Quote of the day

 "Fate guides the willing, but drags the unwilling." - Cleanthes, "Hymn to Zeus"

Cleanthes was the successor of Stoicism's founder Zeno.* This is one of those wonderful quotes that brings to our attention a truth that we already know and it seems so obvious but we still have a hard time accepting or living by it. No amount of frustration, lamentation or self-inflicted misery will ever be able to change things that are out of our control: the only reasonable option is to deal with whatever happens as best we can.

*See Lives of the Stoics by Ryan Holiday & Stephen Hanselman for a biography of Cleanthes.

Quote of the day

 "We think that our discontent is due to exterior things because we have not yet realized that they originate from within."- Ayya Khema, Come and See for Yourself: The Buddhist Path to Happiness

Quote of the day

 "'Best,' to the Stoics, did not mean 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 & Stephen Hanselman, Lives of the Stoics: The Art of Living from Zeno to Marcus Aurelius

Quote of the day

 "A generous person does not wait until a gift is expected of them, such as a special occasion, or being asked for something, before they think of giving." - Ayya Khema, Come and See for Yourself: The Buddhist Path to Happiness

Quote of the day

"[W]e should remind ourselves not to be unfriendly if someone is unfriendly towards us. In view of the fact that they are creating bad karma in that moment, we should feel compassionate rather than unfriendly. We should bear in mind that if we are unfriendly in turn we will be creating bad karma too. Most people act according to the mundane law of repaying unkindness with unkindness, and believe there is no reasonable alternative. As Buddhists, however, we are asked to undertake the course of action recommended by the Buddha: not to repay unkind and unpleasant behavior in the same coin, but to indicate through our behavior there is another way. This will be of benefit to ourselves, and perhaps to the other person as well." - Ayya Khema, Come and See for Yourself: The Buddhist Path to Happiness

Quote of the day

 "Spreading negativity is always harmful, mostly to ourselves." - Ayya Khema, Come and See for Yourself: The Buddhist Path to Happiness

Quote of the day

 "Even while we remain mindful, our everyday behaviour should not be applied like a mask, or be based on an identification with some personality. It should come from the heart." - Ayya Khema, Come and See for Yourself: The Buddhist Path to Happiness

This is another instance of Buddhist teaching overlapping with Stoic exhortations to strive to be a sincere, good intentioned, honest person - constantly. Epictetus says to decide what kind of person you want to be and then act accordingly in all that you do, where as here Khema says not to pretend to be a person you're not or conduct yourself in a certain manner if it's insincere. These are like different sides of the same coin.

Quote of the day

 "The time we actually have cannot be calculated; it is a question of making proper use of it." - Ayya Khema, Come and See for Yourself: The Buddhist Path to Happiness

This is similar to the sentiment Seneca expressed in On the Shortness of Life: "Life is long if you know how to use it." (There is much overlap between Buddhist and Stoic teachings; e.g. focus on mindfulness, that our thoughts are the origin of our suffering, that happiness can only be found within, the promotion of kindness to all, etc.)

Quote of the day

 "The Socratic way seeks a different kind of comfort - with uncertainty, with fallibility, and with beliefs that are never more than provisional. On this view the good life isn't a result reached by winning the struggle. The struggle is the good life." - Ward Farnsworth, The Socratic Method: A Practioner's Handbook

Quote of the day

 "We have built networks for the delivery of information - the internet, and especially social media. These networks, too, are a marvel. But they also carry a kind of poison with them. The mind fed from these sources learns to subsist happily on quick reactions, easy certainties, one-liners, and rage. It craves confirmation and resents contradiction. Attention spans collapse; imbecility propagates, then seems normal, then is celebrated. The capacity for rational discourse between people who disagree gradually rots." - Ward Farnsworth, The Socratic Method: A Practioner's Handbook

Farnsworth is here comparing the modern marvel of the internet to the ancient marvel of Rome's water network. Rome's pipes were made of lead, though, and transmitted lead through the system over time. The metaphor being that the way social media is structured is inherently toxic.

Quote of the day

 "Good maxims, if you keep them often in mind, will be just as beneficial as good examples." - Seneca, Epistles 94.42-43

Via The Practicing Stoic: A Philosophical User's Manual by Ward Farnsworth

Montaigne took this to heart: he had quotes he found inspiring engraved into the support beams of his library. (Reading Montaigne's Essays one can't help but picture him wandering his library, perusing the quotes and using them to help his mind roam.)

Quote of the day

 "[T]he Stoic believes that virtue gives rise to joy and peace of mind as well. Virtue produces these good consequences as side effects. The primary mission of the Stoics, in other words, is to be helpful to others and serve the greater good, and they don't do this to make themselves happy. They do it because it is the right and natural way to live. But doing it in that spirit, as it turns out, makes them happy." - Ward Farnsworth, The Practicing Stoic: A Philosophical User's Manual

Quote of the day

 "Who are they, these people whose admiration you want to win? Aren't they the very people whom you're in the habit of describing as mad? What, do you want to be admired by madmen?" - Epictetus, Discourses 1.21.4

Via The Practicing Stoic: A Philosophical User's Manual by Ward Farnsworth

I used the Oxford World's Classic edition translation which is linked above. Farnsworth uses another translation, which I'll offer here. It's mostly a matter of style, both say the same thing: 

Who are these people whose admiration you seek? Aren't they the ones you are used to describing as mad, Well, then, is that what you want - to be admired by lunatics?

Epictetus is telling his students the same thing that Marcus Aurelius was constantly reminding himself: not to worry about the opinion of others so long as you are doing the right thing. The Stoics emphasized, strongly emphasized, not looking outside yourself for external approval. Epictetus recognized our human tendency to worry or be upset about the opinion of people whose opinion we already know we shouldn't be worrying about but do anyway.* 

*I picture Epictetus saying this to someone who is upset about having received negative comments on social media from strangers.

Quote of the day

 "[Envy] is at once a vice and a source of misery. We should treat it as the enemy of our happiness, and stifle it like an evil thought. This is the advice given by Seneca; as he well puts it, we shall be pleased with what we have, if we avoid the self-torture of comparing our own lot with some other and happier one." - Arthur Schopenhauer, "Our Relation to Ourselves" (1851)

Via The Practicing Stoic: A Philosophical User's Manual by Ward Farnsworth

Quote of the day

 "Envy among human beings is a pernicious evil and most deadly scourge, as harmful to the envious as to those who are envied" - Fronto, letter to Marcus Aurelius 

Via the Oxford World's Classic edition of Meditations

Fronto was a tutor of Marcus who became a lifelong friend and mentor, as evidenced by their surviving letters. I suspect Fronto meant this as a general principle, but it would have been particularly relevant (and perhaps literal) advice to someone who would become a Roman emperor, given their history.

Quote of the day

 "Not being able to govern events, I govern myself, and if they will not adapt to me, I adapt to them." - Montaigne, "Of Presumption" (1580)

Via The Practicing Stoic: A Philosophical User's Manual by Ward Farnsworth

Farnsworth notes that Montaigne is distilling and reiterating ideas he absorbed from the Stoics. I can't help but notice that this is almost exactly the same sentiment famously formulated  by Victor Frankl several hundred years later.

Quote of the day

"The internet is governed by incentives that make it impossible to be a full person while interacting with it." - Jia Tolentino, Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion 

Quote of the day

 "[Aristotle] would not have understood what good it does to discover 'the real me.' He thought that self-realization could not be achieved without service to the community, in his case, the city-state." - James Stockdale, Thoughts of a Philosophical Fighter Pilot

Quote of the day

From Meditations by Marcus Aurelius

Does what's happened keep you from acting with justice, generosity, self-control, sanity, prudence, honesty, humility, straightforwardness, and all the other qualities that allow a person's nature to fulfill itself?

So remember this principle when something threatens to cause you pain: the thing itself was no misfortune at all; to endure it and prevail is great good fortune.

I'm currently facing some adversity in the form of physical disability and trying to look it at it this way. I won't say it's easy but the alternative is what: to be upset, to lament, or be depressed? What sense would that make to choose to feel that way?

Quote of the day

 "Wash yourself clean. With simplicity, with humility, with indifference to everything but right and wrong. Care for other human beings." - Marcus Aurelius, Meditations