The Stoic Reading List: 12 Must-Read Books To Get You Started

my job is to read books that's one of the perks of being a writer is you can't write without reading stoics would say also though you can't be wise you can't have a good life if you don't read from the greatest works ever written Sena says that only those who make time for philosophy are truly alive he said they Annex all the wisdom of the past into their own life that's why I like reading I like learning from the experiences of others and I've been reading every day for as long as I've been able to read and that's what's made me successful it's also made me happy it's made me a better human being that culminated in a couple years ago I opened my own bookstore I'm Ryan holiday I've written about sto philosophy now for almost 15 years talked about it everywhere from the NBA to the NFL Special Forces sitting senators in today's episode I want to talk to you about some of my favorite books books that have changed my life books that I think you absolutely need to read and that will make you healthier wealthier wiser and many many other things let's get into it this is a book that you can tell when I read it for the first time I was struck by a few things this is written by one of the most famous Romans of all time he's near the end of his life he was the advisor to the emperor he probably knows that he's a marked man that the emperor is soon going to kill him he's been studying philosophy his whole life and he has this friend who's in a prominent position of power as a governor of a Roman province he wants to write some advice to that guy they had this exchange back and forth where they're writing these letters to each other about life about the world the things we struggle with where to find peace how to avoid the traps that other people fall into I'm talking about Sena this is not actually what senica looked like long story but senica writes these letters to his friend lucilius and I think it's one of the most incredible books written about success about failure about learning ultimately he defines philosophy I think this is great he says how do you know you're making progress with this philosophy I know because I've begun to be a better friend to myself so read senica's letters it's amazing this is not only one of the greatest books ever written it's maybe the only one of its kind it's written by the most powerful man in the world who has no intention of publication could probably be mortified that his thoughts on everything from losing his temper to his fear of death would ever be known to people it's a person who had enormous wealth enormous Fame and yet he's talking to himself about Justice self-discipline wisdom and courage and the writing is so beautiful so specific and yet so Universal at the same time that there's never been a book like it before and there'll probably never be a book like it again talking about Marcus aurelius's meditations if you haven't read it you must the stoics wrote for a long time about adversity and difficulty and we take them at their word what's incredible about this book it's written by a fighter pilot who shot down down over Vietnam as he is parachuting down knowing he's going to be taken prisoner knowing that he very well could die this man says to himself I'm leaving the world of technology entering the world of epicus what he's doing then is testing the doctrines of epicus in the laboratory of Human Experience James Stockdale spend seven plus years in what now is called the hanoy Hilton he's locked in solitary confinement he's tortured as epicus was and yet all the time he's focusing on what epicus talked about that a Podium and a prison is each a place in any of these situations good or bad we have a certain freedom choice and what will we do with that choice who will we be with that choice this book by James Bond Stockdale Medal of Honor recipient goes on to be an admiral he's this heroic figure who comforts the other prisoners who helps steal their will and make them determined and strong it's called courage Under Fire is an exploration of the stoics one of the most difficult circumstances you could possibly imagine that's why it's worth this very short very brief very life-changing read the author of this book says that everything can be taken from us and in fact everything was taken from him home his livelihood his work the original manuscript of This Book Is Lost he loses his entire family in the Holocaust and nearly loses his own life in man search for meaning Victor Frankle says everything can be taken from us but our ability to choose our attitude in any set of circumstances to make our own way this is the essence of stoicism that we don't control what happens to us even something as cruel and awful as the events of the 20th century we choose how we respond to it suffering is inevitable we also have the ability to find meaning in suffering to grow from the suffering one of the most beautiful and inspiring books ever written there's a reason sold millions and millions of copies if you haven't read Victor frankl's Manch for meeting you absolutely should my aunt gave me a copy when I graduated from high school I've read many times since one of my absolute favorite books you have to read it we all know that we're mortal we all know that nobody lives forever and yet we're perpetually caught off guard when we lose someone we're even the most stoic amongst us get overwhelmed by grief and sadness and loss and this is true for the stoics themselves senica you know again we portray the stoics as unfeeling and unemotional senica writes three incredibly moving essays on the topic of grief they're called his consolations he writes one to his mother actually has nothing to do with death when he's unjustly exiled and then he writes two to friends who are grieving someone that they lost and senica is incredibly kind and thoughtful and patient he totally disproves this notion that the stoics just stuff their emotions down he's saying no you should process those emotions deal with them try to apply some logic and reason to them he has this beautiful passage in in one of them where he's he's saying like look you're grieving your father but your father loved you do you think your father would want his memory to drive you to tears and sadness no he would want you to be happy he would want you to feel good he would want his memory to bring that emotion out in you and so this is the kind of stuff that senica talks about in his constellations essays which until relatively recently could couldn't be found in one place I would have to just link people to you know where they could find them online but Chicago University press put out this new edition called senica hardship and happiness and it's got a bunch of senica's best essays it's got his consolation to Marcia consolation consolation to Helia that's his mother consolation to polybus pus and then it's also got his essay on the shortness of Life which of course touches on the the topic of grief brief as well it's got a bunch of other essays from him uh including one on happiness right the point of stoicism is not to grit your teeth and just grind through life no it's to find happiness and joy despite all the things that are happening so whenever I know someone that's going through something really tough or difficult when they're grieving when they've lost someone or something this is the book that I tend to point them to people ask me how I managed to read so much the answer is it's my job that's my secret Advantage I spend a lot of time doing it I'm on the road right now in a hotel room and I'm spending all my time reading I realized not everyone has that luxury what's important though is you get ideas from books and that's where today's sponsor short form comes in short form has the world's best summaries of all the bestsellers and Classics and non-fiction books you could possibly want to read they have seven different titles from me on short form so if you've been wanting to check out something for me maybe that's a good place to start There's a one-page summary of every book and then a deeper down into all its main points they've got books on philosophy productivity life advice career advice business advice leadership advice and so much more there's even a summary of The Works of most of the stelix on there like Marcus to get a free trial join short form through my special link that's short.com stoic and the first 500 of my subscribers to use this link will get 20% off your annual subscription or you can just click the link in the description below thanks to short form for sponsoring this video and for helping make books [Music] accessible the problem with most philosophy books is that they focus on what the philosophers said this is of course all very interesting and can be important but what really matters is what the philosophers did who they were how the ideas were applied to their life actually the Stokes talk about not having much respect for the so-called pen and ink philosophers just the writers they were interested in the doers how they lived up to the ideals and some of the stoics did a great job Marcus relus is's not corrup Ed by absolute power you look at epicus surviving slavery and Exile and torture and then there's stoics like Cicero or Sena who wrote very beautifully about the ideas but then failed to live up to them that's the premise of lives of the stoics The Art of Living from Zeno to Marx Aus which I happen to know the author of as I put together this book what I was thinking about is really that question how and when did their actions speak louder than their words what can we learn from their examples not just their ideas this book has a weird title it's a word you wouldn't recognize it's a word you don't immediately know how to pronounce and it translates in a kind of a strange context but basically it means a defensive weapon it means at hand I'm talking about epic tetus inidian the handbook which was seen as a defensive weapon against adversity and difficulty and the blows of Fate this is something that epicus would of course know himself quite well epicus is born a slave he endures incredible adversity and difficult he's tortured he walks with a limp his whole life he serves in the corrupt decadent Court of Nero and then is eventually exiled but from all this difficulty and adversity epicus cultivates a life of resilience and strength and fortitude and honor this is a new translation by Robin Waterfield that's got all the stuff in here but if you haven't read epicus you're doing yourself a disservice you're not as strong or as well armed as you could be so you must read this book the guy that wrote this book knew a thing about hardships he's exiled four times he Liv in a brutal time to be alive he's persecuted by tyrants he saw some of the worst things that people do to each other and so when he says that we should disdain hardships this is musonius Rufus known as the Roman Socrates when he says that we should disdain hardships he's not saying that we should avoid them we should run away from them he's saying that we should look at them with a a sneer or a smirk in the sense that we're better than them that we're challenged by them but we don't shy away from this challenge one of musonius rufus's greatest students was epicus who would go on to shape Marcus aelius but his most famous line it was was a guy who knew about hardship and he knew about overcoming them one of his great lines he said if you accomplish something good with hard work the work passes quickly but the good endures and then he says though if you do something shameful in pursuit of pleasure you take the easy way out the result doesn't last long but the shame endures and most of all he said we earn respect of others by earning the respect of ourselves by disdaining hardships by conquering them by doing the hard work and that in this little book which has only recently been retranslated you learn all about the teachings of one musonius Rufus the Roman Socrates and how this great thinker shaped epicus who in turn has been shaping people for thousands of years since [Music] it really should have been an incomprehensible life totally foreign way of thinking the most powerful man in the world ahead of an enormous Army living 2,000 years ago totally different time with totally different Customs what was his perspective on life it sort of baffles us and yet when you read Marcus realus you find that there's something very relatable despite all the pressures and temptations and everything that he faced he had a really unique World VI he thought about things in a way that was both peculiar and unique to his extraordinary circumstances and that also incredibly applic able for all of us that's why I love this book by Donald Robertson how to think like a Roman Emperor it's a biography of Marx relus and meditations but really it's trying to put ourselves in the shoes of this guy a guy who's worshiped as a God in his own life you see statues of him all around he has incredible power incredible responsibility he's trying to stay sane in the midst of all that he survives through it he's great inside of it and that's the idea in this book The stoic philosophy of Marcus Reas by Donald Robinson I've interviewed him before he's a great guy he's really thoughtful and you can tell really loves the subject of the book so if you're looking to read a book on sto philosophy definitely recommend this one this is a very short book but actually makes a pretty controversial argument it says it isn't that life is short although it can feel that way it's that we waste a lot of it one of the greatest philosophers in the history of the world writes this essay it's called on the shortness of life but he argues that life doesn't have to be short life is long if you know how to use it that was senica's argument and here in these pages is one of the greatest Arguments for the most important thing that you have to grasp which is that you're here for only a finite amount of time and how you use that time how you value that time how you grapple with the fact that you don't know when it's going to be up you don't know if you're given a ton of it just a little bit of it is one of the most important pressing philosophical questions senica knows this well because he himself although he lives to be pretty old is tragically and violently put to death by the emperor Nero years earlier he almost died from what we think was tuberculosis the senica's on the shortness of life one of the greatest essays on The Human Experience ever written if you haven't read it you absolutely must this guy said that basically almost all the study of ancient philosophy gets it wrong that we're thinking about the ideas we're thinking about the writing we're thinking about the theory when in fact what philosophy was was a series of spiritual exercises notes discussions with the self about how to solve problems of life this is Pierre Hado he wrote this great book on the meditations of Markus realist called the inner Citadel and he wrote this other book called philosophy as a way of life which is really drilling down on some of the ideas in this book he's saying that when Marcus is writing meditations he's not thinking of you and I at all he's thinking of himself and the problems he's dealing with in his actual life Marcus isn't trying to explain all the ideas or the insights of stoke philosophy he's trying to work on the very specific parts of stoke philosophy that he is dealing with people would say that Marcus Rus repeats himself too much in meditation or that he's hard on himself well he's hard on himself about the specific things that he's struggling with hoo reframes and reimagines meditations as a set of spiritual exercises philosophy as way of life marus wasn't making Philosophy for you he was philosophizing to himself I think these are two important stoic books that I want you read so where should someone start with the stoics that's a tough question right should they read this translation or that translation should they read senica or Marcus aelius or epicus right it's hard to know where to start I feel like I got so lucky that I just happened to get the right translation from the right stck Gregory hay translation of meditations off Amazon at the right time of my life but maybe I picked up some Antiquated translation of epitus and my whole trip down this wonderful Rabbit Hole might have not worked out so that's actually what I tried to do in this volume this is the only time and place that all the stelic not just the big three but number of the Lesser on Stokes have been in one book at one time for 8 years ago we published The Daily Stoke it's one page a day with one of the best quotes from The Stokes and then a riffing on that quota an analysis or an explanation a story that illustrates that idea when I wrote it I didn't know how it would do you know 8 years later it was sold millions of copies spend weeks and weeks on the best seller list be translated in something like 40 languages but that's the power of stoicism all I did was add in an organizational layer that's had this huge impact and then um we even have a desk calendar version too which you can check out actually what's today I'm a little behind I was out of the office uh to's the 17th do away with opinion that I am harmed and the harmed is Cast Away way do away with being harmed and harm disappears Mark R is talking about how our perceptions change what's happening to us and if we don't feel like we've been insulted hurt a disadvantage well in a sense we haven't been so that's the daily stoic which if you're looking for something to start with the stoics this might be helpful to you I hope you like this video I hope you subscribe but what I really want you to subscribe to is our daily stoic email one bit of stoic wisdom totally for free to the largest community of stoics ever in existence you can sign up at Daily stoic.com there's no spam you can unsubscribe at anytime I love sending it I've sent it every day for last 6 years and I hope to see you there at Daily stoic.com

Channel: Daily Stoic

Views: 89,390

Keywords: Stoic, Stoicism, Ryan Holiday, Ryan Holiday Stoicism, Daily Stoic, Ryan Holiday Interview, Ryan Holiday Stoic, Ryan Holiday Daily Stoic, Stoicism TED talk, marcus aurelius, marcus aurelius meditations, ryan holiday podcast

Id: 1qYZ_EBWR2A

Length: 16min 42sec (1002 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 19 2024