The Daily Stoic: 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living: Featuring new translations of Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius

by Ryan Holiday

“The chief task in life is simply this: 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.

We should not trust the masses who say only the free can be educated, but rather the lovers of wisdom who say that only the educated are free.”

We control our opinion, choice, desire, aversion, and, in a word, everything of our own doing. We don’t control our body, property, reputation, position, and, in a word, everything not of our own doing.

“For if a person shifts their caution to their own reasoned choices and the acts of those choices, they will at the same time gain the will to avoid, but if they shift their caution away from their own reasoned choices to things not under their control, seeking to avoid what is controlled by others, they will then be agitated, fearful, and unstable.” —EPICTETUS, DISCOURSES, 2.1.12

“Keep this thought at the ready at daybreak, and through the day and night—there is only one path to happiness, and that is in giving up all outside of your sphere of choice, regarding nothing else as your possession, surrendering all else to God and Fortune.” —EPICTETUS, DISCOURSES, 4.4.39

Let go of the past. We must only begin. Believe me and you will see.” —EPICTETUS, DISCOURSES, 2.19.29–34

“A podium and a prison is each a place, one high and the other low, but in either place your freedom of choice can be maintained if you so wish.” —EPICTETUS, DISCOURSES, 2.6.25

“If you wish to improve, be content to appear clueless or stupid in extraneous matters—don’t wish to seem knowledgeable. And if some regard you as important, distrust yourself.” —EPICTETUS, ENCHIRIDION, 13a

“Throw out your conceited opinions, for it is impossible for a person to begin to learn what he thinks he already knows.” —EPICTETUS, DISCOURSES, 2.17.1

“You have been formed of three parts—body, breath, and mind. Of these, the first two are yours insofar as they are only in your care. The third alone is truly yours.” —MARCUS AURELIUS, MEDITATIONS, 12.3

“If you find something very difficult to achieve yourself, don’t imagine it impossible—for anything possible and proper for another person can be achieved as easily by you.” —MARCUS AURELIUS, MEDITATIONS, 6.19

“No person has the power to have everything they want, but it is in their power not to want what they don’t have, and to cheerfully put to good use what they do have.” —SENECA, MORAL LETTERS, 123.3

“Men, the philosopher’s lecture-hall is a hospital—you shouldn’t walk out of it feeling pleasure, but pain, for you aren’t well when you enter it.” —EPICTETUS, DISCOURSES, 3.23.30

“I judge you unfortunate because you have never lived through misfortune. You have passed through life without an opponent—no one can ever know what you are capable of, not even you.” —SENECA, ON PROVIDENCE, 4.3

“Don’t seek for everything to happen as you wish it would, but rather wish that everything happens as it actually will—then your life will flow well.” —EPICTETUS, ENCHIRIDION, 8