Lives of the Stoics
The Art of Living from Zeno to Marcus Aurelius
Big Ideas
What the Stoics were after, what we remain interested in to this day, were the lights to illuminate the path in life. They wanted to know, as we want to know, how to find tranquility, purpose, self-control, and happiness. This journey, whether it begins in ancient Greece or modern America, is timeless. It is essential. It is difficult. Which is why we ask, as the Stoics asked: Who can help me? What is right? Where is true north?
‘You’ve wandered all over,’ Marcus Aurelius wrote to himself in Meditations, ‘and finally realized that you never found what you were after: how to live. Not in syllogisms, not in money, or fame, or self-indulgence. Nowhere.’
If philosophy is anything, it’s an answer to that question—how to live. It’s what we have been looking for. ‘Would you really know what philosophy offers to humanity?’ Seneca asks in his Moral Letters. ‘Philosophy offers counsel.’
It will be your job, after you read these pages, to heed this counsel, and to struggle with what Seneca described as the most important job of a reader of philosophy—the act of turning words into works. To turn the lessons of the lives of the men and women who came before us, their living and their dying, their succeeding and their failing, into actions in the real world.
For it is this, and nothing else, that earns one the title: Philosopher.
This is the ELEVENTH (!!!) Note I’ve created on one of Ryan Holiday’s GREAT books.
We’ve featured every single one of his self-development books: The Obstacle Is the Way, The Daily Stoic, Stillness Is the Key, Ego Is the Enemy, Discipline Is Destiny, Courage Is Calling, Right Thing Right Now, Wisdom Takes Work, The Daily Dad, and What You’re Made For (which he wrote with the late George Raveling).
(Although I also enjoyed his marketing books Trust Me I’m Lying and Perennial Seller, I skipped doing Notes on them.)
The only other authors who come close to that number of titles I’ve covered include: Eknath Easwaran (with nine), Steve Chandler (seven), Tom Morris (seven), Yogananda (six), Steven Pressfield (six), and Joseph Campbell (five). We also have four Notes on books by Phil Stutz, Cal Newport, Jonathan Haidt, and Yuval Noah Harari.
So...
Yah. I guess that might just make Ryan Holiday my favorite author. :)
I’ve said this in every single Note: His writing is chef’s kiss fantastic. His wisdom is profound. And his commitment to practicing his philosophy is inspiring.
This book features biographical sketches of 26 Stoics—from, as per the subtitle, Aurelius to Zeno. If you’re into Stoicism, I think you’ll LOVE this book as much as I did. And, of course, if you haven’t read The Daily Stoic yet, start there. It’s phenomenal.
With that, it’s time to explore some of my favorite Big Ideas from some of the greatest Stoic philosophers so you can apply their wisdom to your life TODAY. Let’s get to work.
P.S. Check out our collection of Notes/+1s on Stoicism and my old school Stoicism 101.
Learn. Apply. Learn. Apply. Learn. Apply. Learn. Apply. This is the Stoic way.
It was an early lesson that in an unpredictable world, the only thing we can really manage is ourselves—and that the space between our ears is the only territory we can conquer in any kind of certain and enduring way.
Get the BookAbout the authors
