Everything
Ask yourself the following first thing in the morning :What am I lacking in attaining freedom from passion? :What for tranquility? :What am I? A mere body, estate-holder, or reputation? None of these things. :What then? A rational being. :What then is demanded of me? Meditate on your actions. :How did I steer away from serenity? :What did I do that was unfriendly, unsocial, or uncaring? :What did I fail to do in all these things?
—Epictetus, Discourses, 4.6.34-35
Understand at last that you have something in you more powerful and divine than what causes the bodily passions and pulls you like a mere puppet. What thoughts now occupy my mind? Is it not fear, suspicion, desire, or something like that?
—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 12.19
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Daily Touch of Inspirations
June 27th: Adversity reveals
Ryan Holiday, The 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living
How does it help, my husband, to make misfortune heavier by complaining about it? This is more fit for a king— to seize your adversities head on. The more precarious his situation, the more imminent his fall from power, the more firmly he should be resolved to stand and fight. It isn't manly to retreat from fortune.— Seneca, Oedipus, 80
Daily Touch of Inspirations
November 10th: Always the same
Ryan Holiday, The 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living
Think by way of example on the times of Vespasian, and you'll see all these things: marrying, raising children, falling ill, dying, wars, holiday feasts, commerce, farming, flattering, pretending, suspecting, scheming, praying that others die, grumbling over one's lot, falling in love, amassing fortunes lusting after office and power. Now that life of theirs is dead and gone... the times of Trajan, again the same... — Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 4.32
Daily Touch of Inspirations
July 25th: What's on your tombstone?
Ryan Holiday, The 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living
When you see someone often flashing their rank or position, or someone whose name is often bandied about public, don't be envious; such things are bought at the expense of life... Some die on the first rungs of the ladder of success others before they can reach the top, and the few that make it to the top of their ambition through a thousand indignities realize at the end it's only for an inscription on their gravestone.—Seneca, On the Brevity of Life, 20
Daily Touch of Inspirations
February 12th: Protect your peace of mind
Ryan Holiday, The 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living
Keep constant guard over your perceptions, for it is no small thing you are protecting, but your respect, trustworthiness and steadiness, peace of mind, freedom from pain and fear, in a word your freedom. For what would you sell these things? — Epictetus, Discourses, 4.3.6b-8
Daily Touch of Inspirations
August 28th: The Opulent Stoic
Ryan Holiday, The 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living
The founder of the universe, who assigned to us the laws of life, provided that we should live well, but not in luxury. Everything needed for our well-being is right before us, whereas what luxury requires is gathered by many miseries and anxieties. Let us use this gift of nature and count it among the greatest things.— Seneca, Moral Letters, 119.15b