The Practicing Stoic: A Philosophical User's Manual

by Ward Farnsworth

How much trouble he avoids by not looking to see what his neighbor does or thinks – by looking only to what he does himself, that it may be just and pure. The part of the good man is not to peer into the character of others, but to run straight down the line without glancing to one side or the other. Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 4.18

What then is to be valued? The clapping of hands? No. Nor should we value the clapping of tongues, for that is the praise of the masses. Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 6.16.2

Who does not willingly exchange health, tranquility, and life itself for reputation and glory – the most useless, worthless, and counterfeit coin that circulates among us? Montaigne, Of Solitude (1580)

Praise is so pleasing to the mind of man, that it is the original motive of almost all our actions. The desire of commendation, as of every thing else, is varied indeed by innumerable differences of temper, capacity, and knowledge; some have no higher wish than for the applause of a club; some expect the acclamations of a county; and some have hoped to fill the mouths of all ages and nations with their names. Every man pants for the highest eminence within his view; none, however mean, ever sinks below the hope of being distinguished by his fellow-beings, and very few have by magnanimity or piety been so raised above it, as to act wholly without regard to censure or opinion. Johnson, The Rambler no. 193 (1752) In all we do, almost the first thing we think about is, what will people say; and nearly half the troubles and bothers of life may be traced to our anxiety on this score; it is the anxiety which is at the bottom of all that feeling of self-importance, which is so often mortified because it is so very morbidly sensitive. Schopenhauer, The Wisdom of Life (1851)

How foolish one must be to leave a lecture hall gratified by the applause of the ignorant! Why do you take pleasure in praise from those you cannot praise yourself ? Seneca, Epistles 52.11

Keep constantly in mind who these people are whose admiration you seek, and what guiding principles they have. Then you will not blame them when they carelessly offend you; and you will have no further wish for their approval once you look into the sources of their motives and opinions. Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 7.62

What goes on in other people’s consciousness is, as such, a matter of indifference to us; and in time we get really indifferent to it, when we come to see how superficial and futile are most people’s thoughts, how narrow their ideas, how mean their sentiments, how perverse their opinions, and how much of error there is in most of them. Schopenhauer, The Wisdom of Life (1851)

Human affairs are not so happily ordered that the better things are pleasing to the many; a proof of the worst choice is the crowd. Seneca, On the Happy Life 2.1

The judgments of common and ordinary people rarely hit the mark. And in my own time, I am much mistaken if the worst writings are not those that have won the greatest share of public approval. Montaigne, On Vanity (1580)

Soon you will have forgotten everything; soon everything will have forgotten you. Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 7.21

How strange it is, what people do! They are reluctant to praise men who live at the same time they do; yet they think it is important to be praised by future generations – by those they have never seen and never will. This comes close to being aggrieved because those living in former times did not speak well of you. Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 6.18

I have often wondered how it is that, though every man loves himself most of all, he gives less weight to his own opinion of himself than to the opinion of others. If a god or wise teacher should appear and order a man not to have any thought or plan in his mind that he does not instantly and loudly announce, he would not be able to stand it for even a day. Evidently we have more respect for the opinions our neighbors hold about us than we do for our own. Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 12.4

Do not waste the time you have left thinking about others unless it serves some good and useful purpose, for it takes you away from other work. Thinking about what so-and-so is doing, and why, and what someone else is saying, and what another is thinking or planning, and all things of that sort, causes you to wander away from the observance of your own governing principles. Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 3.4

Be deaf to those who love you most of all; they pray for bad things with good intentions. And if you want to be happy, pray to the gods that none of their fond desires for you may be brought to pass. Those things they wish to have heaped upon you are not really good; there is only one good, the cause and the support of a happy life – trust in oneself. Seneca, Epistles 31.2–3

No longer be concerned with what the world says about you, but with how you talk to yourself. Montaigne, Of Solitude (1580)

No one but you knows whether you are cowardly and cruel or loyal and devout. Others never see you; they only guess about you by uncertain conjectures. They do not see your nature so much as they see your artifice. So do not cling to their judgments; cling to your own. Montaigne, Of Repentance (1580)

Everything that is beautiful in any way is beautiful in itself, and its beauty is self-contained. Praise is not part of it; nothing is made better or worse by being praised. Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 4.20

He too spoke well – whoever it was, for his identity is uncertain – who said, when asked why he took so much trouble over a piece of craftsmanship that would never reach more than a very few people: “A few is enough for me; so is one; so is none.” Seneca, Epistles 7.11

Not fame, but that which deserves to be famous, is what a man should hold in esteem…. Light is not visible unless it meets with something to reflect it; and talent is sure of itself only when its fame is noised abroad. But fame is not a certain symptom of merit; because you can have the one without the other; or, as Lessing nicely puts it, Some people obtain fame, and others deserve it. Schopenhauer, The Wisdom of Life (1851)

The success of an insult depends on the sensitivity and the indignation of the victim. Seneca, On the Constancy of the Wise Man 17.4

Remember that you are insulted not by the person who strikes or abuses you but by your opinion that these things are insulting. So whenever another provokes you, be assured that it is your own opinion that has provoked you. Epictetus, Enchiridion 20

What is it to be insulted? Stand by a stone and insult it; what will you gain? And if you listen like a stone, what will be gained by one who insults you? But if he has a stepping-stone in the weakness of his victim, then he accomplishes something. Epictetus, Discourses 1.25.28

So long as any word or deed is true to nature, consider it worthy of you, and do not be distracted by the comments or criticisms of others. If it is the right thing to say or do, don’t disparage yourself for saying or doing it. Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 5.3

Someone will disdain me? That is his concern. My concern is that I not be found doing or saying anything worthy of disdain. Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 11.13

Whatever someone might say about you, pay no attention; it is no concern of yours. Epictetus, Enchiridion 50

The insults of the ignorant should be heard with equanimity. For one who is progressing toward virtue, contempt should itself be regarded with contempt. Seneca, Epistles 76.4

It is the mark of a great mind to rise above insults; the most humiliating kind of revenge is to treat your adversary as not worth taking revenge upon. Many have taken slight injuries too deeply to heart in the course of punishing them. The great and noble are those who, like a lordly beast, listen unmoved to the barking of little dogs. Seneca, On Anger 2.32.3

The sage is not moved by an insult from anyone. For men may differ from one another, but the sage regards them as all equal on account of their equal stupidity. If he were to lower himself enough to be moved by insult or injury even once, there would never be an end to his worries. Seneca, On the Constancy of the Wise Man 13.5

Liberty is having a mind superior to injury, a mind that makes itself the only source from which its pleasures spring, that separates itself from all external things, avoiding the unquiet life of one who fears everybody’s laughter, everybody’s tongue. For if there is anyone who can offer an insult, who cannot? Seneca, On the Constancy of the Wise Man 19.2

All provocations given by unthinking people – and it is only from the unthinking that they can come – should be ignored, and the insults and honors of the crowd should both be valued the same. We must not be pained by the one or rejoice over the other; otherwise – whether from fear of insults or disgust with them – we will neglect many necessary things. Seneca, On the Constancy of the Wise Man 19.1–2

If you hear that someone has spoken ill of you, do not make excuses about what was said, but answer: “Evidently he didn’t know about my other faults, or he wouldn’t have spoken only of the ones he did.” Epictetus, Enchiridion 33.9

And this thing we call an insult – what is it? They make jokes about my bald head, my weak eyes, my thin legs, my height. How is it an insult to be told what is obvious? Seneca, On the Constancy of the Wise Man 16.3

You need not be a sage to take insults lightly, but merely someone of sense – one who might say: “Do I deserve these things that happen to me? If I deserve them, there is no insult; it is justice. If I don’t deserve them, let the one who does the injustice blush.” Seneca, On the Constancy of the Wise Man 16.3

Mistakes are nothing to get angry about. What, now, should we be angry with those whose footsteps falter in the dark? With the deaf, when they don’t listen to orders? With children, because – neglecting a proper attention to their duties – they watch the games and silly jokes of their fellows? Do you want to be angry with those who are weary because they are sick and growing old? Seneca, On Anger 2.10.1

So this robber, this adulterer, shouldn’t they have been destroyed? Not at all, but rather ask this: “This man who has been misled and deceived about the most important things, who has been blinded – not in his vision, the ability to distinguish white from black, but in his judgment, the ability to distinguish good from evil – shouldn’t we destroy him?” If you put it this way, you will see how inhumane your question is. It is like saying, “This blind man, shouldn’t he be destroyed? This deaf-mute?” Epictetus, Discourses 1.18.5–7

Why is it that we are not stirred up when we meet someone whose body is disfigured or disabled, yet cannot tolerate a deformed mind without being enraged? Such vicious severity reflects more on the critic than on the defect. Montaigne, Of the Art of Conference