📄 Fear
“But there is no reason to live and no limit to our miseries if we let our fears predominate.”
-Seneca the Younger
👉 Read Full Post📄 Freedom of choice
“You can bind up my leg, but not even Zeus has the power to break my freedom of choice.”
-Epictetus
👉 Read Full Post📄 Misfortune
“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 the Younger
👉 Read Full Post📄 Want Less
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 the Younger
👉 Read Full Post📄 Don't beat yourself up
Philosophy calls for simple living, but not for penance—it’s quite possible to be simple without being crude.
-Seneca the Younger
👉 Read Full Post📄 Seneca, Moral Letters, 83.27
Therefore, explain why a wise person shouldn’t get drunk—not with words, but by the facts of its ugliness and offensiveness. It’s most easy to prove that so-called pleasures, when they go beyond proper measure, are but punishments.
—Seneca, Moral Letters, 83.27
From the book The Daily Stoic, the August 23rd entry.
While this entry is mainly about appealing to ones self-interest in order to prompt change in or influence the behavior of another. I find this resonates with me more when it comes to balancing pleasures.
...It’s most easy to prove that so-called pleasures, when they go beyond proper measure, are but punishments.
I like to drink beer, but if I drank beer every day and all day, that pleasure would become a punishment. My health would decline, the pleasure I got from drinking beer would all but disappear, and drinking beer would turn into a punishment. The key to... 👉 Read Full Post