October 7, 2020

Five Life-Changing Quotes from Seneca | The Daily Stoic

Check out the Daily Stoic Episode Page & Show Notes

Key Takeaways

• “No good thing is pleasant to possess without friends to share it with.” – Seneca
• We torture ourselves more than the thing we are worrying about ever could. 
• Seneca talks about the importance of adversity, not only embracing it, but actively seeking it out so you can be better, stronger, and more prepared. 
• “Just as some diseases jump over onto those we have touched, so the mind infects those closest to us with evils.” -– Seneca

Intro

• Ryan Holiday (@ryanholiday) is the author of many bestselling books, including The Obstacle is the Way, Ego is the Enemy, The Daily Stoic, and Stillness is the Key

Seneca’s Background 

• “Would you really know what Philosophy offers humanity; Philosophy offers counsel.” – Seneca 
• Born at the turn of the first millennium, during a time of paranoia, violence, and political turmoil, Seneca sought counsel, just as we all need counsel
• Read widely and studied and discovered the school of Stoicism, which was founded only a few centuries before him
• He found what he was looking for in Stoicism: guidance towards how to live a good life
• “No good thing is pleasant to possess without friends to share it with.” – Seneca

Approach to Five Quotes

• The purpose of these quotes is not to simply pick apart the text and analyze it, looking for a more practical approach
• “We look at the words so they can be translated into works.” – Seneca 
• Ryan is unbiased in saying Seneca did not always live up to everything he read and wrote, but genuinely tried and did it much better than most

Quote #1: “There are more things likely to frighten us than there are to crush us… we suffer more in imagination than in reality.”

• Seneca’s life was full of suffering: 
  • Born with chronic lung condition, exiled twice, lived through first five emperors (who were increasingly more deranged)
• We torture ourselves in imagination more than the thing we are worrying about ever could
• Pain is inevitable, we must avoid the phantom premonitions of what may or may not happen
• Stay in the present, stay in reality

Quote #2: “Excellence withers without an adversary; as fire is the test for gold, so adversity is the test of strong men.”

• We like to live comfortably, to minimize inconvenience, and to only seek out enjoyable tasks
  • Seneca said this is a kind of “deathtrap”
• “A person who has never been challenged is a tragic figure… you pass through life without anyone knowing what you are capable of, even yourself.” – Seneca
• Seneca talks about the importance of adversity, not only embracing it, but actively seeking it out so you can be better, stronger, and more prepared
  • This mindset grants to push us rather than help us atrophy
    • When we go through challenges, we should be grateful for the challenge it presents and demonstrates our full potential

Quote #3: “Associate with those who will make a better man of you; welcome those whom you yourself can improve: the process is mutual for men learn as they teach.”

• Jim Rohn’s widely quoted line: “You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with”
• James Altucher advises young writers and entrepreneurs to find their scene, who pushes them to be better
• Goethe’s maxim is better – “Tell me whom you consort with, and I will tell you who you are”
• “If there is one thing I am careful of it is who we surround ourselves with… I never bring home the same character that I took with me. There is no person who doesn’t unconsciously stamp themselves on us.” – Seneca
• We cannot be afraid to reach out to new people and make new friends
• “Just as some diseases jump over onto those we have touched, so the mind infects those closest to us with evils.” – Seneca

Quote #4: “Anger always outlasts hurt, best to take the opposite course… would anyone think it normal to return a kick to a mule or a bite to a dog?”

• There are a lot of destructive beliefs out there, one of the most dangerous is that anger is fuel
• Seen and said by athletes, professionals claim it fuels them to triumph
• Anger destroys everything in its vicinity
• Seneca claimed that anger is the ugliest and most savage of all emotions, no other plague has done more damage to humankind
• Nothing great was truly fueled by anger, and if it was, then it is not truly great
• “The foundation of greatness is strength and goodness.” – Seneca

Quote “5: “This is our big mistake, to think we look forward to death; most of death is already gone, whatever time has passed is owned by death”

• Death was a common theme in Seneca’s writings
• Balance the books of life each day
• Death isn’t something that lay ahead of us, in the uncertain future, he realized we are dying everyday
• “No day, no minute, no second once dead can be revived.” – Seneca
• We waste a lot of time and our lives, the only path is to live immediately and fully
• Go out and live now while you still can, do not wait, take it now and live. 

Additional Notes

• Ryan says that studying Seneca is endlessly complicated, his ambition is relatable, and is stoic purity is admirable
• Ryan’s new book, Lives of the Stoics: The Art of Living from Zeno to Marcus Aurelius, details biographies of 26 stoics over the past 23 centuries for the first time

The Daily Stoic : philosopher, philosophy, stoic, stoicism
Notes By Alex Wiec