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When the coliseum was built in 80 A.D. it was one of the most incredible architectural achievements in human history. 1,938 years later, time has taken its toll—its most recent major restoration was at a cost of nearly $30 million and took several years. When the famous Marcus Aurelius equestrian statue was first assembled out of bronze, […]

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What we see in the writings of the Stoics is that they strove to ensure that their ambition never corrupted their self-awareness. We rarely see ego and self-glorification in their pages, in fact, we usually find the opposite: meditations on how to improve, reminders that they were still human and flawed. This lack of ego was also […]

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The knock against Seneca, even in his own time, was that he was a hypocrite. For a Stoic, he was obscenely rich. For a philosopher, he was uncomfortably close to the center of power and guilty of all the compromises such a position entails. Seneca was aware of this contradiction too. He even wrote about it. “Why […]

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There is an intriguing line from Epictetus that seems almost Christian: “If you wish to be good, first believe that you are bad.” What does it mean? It’s not unlike the first step in recovery from addiction—we’ve got to admit and accept we have a problem. Only then will we have the humility and unflinching realism required […]

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Throughout his bestselling book, Principles, Ray Dalio, the founder of the largest hedge fund in the world, sounds very much like a Stoic without knowingly stating it. As he writes in one passage, he learned to see pain as a teacher—it almost became a game to him to figure out the hidden lessons in each painful […]

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It was the Athenian statesman, Pericles, who would say that there was no shame in poverty. Only in not doing something about it. The Stoics would probably agree, though they might word it differently. They’d say, there’s no shame in poverty, only in not doing something with it. Seneca famously said that poverty was good for at least one […]

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Whatever you’re going through, no matter how frustrating or horrible it may be, there is one thing you can be sure of: Someone else has it worse. You lost your job. Someone else recently lost their grandson. You’re feeling depressed. Someone else is feeling a lump in their breast. The market went south on you. […]

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Martha Nussbaum is one of the most renowned and respected philosophers living today. She is the current Ernst Freund Distinguished Service Professor of Law and Ethics at the University of Chicago, where she is jointly appointed in the Law School and the Philosophy department. She has a particular interest in ancient Greek and Roman philosophy, […]

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Many people like to start January 1 with New Year’s resolutions. Here’s something to consider: You didn’t just come up with the resolution on the morning of January 1st. You’ve known it for a while. You’ve been putting it off. You said, January 1st, that’s when I’ll finally do it. OK. Better late than never, but the ultimate resolution this year would be to do away with that kind of […]

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