Ideas from Letters from a Stoic

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Sample Ideas

Certain physical and temperamental weaknesses (like blushing, trembling, stammering) that arise from inborn natural causes cannot be eliminated even by the highest wisdom or philosophical training; they can be mitigated but not overcome and remain outside philosophy’s power.
The true possession of a friend is spiritual, not spatial: since the spirit is never absent and imagination has no barriers, one can share studies, meals, and walks with a friend in thought and thus overcome physical distance.
One should ‘rehearse death’—continually familiarizing oneself with it—even though it happens only once, because we must most often practise precisely those things we cannot repeatedly test in reality.
One must distrust and avoid what the mob approves and what fortune unexpectedly gives, because such apparent gifts are actually snares that enslave and endanger us, leading toward ruin like bait that traps animals and ships driven by prosperity onto rocks.
An ideal literary/philosophical style is lucid, pure, and consistently even, marked by nobility and sublimity yet relieved by occasional light, entertaining touches at appropriate moments.
Dwelling on past sufferings or dramatizing them after they are over only renews unhappiness and often involves self-deception; instead one should take pleasure in having endured and eradicate both backward- and forward-looking anxieties about troubles.
Although the wise man is fully self-content in respect of happiness, he still both needs and wants friends—indeed, as many as possible—but not as conditions of happiness; the supreme ideal must be wholly self-developed and independent of external aids, otherwise it becomes vulnerable to fortune.
Sextius advocates vegetarianism on ethical and practical grounds: humans can sustain themselves without bloodshed; turning slaughter into a pleasure breeds cruelty; reducing dietary variety curbs extravagance and better suits our physical constitution and health.
Focusing on bodily pleasures and discomforts makes physical suffering unbearable, whereas the noble person cultivates contentment of the spirit, limits concern for the complaining body, and gives most attention to the divine element within.
One can and should find genuine friends among one’s slaves; to do so requires looking past clothing and social position, which are like external gear on a horse, and evaluating the person himself.