The Practicing Stoic: A Philosophical User's Manual

We always feel as though we react to things in the world; in fact we react to things in ourselves. And sometimes changing ourselves will be more effective and sensible than trying to change the world.

Our ultimate insignificance makes the case for living well in the present, for no other purpose survives. It

If distress is caused by our thoughts about things rather than by the things themselves, we should try dropping those thoughts and using new ones.

Stoicism doesn’t care what our tastes are, and doesn’t call for reversal of our aversions and desires. It calls for detachment from them. That isn’t easy, either, but it is far more often feasible.

An ancient Greek saying holds that we are tormented not by things themselves but by the opinions that we have of them.

our pleasures, griefs, desires and fears all involve three stages rather than two: not just an event and a reaction, but an event, then a judgment or opinion about it, and then a reaction (to the judgment or opinion). Our task is to notice the middle step, to understand its frequent irrationality, and to control it through the patient use of reason

The first principle of practical Stoicism is this: we don’t react to events; we react to our judgments about them, and the judgments are up to us.

the absence of emotion prescribed by the Stoics in response to a thing is also what we would expect naturally from long enough exposure to it.

Only the novice is inflated and grasping and fearful; but we are all novices. Life is regrettably short because it does not allow us enough trials to become as wise as we would wish. Stoic philosophy is a compensation – a substitute for time, or simulation of it. Stoicism means to offer the wisdom while skipping the repetition; it tries to get by c

Each of us is as well or badly off as we believe. The happy are those who think they are, not those who are thought to be so by others; and in this way alone, belief makes itself real and true. Montaigne,