The Daily Stoic - Only The Wise Are Free | A Little Knowledge Is Dangerous

Episode Date: July 14, 2025

Most people are enslaved and controlled and directed by their ignorance. Their impulses. Their temper. Their desires and delusions.📚 The Four Stoic Virtues: Justice, Temperance, Wisdom, Courage, are timeless keys to living your best life. The Daily Stoic is releasing a limited collector’s edition set of all four books signed and numbered, with a title page identifying these books as part of the only printing of this series. PLUS we're including one of the notecards Ryan used while writing the series. Pre-order the Limited Edition Stoic Virtues Series Today! | https://store.dailystoic.com/pages/stoic-virtues📖 Preorder the final book in Ryan Holiday's The Stoic Virtues Series: "Wisdom Takes Work": https://store.dailystoic.com/pages/wisdom-takes-work🎙️ Follow The Daily Stoic Podcast on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dailystoicpodcast🎥 Watch top moments from The Daily Stoic Podcast on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@dailystoicpodcast✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail🏛 Get Stoic inspired books, medallions, and prints to remember these lessons at the Daily Stoic Store: https://store.dailystoic.com/📱 Follow us:  Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and FacebookSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, where each day we bring you a stoic-inspired meditation designed to help you find strength and insight and wisdom into everyday life. Each one of these episodes is based on the 2,000-year-old philosophy that has guided some of history's greatest men and women to help you learn from them, to follow in their example, and to start your day off with a little dose of courage and discipline and justice and wisdom. For more, visit DailyStstoic.com. Only the wise are free. Epictetus was born into slavery.

This would have been a profoundly painful experience that left many scars and many disadvantages. His 30 years in bondage left him with a limp for the rest of his life, courtesy of a sadistic owner who tortured him. In Rome at that time, many people believed that only free people were capable of being educated. But the indisputable truth that Epictetus saw every day in the moral disorder and dysfunction of Nero's court, where his master served as a high-profile secretary, was that it was, in fact, the opposite. Only the educated, he said, were free. And this is something that Seneca points out about the same period in Rome, how profoundly

unfree many of the richest and most powerful people are. And this is true 20 odd centuries later. Most people are enslaved and controlled and directed by their ignorance, their impulses, their temper, their desires and delusions. What Epictetus came to understand is that wisdom is freedom from the things that have enslaved and controlled and directed people for all time, from ignorance, from stupid opinions, from immature emotions and childish impulses, from desires and delusions, from bitterness and frustration and resentment.

That's the point of wisdom, he said, to argue less, to rage less, to be upset less, to enjoy, Epictetus said, a smooth flow of life. But the Stoics also believed that wisdom is something we have to work for, not something that we're given. It didn't matter then if you were a slave like Epictetus or raised as royalty like Marcus Aurelius. Wisdom was something you had to earn. And how did you earn it? Through hard work, through reading and thinking and reflecting,

through mentors and teachers, through painful trial and error, through opening yourself to experiences and knowledge outside of your comfort zone. And look, if you want to get serious about that work, well, boy, I have a book for you. That's what the new book Wisdom Takes Work, which I have here on my table. I am looking out over the Mediterranean Sea, not far from the Temple of Poseidon. I have a copy of Wisdom Takes Work with me. And I'm really excited to share it with you. It's out in 100 days from today.

But if you pre-order it now, and you can, by the way, order all four books in the series signed, numbered, these special editions, we sold out last time on Courage is Calling, we sold out on Discipline is Destiny, we sold out on Right Thing Right Now. I will definitely sell out on Wisdom Takes Work, but I'm just really excited for you to read this book.

As I said, it's full of part one insights from wise people, I will definitely sell out on Wisdom Takes Work, but I'm just really excited for you to read this book. As I said, it's full of part one insights from wise people, like all the books, Stoic ideas illustrated by stories from history, and it's mostly about what we can learn from them, what they can teach us. And if you want to pre-order it, I would love for you to support the book. As I said, they almost certainly will sell out. You can grab them right now at dailystoic.com slash preorder. As I said, I think if you preorder all four, you can get a signed page of the original manuscript.

We're going to do a live Q&A. If you order a bunch of books, you can even have dinner with me and a bunch of stoics across from the Painted Porch. I was just visiting the actual Painted Porch here in Athens. You can go to the Painted Porch Bookshop in Bastrop, Texas. We'll have dinner together. It's a bunch of awesome stuff and all that is only available. If you pre-order the book, it helps authors basically more than anything you can do to support a writer is pre-order that book. So if you pre-order it now at dailystoke.com slash wisdom,

it would mean a lot to me. I hope you're enjoying Epic Tea this month. We'll get right back at it. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Life is hard, it's overwhelming. It's hard and overwhelming when you're really busy, when you got a lot going on. And maybe that's something we do. I think we maybe are busy on purpose, so we don't have to deal with the things beneath the surface, with the things that are unpleasant, with the things that we're just kind of hoping would go away. I'm spending the summer trying to work a little bit less, trying to work on myself a little bit more, trying to have some conversations with my lovely wife, and think about how I want my life to be. And one of the places I'm working that out is not just in my writing,

not just on my long walks and runs, but in therapy, which I've been doing for many years. One of my, I think, secrets to success. If you don't have someone to talk to, I think you should reconsider. And that's where today's sponsor comes in. BetterHelp is the world's largest online therapy provider. And I think what therapy does is it empowers you

to be the best version of yourself. And I personally do all my therapy remote. Living where I live, it's hard to get into Austin to find a good person. I do it remotely and that's what BetterHelp does. BetterHelp is fully online. It makes therapy affordable and convenient. And that's why they've served

over 5 million people worldwide. You can easily switch therapists. They've got more than 30,000 credentialed therapists in a wide range of specialties. And as the largest online therapy provider in the world, BetterHelp can provide access to mental health professionals with a diverse variety of expertise, and our listeners get 10% off their first month

at betterhelp.com slash daily stoic pod. That's betterH-E-L-P.com slash daily stoic pod. Whether you're managing a business or a team, hiring the right people and getting them in quickly is the name of the game. When you're replacing someone or someone's leaving, you're letting someone go, finding who's going to slot into that spot.

You got to figure out how to do it as quickly as possible because it causes so much stress and other employees you don't want to drop balls. You just got to get your job listings out into the world seen by as many people as possible and then bring them in for an interview as quick as possible. And when it comes to hiring, Indeed is all you need. Stop struggling to get your job posts seen. Indeed's Sponsored Jobs helps you stand out and fire fast. With Sponsored Jobs, your post jumps to the top of the page for your relevant candidates and you can reach the people you want faster. And it makes a

huge difference. According to Indeed, data-spons sponsored jobs posted directly on Indeed have 45% more applications than non sponsored jobs. Plus, there is no monthly subscriptions, no long term contracts, and you only pay for results. In the minute I've been talking to you 23 hires were made on Indeed. According to Indeed data worldwide, you don't need to wait any longer speed Speed up your hiring right now with Indeed and listeners of this show will get a $75 sponsored job credit to get your jobs more visibility at indeed.com slash daily stoic. Just go to indeed.com slash daily stoic

right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. That's indeed.com slash daily stoic terms and conditions apply. Hiring Indeed is all you need. A little knowledge is dangerous. This is the July 14th entry in the daily stoic. Every great power is dangerous for the beginner, Epictetus says in Discourses 3.13. You must therefore wield them as you are able, but in harmony with nature. Great teachers are usually hardest on their most promising students. When teachers see potential, they want it to be fully realized.

But great teachers are also aware that natural ability and quick comprehension can be quite dangerous to the student if left alone. Early promise can lead to overconfidence and create bad habits. Those who pick things up quickly are notorious for skipping the basic lessons and ignoring the fundamentals. Don't get carried away. Take it slowly. Train with humility." In the Lies of the Stoics, I talk about Musonius Rufus quite a bit, Musonius Rufus being Epictetus' teacher. He was called the Roman Socrates for what a great writer and thinker he was,

but he was also a very difficult teacher, I take it, from the anecdotes we have from Epictetus. I'm just pulling up this little page. We're told, for instance, that when Musonius Rufus spoke, he expected rapt attention from his students if they were reacting or clapping or cheering for the audience. He's like, you're not getting it,

I'm not blowing your mind enough. He was just a strict teacher. And then we're told this story about Epictetus making a mistake and he tries to blow it off to Musonius. He says, hey, it's not like I burned down the Capitol. Musonius Rufus says, who says you didn't? The point being, I think Musonius realized, as Zeno said, that conceit is the impediment to knowledge.

Epictetus would say it's impossible to learn that, which you think you already know. I think what they were taking from Musonius is a kind of key intellectual humility that when you start to get arrogant, when you start to think you've graduated, that you've arrived, this is precisely when you cease to learn

and stop improving. When I sign ego as the enemy, I often sort of riffing on Epictetus, I say always stay a student. Because when we stay a student of philosophy, of a great master, it humbles us, keeps us quiet. Whenever I'm around Robert Greene, I get this same sense. Robert's very kind and patient

and would never sort of humiliate or rebuke, but he has a way of catching you if you're lazy or imprecise in your language or the assumptions that you're making. And it is a good experience because it keeps me in the right headspace. And I think that's important as you learn. Maybe you're familiar with the Dunning-Kruger effect. The problem with being stupid is that you're often not aware of just how stupid you are.

Maybe the converse of that is the problem with being smart is that smart people often are aware of how smart they are or they think they're smarter than they are and this is a problem. So, I don't know, I guess today's message is to leave you with a little intellectual humility. Don't think that you've arrived. Understand that knowledge is power and it's a power that has to be taken responsibly, has to be taken humbly, has to be part of a lifelong and ongoing pursuit. You do not arrive, you do not graduate, you never do. This is the famous story about

Mark Cerullus leaving the palace. So So a man asked him where he's going. He says, I'm off to see Sextus the philosopher to learn that which I do not yet know. Focus on that. Focus on what you do not yet know. It's like in the way that a gun, you always act like a gun is loaded. That keeps you safe and honest with it.

You never pointed at something that you don't intend to kill and or destroy. And the same thing goes with knowledge, right? Treat it as something that is always insufficient. It's always a little bit dangerous. Point it towards what you have yet to learn and focus on that. And it keeps you honest, keeps you safe, keeps you smart.

And that's today's message. Hey, it's message. It's an honor. Please spread the word, tell people about it, and this isn't to sell anything. I just wanted to say thank you.