Stoic Wisdom: Life, Virtue, and Inner Strength

To be like the rock that the waves keep crashing over, standing unmoved.

### Stoicism: A Guide to Living a Virtuous and Fulfilling Life
* 😌 "The man who says he can, and the man who says he cannot, are both **correct**."
* 🧘 Stoicism teaches that "**concern should drive us into action** and not into depression."
* 🧠 "No man is free who **cannot control himself**."
* 🌊 "To be like the rock that the waves keep **crashing over**."
* 🥗 "Set aside a number of days during which you'll be content with the **plainest food and very little of it**."
* 🧠 "Not to be driven this way and that, but always to behave with **justice** and see **things as they are**."
* 🏅 "Dignity does not consist of possessing honors, but in **deserving them**."
* 🚶 "The journey of a thousand miles begins with **one step**."

the man who says he can, and the man who says he cannot, are both correct. Concern should drive us into action and not into a depression. No man is free who cannot control himself. [Music] To be like the rock that the waves keep crashing over. It stands unmoved and the raging of the sea falls still around it. Set aside now and then a number of days during which you'll be content with the plainest food and very little of it, and with rough, coarse clothing, and will ask yourself, Is this what one used to dread? [Music] Not to be driven this way and that, but always to behave with justice and see things as they are. Dignity does not consist of possessing honors, but in deserving them. [Music] The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step. Character is destiny. The man who moves a mountain begins by carrying away small stones. Worthless people live only to eat and drink. People of worth eat and drink only to live. Concentrate every minute like a Roman. Like a man.

on doing what's in front of you with precise and genuine seriousness tenderly willingly with justice and unfreeing yourself from all the distractions. Yes, you can if you do everything as if it were the last thing you were doing in your life and stop being aimless. Stop letting your emotions override what your mind tells you. Stop being hypocritical self-centered irritable. You see how few things you have to do to live a satisfying and reverent life. If you can manage this that's all even the gods can ask of you. [Music] Your life is what your thoughts make it. He who is not a good servant will not be a good master. Let us postpone nothing beware the baroness of a busy life. Learn avidly question it repeatedly analyze it carefully then put what you have learned into practice intelligently to raise false perceptions tell yourself I have it in me to keep my soul from evil lust and all confusion to see things as they are and treat them as they deserve. Don't

overlook this innate ability to go beyond is as wrong as to fall short. [Music] Never give a sword to a man who can't dance. We should feel sorrow but not sink under its oppression. Imagination is more important than knowledge. When you know a thing, to hold that you know it, and when you do not know a thing, to allow that you do not know it. This is knowledge. [Music] All things will be produced in superior quantity and quality and with great ease when each man works at a single occupation in accordance with his natural gifts and at the right moment, without meddling with anything else. The tranquility that comes when you stop caring about what they say or think or do, only what you do, not to be distracted by that darkness, to run straight for the finish line and swerving. Imagine for yourself a character, a model personality, whose example you are determined to follow in private as well as in public. [Music] Real knowledge is to know the extent of one's ignorance. While we are postponing, life speeds by.

looking at small advantages prevents great affairs from being accomplished. A gem cannot be polished without friction, nor a man perfected without trials. People are like dirt; they can either nourish you and help you grow as a person, or they can stunt your growth and make you wilt and die. [Music] Suffering becomes beautiful when anyone bears great calamities with cheerfulness, not through insensibility, but through greatness of mind. Those who cannot forgive others break the bridge over which they themselves must pass. A superior man does not even for the space of a single meal act contrary to virtue; in moments of haste, he cleaves to it; in seasons of danger, he cleaves to it. People are frugal in guarding their personal property, but as soon as it comes to squandering time, they are most wasteful of the one thing in which it is right to be stingy. It's normal to feel pain in your hands and feet if you're using your feet as feet and your hands as hands, and for a human being to feel stress is

normal if he's living a normal human life. And if it's normal, how can it be bad? All people are the same, only their habits differ. Good character is not formed in a week or a month. It is created little by little, day by day. Protracted and patient effort is needed. To see what is right and not to do it is want of courage or of principle. [Music] When anger rises, think of the consequences. [Music] If you men think that I rely on numbers, then all Greece is not sufficient. For it is but a small fraction of their numbers. But if on men's valor, then this number will do. If you don't have a consistent goal in life, you cannot live it in a consistent way. Unhelpful unless you specify a goal. There is no common benchmark for all the things that people think are good, except for a few, the ones that affect us all. So the goal should be a common one, a civic one. If you direct all your energies towards that, your actions will be consistent, and so will you.

[Music] There has been a constant war, a war with fear. Those who have the courage to conquer it are made free, and those who are conquered by it are made to suffer until they have the courage to defeat it. How to act: never under compulsion, out of selfishness, without forethought, with misgivings. Don't gussy up your thoughts; no surplus words or unnecessary actions. Let the spirit in you represent a man, an adult, a citizen, a Roman, a ruler. Take up his post like a soldier and patiently await his recall from life, needing no oath or witness. Cheerfulness without requiring other people's help, or serenity supplied by others. To stand up straight, not straightened. The secret of happiness, you see, is not found in seeking more, but in developing the capacity to enjoy less. If an action or utterance is appropriate, then it's appropriate for you. Don't be put off by other people's comments and criticism. If it's right to say or do it, then it's the right thing for you to do.

or say the others obey their own need follow their own impulses don't be distracted keep walking follow your own nature and follow nature along the road they share let us balance life's books each day the one who puts the finishing touches on their life each day is never short of time we have two lives and the second begins when we realize we only have one. [Music] [Music] the mind is the ruler of the soul it should remain unstirred by agitations of the flesh gentle and violent ones alike not mingling with them but fencing itself off and keeping those feelings in their place when they make their way into your thoughts through the sympathetic link between mind and body don't try to resist the sensation the sensation is natural but don't let your mind start in with judgments calling it good or bad. [Music] worry not that no one knows you seek to be worth knowing you will never do anything in this world without courage it is the greatest quality of the mind.

next to honor act with kindness but do not expect gratitude. [Music] Everywhere, at each moment, you have the option to accept this event with humility, to treat this person as he should be treated, to approach this thought with care so that nothing irrational creeps in. [Music] What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others. If you are the smartest person in the room, then you are in the wrong room. I am not afraid of an army of lions led by sheep. I am afraid of an army of sheep led by a lion. Think of yourself as dead. You have lived your life. Now take what's left and live it properly. If anyone can refute me, show me I'm making a mistake or looking at things from the wrong perspective. I'll gladly change. It's the truth I'm after, and the truth never harmed anyone. What harms us is to persist in self-deceit and ignorance. [Music] The goal of life is living in agreement.

with nature. When it is obvious that the goals cannot be reached, don't adjust the goals, adjust the action steps. [Music] Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work. [Music] Nothing that goes on in anyone else's mind can harm you, nor can the shifts and changes in the world around you. And where is harm to be found? In your capacity to see it. Stop doing that, and everything will be fine. Let the part of you that makes that judgment keep quiet, even if the body it is attached to is stabbed or burnt or stinking with pus or consumed by cancer. Or, to put it another way, it needs to realize that what happens to everyone, bad and good alike, is neither good nor bad. That what happens in every life, lived naturally or not, is neither natural nor unnatural. To know what you know and what you do not know, that is true knowledge. Disgraceful for the soul to give up when the body is still going strong. Determine that today you will overcome yourself of the day before.

tomorrow you will win over those of lesser skill, and later you will win over those of greater skill. [Music] If you think in terms of a year, plant a seed. If in terms of 10 years, plant trees. If in terms of 100 years, teach the [Music] people. I have become so great as I am because I have won men's hearts by gentleness and kindness. To hold it together when everyone else would understand if you fell apart, that's true strength. The mind is the most powerful thing in the world. The mind has capabilities that are so unknown, and being able to tap into that is on the other side of suffering. All men die, but not all men really live. The essence of knowledge is having it to use it [Music], not to live as if you had endless years ahead of you. Death overshadows you while you're alive, unable be good [Music]. It takes less courage to criticize the decisions of others than to stand by your own. One joy dispels a hundred cares. There is nothing outside yourself that

can ever enable you to get better, stronger, richer, quicker, or smarter. Everything is within. Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life. Victory is reserved for those who are willing to pay its price. You are what you think to be. Like the rock that the waves keep crashing over, it stands unmoved, and the raging of the sea falls still around it. The man who asks a question is a fool for a minute. The man who does not ask is a fool for life. [Music] The successful warrior is the average man with laser-like focus. Don't complain about the snow on your neighbor's roof when your own doorstep is unclean. Study the past if you would divine the future. I never did anything worth doing by accident, nor did any of my inventions come by accident. They came by work. It is more shameful to distrust our friends than to be deceived by them. Do external things distract you? Then make time for yourself to learn something worthwhile. Stop letting yourself be pulled in all directions.

but make sure you guard against the other kind of confusion. People who labor all their lives but have no purpose to direct every thought and impulse towards are wasting their time, even when hard at work. The strength of a nation derives from the integrity of the home. The more things you can do to get outside of that zone that makes you feel good, the stronger your mind is going to get. It starts getting used to doing things like this. It's not fun, but now my mind is used to it. Anyone can find the switch after the lights are on. Not to borrow the strength of another, nor to rely on one's own strength. To cut off past and future thoughts and not to live within the everyday mind. Then the great way is right before your eyes. The ideal man bears the accidents of life with dignity and grace, making the best of circumstances. The only reason why I became successful was because I went towards the truth. As painful and as brutal as it is, it changed me. It allowed me, in my own right, to become the person who I am.

[Music] Today. [Music] When you see a good person, think of becoming like him or her. When you see someone not so good, reflect on your own weak points. [Music] Those who are able to see beyond the shadows and lies of their culture will never be understood, let alone believed by the masses. If virtue promises happiness, prosperity, and peace, then progress in virtue is progress in each of these. I slept and dreamt life is beauty. I woke and found life is duty. [Music] I fear not the man who has practiced ten thousand kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick ten thousand times. They must often change who would remain constant in happiness and wisdom. It is during our darkest moments that we must focus to see the light. [Music] It may seem difficult at first, but everything is difficult at first. But where life is more terrible than death, it is then the truest valor to dare to live. Any person capable of angering you becomes your master. [Music]

[Music] Sweat more during peace, bleed less during war. There is nothing impossible to him who will try. [Music] [Music] you.

THE GREATEST STOIC QUOTES OF ALL TIME

My name is William Mulligan and I run the YouTube channel EveryDayStoic. Stoicism for everyday people. I believe is for everyone, not Just a select few. Visit us today TheEveryDayStoicism.com


Everyday Stoic

Self-control is crucial for a satisfying and reverent life, allowing one to concentrate on what's in front of them.

Taking action driven by concern is emphasized over being driven into depression.

Real knowledge is recognized as understanding the extent of one's ignorance, and the journey of a thousand miles is highlighted as beginning with a single step.

Facing challenges is essential for personal development and growth.

Forgiveness and frugality are crucial for a virtuous life.

The key to happiness lies in inner development rather than seeking external fulfillment.

Embracing Stoic Philosophy for a Fulfilling Life

Stoic philosophy emphasizes following one's own nature and being courageous.

It teaches acceptance of events with humility and focusing on personal development.

The philosophy also highlights the importance of seeking truth, adapting to change, and finding pleasure in work for a fulfilling life.

Plant seeds of success with a long-term perspective, and prioritize gentleness and kindness in winning people over.

Tap into the power of the mind through suffering, and focus on internal growth.

The key to success lies in self-improvement, purposeful work, and maintaining integrity in all aspects of life.

When encountering good people, aspire to be like them, and learn from the weaknesses of others.

Progress in virtue leads to happiness, prosperity, and peace.

Embracing change and staying positive during tough times is key to finding light in the darkness.