The Daily Stoic - This Cannot Be Taken (Only Given)
Episode Date: June 18, 2025Powerful people can take from you. Yet the Stoics remind us: our character is our own.📖 Preorder the final book in Ryan Holiday's The Stoic Virtues Series: "Wisdom Takes Work": https://sto...re.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.
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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 DailyStoic.com. This cannot be taken, only given. The Greatest Dictator
This cannot be taken, only given.
Nero could take their freedom, he could confiscate their wealth, he could remove them from their
positions.
He was, after all, a tyrant, and in many cases he did take those things.
Just ask Seneca, ask Thrasya, ask Agrippinus, all Stoics whom we profile in Lives of the
Stoics.
But there was something else that not even the most powerful dictator can deprive someone
of without their consent, their dignity, their self-respect, their values.
It was this that Agrippinus maintained despite the culture of fear around him, refusing even
to attend Nero's banquets.
Thrasya declined to take part in the farce that was so many of Nero's edicts and
policies. He declined to participate in the fiction and the unreality that Nero's enablers
chose to co-sign. Seneca, unfortunately, did give up so much of his dignity and respectability in
order to maintain his position with Nero, as did countless other Romans. Nero didn't take this from Seneca, it was given.
As Sophocles said,
"'Whoever makes his journey to a tyrant's court becomes his slave,
although he went there a free man.'"
The same holds true in our times.
Powerful people can take from you,
they can push you around, they can do great harm to you.
But still the Stoics would say that our character remains
ours to preserve or debase.
Our dignity depends on what we do and has nothing to do with external circumstances.
We must never give it up. If you like The Daily Stoic and thanks for listening, you can listen early and ad free
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