world to actively engage with the brief moment you have on this planet. You cannot retreat exclusively into ideas. You must contribute. "

― Ryan Holiday , Lives of the Stoics: The Art of Living from Zeno to Marcus Aurelius

9 " But as the poet Timon was only the first to illustrate, the fate of any exemplary figure is mockery by parasites, just as the great bull is beset by flies. "

― Ryan Holiday , Lives of the Stoics: The Art of Living from Zeno to Marcus Aurelius

10 " Musonius Rufus, some forty-odd years before Marcus was born, had been approached by a Syrian king. “Do not imagine,” he had told the man, that it is more appropriate for anyone to study philosophy than for you, nor for any other reason than because you are a king. For the first duty of a king is to be able to protect and benefit his people, and a protector and benefactor must know what is good for a man and what is bad, what is helpful and what harmful, what advantageous and what disadvantageous, inasmuch as it is plain that those who ally themselves with evil come to harm, while those who cleave to good enjoy protection, and those who are deemed worthy of help and advantage enjoy benefits, while those who involve themselves in things disadvantageous and harmful suffer punishment. "

― Ryan Holiday , Lives of the Stoics: The Art of Living from Zeno to Marcus Aurelius

11 " The smarter we are, the easier it is to fall in love with our own voice, and our own thoughts. The cost of this is not just pride, but the quality of our message. "

― Ryan Holiday , Lives of the Stoics: The Art of Living from Zeno to Marcus Aurelius

12 " Yet somehow we have Marcus Aurelius writing, after all these twists of fate, a note that captures the essence of leadership and the incredible resilience of the human spirit. —It’s unfortunate that this has happened. No. It’s fortunate that this has happened and I’ve remained unharmed by it—not shattered by the present or frightened of the future. It could have happened to anyone. But not everyone could have remained unharmed by it. "

― Ryan Holiday , Lives of the Stoics: The Art of Living from Zeno to Marcus Aurelius

13 " In the real world, we miss. Sometimes by a lot. But we have to keep trying. The more we work on it the better we get. The more shots we take, the more times we’ll hit the target and the more good we’ll do. "

― Ryan Holiday , Lives of the Stoics: The Art of Living from Zeno to Marcus Aurelius

14 " Many centuries later, Jackie Robinson would express the idea even more succinctly. “A life is not important,” his tombstone reads, “except in the impact it has on other lives. "

― Ryan Holiday , Lives of the Stoics: The Art of Living from Zeno to Marcus Aurelius

15 " What makes us impressive is what we are able to make of this crooked material we were born with. "

― Ryan Holiday , Lives of the Stoics: The Art of Living from Zeno to Marcus Aurelius

16 " Epictetus preached humility. “It’s impossible to begin to learn that which one thinks they already know,” he said. "

― Ryan Holiday , Lives of the Stoics: The Art of Living from Zeno to Marcus Aurelius

17 " Don’t explain your philosophy,” Epictetus said, “embody it. "

― Ryan Holiday , Lives of the Stoics: The Art of Living from Zeno to Marcus Aurelius

18 " Panaetius argues that if we are to live an ethical life and choose appropriate actions, we must find a way to balance: the roles and duties common to us all as human beings; the roles and duties unique to our individual daimon, or personal genius/calling; the roles and duties assigned to us by the chance of our social station (family and profession); the roles and duties that arise from decisions and commitments we have made. "

― Ryan Holiday , Lives of the Stoics: The Art of Living from Zeno to Marcus Aurelius

19 " Best,” to the Stoics, did not meaning winning battles. Superior did not mean accumulating the most honors. It meant, as it still does today, virtue. It meant excellence not in accomplishing external things—though that was always nice if fate allowed—but excellence in the areas that you controlled: Your thoughts. Your actions. Your choices. "

― Ryan Holiday , Lives of the Stoics: The Art of Living from Zeno to Marcus Aurelius

20 " It is a striking contrast, an emperor and a slave sharing and loving the same philosophy, the latter figure greatly influencing the former, but it is not a contradiction—nor would it have seemed odd to the ancients. It’s only in our modern reactionary, divisive focus on “privilege” that we have
forgotten how much we all have in common as human beings, how we all stand equally naked and defenseless against fate whether we possess worldly power or not.
Both Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus were, to borrow Epictetus’s metaphor, assigned difficult roles by the author of the universe. What defined them was how they managed to play these roles, which neither of
them, Marcus especially, would ever have chosen. "

― Ryan Holiday , Lives of the Stoics: The Art of Living from Zeno to Marcus Aurelius