Recent Posts
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Seneca on Simple Pleasures
Little about Seneca What, then? Shall you not rather transfer your efforts to making it clear to all men that the search for the superfluous means a great outlay of time, and that many have gone through life merely accumulating the instruments of life? There is something almost embarrassing about…
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Epictetus on Happiness and Control
What is within our control? This simple question lies at the heart of Stoic philosophy. Epictetus begins his handbook for living with the disarming line: Some things are up to us and some are not. Within our power are opinion, motivation, desire, aversion, and, in a word, whatever is of…
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Marcus Aurelius on inner contentment
Marcus Aurelius said that pain either affects the body or the soul. Only one of them do you have any say over. The soul can choose not to be affected, preserving its own serenity, its own tranquillity. All our decisions, urges, desires, aversions lie within. No evil can touch them.…