The Stoics knew we should listen more than we talk. That we should be avid readers and consumers of wisdom. Maybe that’s why you’ve kicked off this year with a reading goal. I am going to read 50 books this year. I am going to read a book a week, a book a month, every book on this ‘Best Non-Fiction Books Of All Time’ list, one book by every author on that ‘Greatest Authors of All Time’ list.
The Stoics would admire this energy…but there’s a reason that Marcus Aurelius and Seneca both caution themselves about their desire to read as much as possible. Both of them nodded in agreement to Schopenhauer’s line, “Intellect is a magnitude of intensity, not a magnitude of extensity.” Seneca compared it to trying to heal a wound or form an intimate relationship—you wouldn’t keep switching ointments or constantly come and go. “And the same thing must hold true with people who never set about acquiring an intimate acquaintance with any one great writer, but skip from one to another, paying flying visits to them all,” he writes. “Nothing is so useful that it can be of any service in the mere passing.” So, he says, extend your stay among a select few writers—those whose genius has stood the test of time, whose works have proven to nourish and cultivate great minds.
This, of course, informed our idea for The Daily Stoic. While it itself is not a work of genius, it’s pretty remarkable that despite standing the test of more than two thousand years, the great quotes of the Stoics can only be found spread out over many different works. That was the whole point of *The Daily Stoic—*to finally put them in one place, to create a kind of survey course of the philosophy that a person can follow every year. It’s been pretty incredible to see the success it’s had since its release in 2016, having now sold well over a million copies and translated into dozens of languages. The book has spent more weeks on the bestseller list than any other book about Stoicism ever. In celebration of that—to help encourage another year of Stoicism, the ebook is $1.99 in the US (and on sale in the UK) right now if you haven’t picked one up yet!
Of course, the success of the book is a reflection of Seneca’s point: if you really want to get something out of your reading, “You must linger among a limited number of master-thinkers, and digest their works.” And it’s a testament to the power of Stoic teachings and the mastery of the Stoics.
There are other great one page a day books out there too: Tolstoy’s A Calendar of Wisdom, Robert Greene’s The Daily Laws, Allie Esirir’s A Poem for Every Day of the Year, to name a few. The idea is to find a way of thinking, a school of wisdom, a subject matter and dive deep into it. Read and reread and reread Marcus and Seneca and Epictetus. Linger in their company, and as their intellect infuses ours, we are forever changed.
Make that your goal this year. Don’t pick some large and arbitrary number of books to read. Don’t pay flying visits to every author on this or that list. Instead, think, intensity not extensity.
If you haven’t read The Daily Stoic: 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living, here at the beginning of 2022 is the perfect time to start by taking advantage of the discounted ebook! And if you have, if you are in year three or four or five with The Daily Stoic, it might be time for you to pick up a copy of our premium leather-bound edition. After hearing from countless readers who crack open their hardcopies every day, we decided to create a version with a level of quality not possible on mass produced books. To learn more about what makes this edition so special, head over to https://dailystoic.com/leather.
