971. If you can't do politics, do philosophy

We ought first to examine our own selves, next the business which we propose to transact, next those for whose sake or in whose company we transact it. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/support

We ought therefore, to expand or contract ourselves according as the state of things presents itself to us, or as Fortune offers us opportunities. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/support

The services of a good citizen are never thrown away: he does good by being heard and seen, by his expression, his gestures, his silent determination, and his very walk. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/support

Often a man who is very old in years has nothing beyond his age by which he can prove that he has lived a long time. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/support

Seneca explains that there are many ways to help improve the human cosmopolis: one can be a candidate for public office, a defense lawyer, or a teacher. Zeno, Cleanthes, and Chrysippus encouraged involvement in politics, but where themselves teachers. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/support

How long are we to go on doing the same thing? --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/support

Hence men undertake aimless wanderings and travel along distant shores, trying to soothe that fickleness of disposition which always is dissatisfied with the present. As Lucretius says: “Thus every mortal from himself does flee.” --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/support

What you desire, to be undisturbed, is a great thing, nay, the greatest thing of all, and one which raises a man almost to the level of a god. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/support

I will obey the maxims of our school and plunge into public life, not because the purple robe attracts me, but in order that I may be able to be of use to my friends, my relatives, to all my countrymen, and indeed to all mankind. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/support

Seneca explains that he prefers simple cloths and easily prepared food, not the kind that "goes out of the body by the same path by which it came in." --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/support