Three names you’ll meet
Epictetus (c. 50–135 CE) was a former enslaved person who taught in Nicopolis. His student Arrian preserved the Discourses and the shorter handbook, the Enchiridion.
Marcus Aurelius (121–180 CE), Roman emperor, wrote private notes later called the Meditations — reminders to himself about judgement, duty, and composure.
Seneca (c. 4 BCE–65 CE), statesman and tutor, wrote moral essays and the Letters to Lucilius (Epistulae Morales) on time, fear, anger, and practice.
The dichotomy of control
Epictetus opens the Enchiridion by dividing things into those in our power and those not. In our power: judgement, impulse, desire, aversion — our own acts of mind. Not in our power: body, property, reputation, office — and, broadly, externals.
The practical claim is sharp: peace is disturbed less by events than by the judgements we add to them. Training means noticing an impression, pausing before assent, and returning effort to what is actually yours to steer.
Of things some are in our power, and others are not. In our power are opinion, movement toward a thing, desire, aversion; and in a word, whatever are our own acts.
Virtue as the aim
Stoics held that a good life is a life of virtue — excellence of character — not a life stuffed with preferred externals. Wealth, health, and reputation may be “preferred indifferents”: often useful, never the definition of the good.
Marcus repeatedly turns himself back from argument about goodness toward being good in action — a theme of the Meditations (for example the widely cited line urging that one stop debating what a good person is and simply be one; see George Long’s public-domain translation).
Evening review
Seneca describes a habit of examining the day: reviewing what was said and done, where impulse ran ahead of reason, and how to improve tomorrow — without theatrical self-hatred. The point is honest accounting, then rest.
That habit fits a quiet evening reflection: not a courtroom, a notebook. Stoic Days uses a short end-of-day review in that spirit — information for tomorrow’s practice.
Judgement, not the blow
A recurring Stoic teaching: harm to character comes less from what happens than from the opinion that something is intolerable or insulting. Epictetus presses this in the Enchiridion: it is not the reviler who insults you, but your judgement that the words are an insult — and that judgement can be examined.
Marcus makes a related point in the Meditations: if you are pained by an external, it is often your judgement about it that pains you — and that judgement can be wiped away.
What Stoicism is not
- Not emotional erasure. Stoics trained towards appropriate feeling and clear judgement — not cartoon “feel nothing.”
- Not a medical treatment. Philosophy can support practice; it does not replace clinicians, detox, or emergency care.
- Not hustle slogans. Classical texts are about character and clear judgement — not catchphrases invented on the internet.
How Stoic Days uses this
The app borrows three practical habits:
- Today as the unit — attend to the day under your feet (aligned with Stoic focus on present action).
- Pause before assent — ninety seconds when an urge arrives, echoing the training to examine impressions.
- Evening review — a brief, non-punitive reflection.
Lines in the app are either public-domain translations, careful paraphrases, or clearly marked original practice lines — never invented ancient quotations.
Primary references: Epictetus, Enchiridion & Discourses (Arrian); Marcus Aurelius, Meditations; Seneca, Letters to Lucilius and moral essays. Quotations and paraphrases on this page follow widely available public-domain translations (Elizabeth Carter for Epictetus; George Long for Marcus).