More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Ryan Holiday
Read between
October 18, 2017 - December 31, 2018
Let’s not wish we could turn back time or remake the universe according to our preference. Not when it would be far better and far easier to remake ourselves.
if the group is unsure of what to do next, it’s the leader’s job to do one thing: instill calm—not by force but by example.
The next time you face a political dispute or a personal disagreement, ask yourself: Is there any reason to fight about this? Is arguing going to help solve anything? Would an educated or wise person really be as quarrelsome as you might initially be inclined to be?
Morality can be complicated—but the right thing is usually clear and intuitive enough to feel in our gut.
But so long as your flame flickers, there will be some light in the world.
We’re not trying to ace tests or impress teachers. We are reading and studying to live, to be good human beings—always and forever.
“Character,” Joan Didion would write in one of her best essays, “the willingness to accept responsibility for one’s own life—is the source from which self-respect springs.”
It’s the study of philosophy that cultivates our reason and ethics so that we can do our job well.
“In your actions, don’t procrastinate. In your conversations, don’t confuse. In your thoughts, don’t wander. In your soul, don’t be passive or aggressive. In your life, don’t be all about business.” —MARCUS AURELIUS, MEDITATIONS, 8.51
The key, then, is to support our natural inclination to justice with strong boundaries and strong commitments—to
What gets us out of bed each morning—even when we fight it like Marcus did—is praxeis koinonikas apodidonai (to render works held in common). Civilization and country are great projects we build together and have been building together with our ancestors for millennia. We are made for cooperation (synergia) with each other.
Every noble deed is voluntary.”
Trivial details like the rise and fall of your position say nothing about you as a person. Only your behavior—as Cato’s did—will.
If emoting is the end of your participation, then you ought to get back to your own individual duty—to yourself, to your family, to your country.
Workaholics always make excuses for their selfishness.
Virtue is the one good that reveals itself to be more than we expect and something that one cannot have in degrees. We simply have it or we don’t. And that is why virtue—made up as it is of justice, honesty, discipline, and courage—is the only thing worth striving for.
Philosophy is spiritual formation, care of the soul.
“The person who has practiced philosophy as a cure for the self becomes great of soul, filled with confidence, invincible—and greater as you draw near.” SENECA, MORAL LETTERS, 111.2
It’s far better that we become pragmatic and adaptable—able to do what we need to do anywhere, anytime. The place to do your work, to live the good life, is here.
Don’t get emotional—get focused.
if it’s humanly possible, you can do it.
So always stay within your first impressions, and don’t add to them in your head—this way nothing can happen to you.”
What a philosopher also has is the ability, as Nietzsche put it, “to stop courageously, at the surface” and see things in plain, objective form.
Perfectionism rarely begets perfection—only disappointment.
Our pursuits should be aimed at progress, however little that it’s possible for us to make.
That’s because real philosophers weren’t concerned with authorship, only what worked.
The way to prove that you truly understand what you speak and write, that you truly are original, is to put them into practice.
True and steadfast judgment. For from this will arise every mental impulse, and by it every appearance that spurs our impulses will be rendered clear.”
Since the vast majority of our words and actions are unnecessary, corralling them will create an abundance of leisure and tranquility. As a result, we shouldn’t forget at each moment to ask, is this one of the unnecessary things?
“It’s ruinous for the soul to be anxious about the future and miserable in advance of misery, engulfed by anxiety that the things it desires might remain its own until the very end. For such a soul will never be at rest—by longing for things to come it will lose the ability to enjoy present things.” —SENECA, MORAL LETTERS, 98.5b–6a
If you give things more time and energy than they deserve, they’re no longer lesser things. You’ve made them important by the life you’ve spent on them.
“Appeal to People’s Self-Interest Never to Their Mercy or Gratitude.”
And show them—don’t moralize.
The Stoics weren’t being hypothetical when they said we ought to act with a reverse clause and that even the most unfortunate events can turn out to be for the best. The entire philosophy is founded on that idea!
Everything needed for our well-being is right before us, whereas what luxury requires is gathered by many miseries and anxieties.
For anyone would call it a sign of foolishness for one to undertake a task with a lazy and begrudging spirit, or to push the body in one direction and the mind in another, to be torn apart by wildly divergent impulses.”
Your hidden power is your ability to use reason and make choices,
“No, it is events that give rise to fear—when another has power over them or can prevent them, that person becomes able to inspire fear. How is the fortress destroyed? Not by iron or fire, but by judgments . . . here is where we must begin, and it is from this front that we must seize the fortress and throw out the tyrants.” —EPICTETUS, DISCOURSES, 4.1.85–86; 87a
“Success comes to the lowly and to the poorly talented, but the special characteristic of a great person is to triumph over the disasters and panics of human life.” —SENECA, ON PROVIDENCE, 4.1
“Nature is merciful,” he later wrote in a newspaper article about the experience, “and does not try her children, man or beast, beyond their compass. It is only where the cruelty of man intervenes that hellish torments appear. For the rest—live dangerously; take things as they come; dread naught, all will be well.”
The point is not to have an iron will, but an adaptable will—a will that makes full use of reason to clarify perception, impulse, and judgment to act effectively for the right purpose.
Philosophy is the steel against which we sharpen that will and strengthen that resolve.
“When forced, as it seems, by circumstances into utter confusion, get a hold of yourself quickly. Don’t be locked out of the rhythm any longer than necessary. You’ll be able to keep the beat if you are constantly returning to it.” —MARCUS AURELIUS, MEDITATIONS, 6.11
“Difficulties show a person’s character. So when a challenge confronts you, remember that God is matching you with a younger sparring partner,
“Anyone who truly wants to be free,” Epictetus said, “won’t desire something that is actually in someone else’s control, unless they want to be a slave.”
“power doesn’t corrupt, it reveals.” In some ways, prosperity—financial and personal—is the same way. If your mind has developed a certain cast—the habit of panicking, in Seneca’s example—then it won’t matter how good things get for you. You’re still primed for panic. Your mind will still find things to worry about, and you’ll still be miserable. Perhaps more so even, because now you have more to lose.
“How appropriate that the gods put under our control only the most powerful ability that governs all the rest—the ability to make the right use of external appearances—and
You control what every external event means to you personally.
No matter what’s happening to your body, no matter what the outside world inflicts on you, your mind can remain philosophical. It’s still yours. It’s untouchable—and in a way, then, so are you.
“Does the light of a lamp shine and keep its glow until its fuel is spent? Why shouldn’t your truth, justice, and self-control shine until you are extinguished?” —MARCUS AURELIUS, MEDITATIONS, 12.15
