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.
2272 episodes transcribedOne of the undeniable realities of the history of religion is persecution. The Christians have been persecuted. So have the Jews, the Muslims...
The Stoics believed that stressful and dangerous situations unfold like this: Something happens—we wake up to reports that the stock market h...
Perhaps you remember reading The Odyssey in high school or college (or possibly you picked up Emily Wilson’s fabulous new translation). Even...
Seneca was exiled once in AD 41 and then again from Nero’s service at the end of his career. Epictetus was exiled in Nicopolis, Greece by the...
If you look at any of the great Stoics, you’ll notice that philosophy was just one of their many diverse interests. Seneca was a philosopher...
One gets the sense that Seneca, like many smart and active people, was often frustrated by other people. It is inevitable that someone like h...
When did Jesus deliver his famous Sermon on the Mount? We don’t know. But we know that Seneca and Jesus were born at roughly the same time an...
There is a tradition in Stoicism that few notice, but is possibly one of the most inspiring and chilling parts of the entire philosophy. Ther...
In his essay Of Clemency, Seneca tells a story of a time Augustus, the first emperor of the Roman Empire, had his temper severely tested. Aug...
When you listen to people talk about choices they regret, whether it was working for the guy who put on Fyre Fest or joining a gang or a cult...
There’s an old joke: When the Gods wish to punish us, they give us everything we’ve ever wanted. Look at most people who win the lottery. Loo...
Very few people, if they’re being honest, would want their kids to grow up to be like Donald Trump. And that includes the folks who had perfe...
The great Athenian statesman Pericles once explained to his people that being a great naval power was not some hobby. It was the key to their...
The Nobel Prize-winning author John Steinbeck thought the tug between good and evil was a necessary contradiction of human nature. There is n...
Fabius was one of Ancient Rome’s great generals, though he was not the bold, reckless type that usually gets all the attention in history boo...
It is certainly true that people can do some awful things to each other. We hear of a trusted representative who is stealing from their clien...
Getting angry is not a good look. We know this because we see how ugly other people look when they get mad. How childish they seem. How pathe...
A few weeks ago, a horse at The Preakness threw its jockey right out of the gate and kept running. Like really kept running. It ran the whole...
Traveling—that itch to get away, to hit the road, to see the world—feels like a distinctly modern craze. Yet it was common in Ancient Rome fo...
Evan Thomas, in his incisive and humanizing biography of Richard Nixon, asks a penetrating question: How many great men of history were truly...
