For centuries, all sorts of people—generals and politicians, athletes and coaches, writers and leaders—have looked to the teachings of Stoicism to help guide their lives. Each day, author and speaker Ryan Holiday brings you a new lesson about life, inspired by the thoughts and writings of great Stoic thinkers like Marcus Aurelius and Seneca the Younger. Daily Stoic Podcast also features Q+As with listeners and interviews with notable figures from sports, academia, politics, and more. Learn more at DailyStoic.com.New episodes come out every day for free. Listen 1-week early on Wednesday, Saturday, and Sunday and to all episodes ad-free, with Wondery+ or Amazon Music with a Prime membership or Amazon Music Unlimited subscription.
2209 episodes transcribedIn Marcus Aurelius’s time, Roman religion was a hodgepodge of different rituals and ideas, which were evident in Marcus’s own behavior. For i...
There was a Stoic named Diotimus who messed up. Like really messed up. Sometime around the turn of the first century BC, he committed what ca...
It’s easy to whitewash history, to look back at a group of people who did an incredible thing and assume they were all on the same page when...
It’s a fitting warning about man’s nature that in the Old Testament, God would command his followers, “Thou shalt not follow a multitude to d...
The Roman elite were constantly living beyond their means. Leaders like Cicero lived lavishly—he owned something like nine different villas a...
Imagine, one day you’re king and the next day you’re not. Literally. That's the story of Joseph Bonaparte, brother of Napoleon, who was...
Yes, the Stoics talk a lot about death. How it’s inevitable. How life is fragile. How it can be taken from us at any moment. It’s in our powe...
Keanon Lowe grew up in a family struggling to make ends meet. His father left when he was nine. When money was tight or when things were hard...
Here’s a humbling thought: Even if your life is amazing and successful, even if you mind your own business and are kind to everyone you meet,...
Many “smart” people aren’t actually smart. They just know a lot of trivia. Sure, they can tell you all sorts of facts, they have a library of...
In 1961, Walker Percy published his great Stoic-inspired novel The Moviegoer. Like all classics, the book's success was by no means guar...
Seneca wrote about our natural, involuntary physiological responses. Someone pours cold water on you, and you shiver. They jump out of nowher...
Although the ancient world was filled with injustices and cruelty, we moderns flatter ourselves when we give ourselves (too much) credit for...
It’s unlikely, given his feelings about the Christians, that Marcus Aurelius ever read any of the books in the Old Testament, but if he had r...
Seneca wrote eloquently about how absurd the need to “get even” is. No one would think to return a bite to a dog or a kick to a mule, he writ...
“Where are all the Stoic women? Surely this is not a philosophy only for and by men.” It is a common and reasonable criticism of this philoso...
The Cynic philosopher Diogenes was once criticized by a passerby for not taking care of himself in his old age, for being too active when he...
Life is full of suffering, acute and benign. We come down with the flu. We are hit with a costly expense. Someone with power over us abuses t...
According to the philosopher Blaise Pascal, at the root of most human activity is a desire to escape boredom and self-awareness. We go to ela...
“What would you do if tomorrow you were diagnosed with terminal cancer?” We’ve all had a hypothetical question like that thrust in front of u...
