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Ways of living · A series

Stoicism, the inner citadel

The storm is what happens to you. The sphere is what is up to you. Move through the storm and watch it turn aside.

Stoicism began under a painted porch in Athens and reached a Roman emperor's Meditations. This series lets the Stoics speak in public-domain English translations, set large, and explains each idea with a source for every fact. Start with what is, and is not, up to you.

it is in thy power whenever thou shalt choose to retire into thyself. For nowhere either with more quiet or more freedom from trouble does a man retire than into his own soul

— Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 4.3 (tr. George Long)

Of things some are in our power, and others are not.

— Epictetus, Enchiridion 1 (tr. George Long)

Take away thy opinion, and then there is taken away the complaint, "I have been harmed." Take away the complaint, "I have been harmed," and the harm is taken away.

— Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 4.7 (tr. George Long)

Look within. Within is the fountain of good, and it will ever bubble up, if thou wilt ever dig.

— Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 7.59 (tr. George Long)

we suffer more often in imagination than in reality.

— Seneca, Letter 13 (tr. R. M. Gummere)

The chapters

The core

The practices

  • C4 · Coming

    Remember you will die

    Marcus Aurelius and Seneca keep death in view to make better use of the time they have.

  • C5 · Coming

    Love what happens

    Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius ask you to wish for what happens, not for something else.

  • C6 · Coming

    The obstacle is the way

    Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus treat a hindrance as material for the work and difficulty as training.

  • C7 · Coming

    The view from above

    Marcus Aurelius looks down on human life from far above to see how small a point the earth is.

Further reading

The Stoics themselves, free to read

  • Meditations

    Marcus Aurelius, 1862

    The emperor's private reflections; the free George Long translation (1862) is the one quoted on this site [1].

  • The Enchiridion and Discourses

    Epictetus, 1877

    The short manual and a selection from the lectures his pupil Arrian wrote down; the free George Long translation (1877), quoted here [2].

  • Moral Letters to Lucilius

    Seneca, 1917

    124 letters on how to live; the free Loeb translation by Richard M. Gummere (1917, 1920, 1925) is on Wikisource [3].

Ryan Holiday’s books

Modern books, still in copyright, so none is quoted here. His own site lists them: dailystoic.com/books.

Sources

  1. [1] Wikipedia: MeditationsMeditations. Wikipedia, revision 1370141510 (its list of English translations gives Long's as 1862).
  2. [2] Wikipedia: Discourses of EpictetusDiscourses of Epictetus. Wikipedia, revision 1369104824.
  3. [3] Wikipedia: Epistulae moralesEpistulae morales ad Lucilium. Wikipedia, revision 1380993776 (its translations list gives Gummere's as 1917, 1920, 1925).