The Daily Stoic

“power doesn’t corrupt, it reveals.”

We’re not trying to ace tests or impress teachers. We are reading and studying to live, to be good human beings—always and forever.

Everyone had a job—a specific duty. Even people who did bad things—they were doing their job of being evil because evil is a part of life.

He was much more interested in hearing what the other person had to say than making sure he was heard or—as most of us insist upon—winning the argument.

You can do this if you approach each task as if it is your last, giving up every distraction, emotional subversion of reason, and all drama, vanity, and complaint over your fair share.

Without a ruler to do it against, you can’t make crooked straight.

Take a good hard look at people’s ruling principle, especially of the wise, what they run away from and what they seek out.

Our judgment affects what we desire, our desires affect how we act, just as our judgment determines how we act. But we can’t just expect this to happen. We must put real thought and energy into each area of our lives. If we do, we’ll find real clarity and success.

there is our judgment. Our ability to see things clearly and properly comes when we use our great gift from nature: reason.

we must examine our impulses to act—that is, our motivations. Are we doing things for the right reasons? Or do we act because we haven’t stopped to think? Or do we believe that we have to do something?