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I'm no stranger to Stoicism (and you might not be either).
Seneca, and then Marcus Aurelius were how I got started, but their impact wasn't as resounding as being clubbed over the head with the Dhamma at the right moment.
But after years of studying Buddhism and seeking out the most useful nuggets from it, I circled back to Stoicism by way of the best book I've ever stumbled into reading on it, 'The Practicing Stoic' by Ward Farnsworth.
"Best" is subjective, let's accept that.
But my personal opinion is: what's practical is best. Theory hasn't saved me from the doldrums, but new perspectives and lenses have. And this book was the quickest-acting form of medicine I may have ever experienced through text.
It's a book divided by subject, with each chapter dripping in lessons that make that particular area of life a little (or a lot) more peaceful.
To not copy the entire book and dull its effect, and to give you reason to read it yourselves, I've included two quotes from each chapter that changed my thinking and behavior, in hopes that it (1) gets you to purchase and read the book yourself, and (2) gives you enough fuel to get practical results immediately from the words you read here.
Here we have it:
1 - Judgement
"These same eyes of yours – which at home won’t even tolerate marble unless it is varied and recently polished . . . which don’t want limestone on the floor unless the tiles are more precious than gold – once outside, those same eyes look calmly at the rough and muddy pathways and the filthy people they mostly meet, and at the walls of the tenement houses that are crumbled, cracked, and crooked. What is it, then, that doesn’t offend your eyes in public but upsets them at home – other than your opinion, which in the one place is easygoing and tolerant, but at home is critical and always complaining?"
Seneca, On Anger 3.35.5...
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"In a fever everything we eat seems bitter and unpleasant to the taste; but when we see others taking the same food and finding no displeasure in it, we stop blaming the food and drink. We blame ourselves and our malady. In the same way, we will stop blaming and being disgruntled with circumstances if we see others accepting the same events cheerfully and without offense."
Plutarch, On Tranquility of Mind 8 (468f–469a)
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2 - Externals (Things Not Under Our Own Control)
"The thought might occur to us, when eating fancy foods, that “this one is the corpse of a fish, this one the corpse of a bird or a pig”; or again, that “this fancy wine is the dribble of a bunch of grapes, and this purple robe is sheep hair dyed with shellfish blood”; or, about copulation, that “this is the rubbing of a little piece of entrail and, along with some convulsion, an excretion of mucus.” Impressions like these are the ones that penetrate to the heart of things themselves and let us see what they really are. We should do the same in all areas of life, and, whenever things appear too highly valued, we should lay them bare in our minds, perceive their cheapness, and strip off the prestige they have traditionally been assigned."
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 6.13...
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"You will disdain lovely singing and dancing, and martial arts, if you will cut up the musical phrase into separate notes, then ask yourself, about each one, if you are unable to resist it. You won’t know how to answer. Do the same with dancing, for each movement or position; the same even with martial arts. To sum up: apart from virtue and the things that stem from it, remember to go over things piece by piece, and by separating them come to look down on them; and carry this over to your whole life."
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 11.2...
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3 - Perspective
"Aristotle tells us of little creatures on the river Hypanis that live for only a day. One that dies at eight in the morning dies young; one that dies at five in the evening dies of old age. Who would not laugh to see the difference between such momentary lifespans counted as happiness or unhappiness? Yet calling our own lives long or short, when they are compared with eternity, or even to the spans of mountains, rivers, stars, trees, and certain other animals, seems no less absurd."
Montaigne, That to Study Philosophy is to Learn to Die (1580)
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"This is a fine saying of Plato – that a person who is going to discuss human affairs should examine earthly things as if looking down from somewhere above: groups of men, armies, tilled fields, marriages, divorces, births, deaths, the noise of the law courts, the deserts, the patchwork of foreign peoples, festivals, mournings, markets, the whole mixture and the orderly arrangement of opposites."
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 7.48...
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4 - Death
"“What?” I say to myself; “does death so often test me? Let it do so; I myself have for a long time tested death.” “When?” you ask. Before I was born. . . . Unless I am mistaken, my dear Lucilius, we go astray in thinking that death follows, when it has both preceded and will follow. Whatever condition existed before our birth, was death. For what does it matter whether you do not begin at all, or whether you end, when the result in either case is non-existence?"
Seneca, Epistles 54.4–5...
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"Pyrrho the philosopher was once aboard a ship during a very great storm. To those near him who were most frightened, he pointed to a hog that was there and that was not in the least concerned, and sought to encourage them by its example. Do we dare to say that the gift of reason, of which we speak so highly and which we think makes us masters and kings of the rest of creation, was put into us as a source of torment? What good is knowledge if it causes us to lose the peace of mind and the calm we would enjoy without it, and leaves us in a condition worse than that of Pyrrho’s hog?"
Montaigne, That the Taste of Good and Evil Things Depends in Large Part on the Opinion We Have of Them (1580)
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5 - Desire
"The philosopher Attalus used to say: “It is more pleasant to make a friend than to have one, as it is more pleasant to the artist to paint than to have painted.” When one is busy and absorbed in one’s work, the very absorption affords great delight; but when one has withdrawn one’s hand from the completed masterpiece, the pleasure is not so keen. Now it is the fruit of his art that he enjoys; it was the art itself that he enjoyed while he was painting."
Seneca, Epistles 9.7...
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"If we were all to bring our misfortunes into a common store, so that each person should receive an equal share in the distribution, the majority would be glad to take up their own and depart."
Plutarch, Letter to Apollonius 9 (106b)
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6 - Wealth And Pleasure
"Examine the records of history, recollect what has happened within the circle of your own experience, consider with attention what has been the conduct of almost all the greatly unfortunate, either in private or public life, whom you may have either read of, or heard of, or remember; and you will find that the misfortunes of by far the greater part of them have arisen from their not knowing when they were well, when it was proper for them to sit still and to be contented. The inscription upon the tomb-stone of the man who had endeavored to mend a tolerable constitution by taking physic; “I was well, I wished to be better; here I am;” may generally be applied with great justness to the distress of disappointed avarice and ambition."
Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759)
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"Lack of moderation is the plague of pleasure. Moderation is not the scourge of pleasure, but the seasoning of it."
Montaigne, Of Experience (1580)
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7 - What Others Think
"Who are these people whose admiration you seek? Aren’t they the ones you are used to describing as mad? Well, then, is that what you want – to be admired by lunatics?"
Epictetus, Discourses 1.21.4...
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"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...
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8 - Valuation/Valuing Time And Things
"Think about individuals; consider men in general; there is not one whose life is not focused on tomorrow. What harm is there in that, you ask? Infinite harm. They are not really living. They are about to live."
Seneca, Epistles 45.12–13...
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"I find that most of the time we envy others for their wealth, honor, and privilege; but if someone were to say to us, “You can have the same amount that they have for the same price,” we would not want it. For in order to have these things that they do, we must flatter, we must endure insult and injury, we must give up our freedoms."
du Vair, The Moral Philosophy of the Stoics (1585)
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9 - Emotion
"...and we should imitate Democritus rather than Heraclitus. For the latter, every time he went out into public, used to weep; the former used to laugh. One saw everything we do as wretchedness, the other as absurdity. Things should be made light of, and taken more easily: it is more civilized to laugh at life than to bewail it."
Seneca, On Tranquility of Mind 15.2...
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"Come, look about you, survey all mortals – everywhere there is ample and constant reason for weeping. . . . Tears will fail us sooner than the causes for grief. . . . Such is the way we spend our lives, and so we ought to do in moderation this thing we must do so often."
Seneca, Consolation to Polybius 4.2–3...
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10 - Adversity
"This then we should practice and work on first of all – like the man who threw a stone at his dog but missed and hit his stepmother. “Not so bad!” he said. For it is possible to change what we get out of things that do not go as we wish. Diogenes was driven into exile: “Not so bad!” – for it was after his banishment that he took up philosophy."
Plutarch, On Tranquility of Mind 6 (467c)
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"If your neighbor’s slave has broken his wine cup, it is common to say right away that “These things happen.” When your own cup is broken, your reaction should obviously be the same as when the neighbor’s cup was broken. Apply the same idea to more important things. Someone else’s child has died, or his wife: there is no one who wouldn’t say, “This is our human lot.” Yet when someone’s own child dies, right away it’s “Woe to me, how wretched I am!” We have to remember how we feel when we hear the same thing about others."
Epictetus, Enchiridion 26...
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11 - Virtue
"Those only are happy (I thought) who have their minds fixed on some object other than their own happiness; on the happiness of others, on the improvement of mankind, even on some art or pursuit, followed not as a means, but as itself an ideal end. Aiming thus at something else, they find happiness by the way."
Mill, Autobiography (1873)
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"It is of course required of a man that he should benefit his fellow-men – many if he can; if not, a few; if not a few, those who are nearest; if not these, himself. For when he renders himself useful to others, he engages in public affairs."
Seneca, On Leisure 3.5...
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12 - Learning
"Solitude, in itself, does not teach integrity, nor does the countryside give lessons in moderation; but those vices whose object is show and display will subside where no witness or onlooker remains. Who puts on the purple robe when he has no one to show it to? Who serves a single dinner on a golden plate? . . . No one is elegant just for their own benefit, or even for a few close friends; we set out the implements of our vices in proportion to the crowd there to see them. So it is: the stimulus of all our extravagance is the complicit admirer. You will cause us not to desire things if you keep us from showing them off. Ambition and luxury and lack of restraint all need a stage: you will heal them if you are kept from view."
Seneca, Epistles 94.69–71...
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"A man who frequently consorts with certain others, whether for conversation, for banquets, or just generally for good fellowship, must either become like them or else change them along his own lines. For if you put a charcoal that has gone out next to one that is burning, either the first will extinguish the second or the second will ignite the first. Since the danger is so great, we should enter very cautiously into social relations of this sort with laymen, and remember that it is impossible for the man who rubs up against someone covered with soot to avoid getting the benefit of some soot himself."
Epictetus, Discourses 3.16.1–3...
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Final Thoughts
It's easy to dismiss Stoicism when some of the major figures in Stoic thinking owned slaves, but that's like throwing away the key to your cell door because there's a drop of blood (or maybe a gallon of it) on it.
There can be no social change if there's no survival (leave kamikaze piloting to kamikaze pilots).
And whether it's Buddhism, Stoicism, or something you found on TikTok that helps you get through the day, survival should be priority number one.
Given that these men have been dead for thousands of years, you can even think of your internalizing and renewal of their philosophy as a form of reparations, allowing you to re-plant a new version of it that actually facilitates positive change in the world.
Old philosophy and new possibility can be just what the world needs.
So, take the good, discard the bad, and accept that those who come after us will probably make an outraged comment about some aspect of life that we tolerated if humans make it another thousand years.