The 5 Most Powerful Stoicism Quotes
Timeless Stoic principles that offer insights into today’s world
Stoicism is in a funny place at the moment.
It’s a serious school of philosophy but thanks to a few YouTubers and bloggers, Stoicism has grown hugely in popularity over recent years.
Well, I think that’s funny anyway. I mean, there’s no way when I was in high school would I have thought that the likes of gym bros and jocks would embrace the ideas of long-dead Greeks and Romans. But, hey, the world’s a crazy place and it’s no bad thing.
Let’s have look then at the five quotes I want to talk about.
Marcus Aurelius
The best revenge is not to be like your enemy — Marcus Aurelius.
Of course, Marcus Aurelius is the most well-known of the Stoic philosophers. A Roman Emperor, he guided his Empire to victory from two large invasion threats, from the Parthians in the East and the Germanic tribes to the North. He was faced open rebellion in Rome as well as the Antonine Plague but overcame them all.
At night, the Imperator Caesar would write down his thoughts regarding his behavior, and actions, and indeed, his thoughts and the world was given Meditations.
I’ve picked this quote because it shows the core Stoic principle of maintaining one’s moral integrity and inner peace regardless of what others have done around you or even to you.
Others may disgrace themselves in their actions but we are not to stoop to their level.
Seneca
“We suffer more often in imagination than in reality” — Seneca.
Seneca came not too long before Caesar Marcus. He’d been a tutor and advisor to Emperor Nero and is credited for keeping Nero restrained during his first five years running the Roman Empire, although it went to hell in a handbasket in later years but old Seneca was long gone by then.
He was big into the idea that most of our suffering was self-inflicted. We ruminate on past experiences, revising them and trying to correct what cannot ever be changed and when we’re not doing that, we’re anxiously looking into the future and imagining all kinds of hypotheticals.
Seneca taught people to learn that these types of mental gymnastics were pointless and just lead to further suffering.
Epictetus
“We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak” — Epictetus.
Epictetus was born a slave, lived a life of hardship thanks to an injury from a slave master, worked his butt off, and eventually set up a school in Rome but was then exiled, along with all other philosophers by Emperor Domitian after which he ended up on Nicopolis, a Greek island where he re-established his school.
Epictetus was all about being in control and we see this in the quote I’ve picked.
He wanted his students to be calm, to think about how best to handle situations, and be virtuous.
Cleanthes
“The willing are led by fate, the reluctant are dragged”— Cleanthes.
In the history of Stoicism, Cleanthes came pretty early. He was the third head bottle washer at the Stoa Poikile in Athens, which had been established by Zeno (more on him below).
Cleanthes had been a boxer before becoming a philosopher and earned money by carrying water at night time in Athens. That lifestyle of training, endurance, and strength certainly fit the ideals of what Stoicism became.
In the above quote, Cleanthes is telling people that while the individual has power, there are greater powers at work around us too and we both must accept our limitations and let go of our seeming control of things, surrendering to the fate of the world, knowing that the twists and turns of the path are best faced when we don’t pull back away from them.
Zeno
No one loss should be more regrettable to us than losing our time, for it’s irretrievable — Zeno.
The ‘Big Daddy’ of Stoicism. Zeno established the Stoa Poikile mentioned above.
Following surviving a shipwreck and ending up in Athens, Zeno discovered the work of Socrates and began studying under Crates, Stilpo the Megarian, and Polemo, the head of Plato’s Academy.
Zeno took all of the ideas he heard and put them all together into a new school of thought, what we call Stoicism.
The quote doesn’t need much of an explanation. The single greatest enemy we all have is time, we’re always running out of it. So, don’t regret losing it, make the most of it.
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