Dylan Gurl

“With respect to Stoicism, Hadot has described four features that constitute the universal Stoic attitude. They are, first, the Stoic consciousness of "the fact that no being is alone, but that we make up part of a Whole, constituted by the totality of human beings as well as by the totality of the cosmos"; second, the Stoic "feels absolutely serene, free, and invulnerable to the extent that he has become aware that there is no other evil but moral evil and that the only thing that counts is the purity of moral consciousness"; third, the Stoic
"believes in the absolute value of the human person," a belief that is "at the origin of the modern notion of the 'rights of man'"; finally, the Stoic exercises his concentration "on the present instant, which consists, on the one hand, in living as if we were seeing the world for the first and for the last time, and, on the other hand, in being conscious that, in this lived presence of the instant, we have access to the totality of time and of the world." 17 Thus, for Hadot, cosmic consciousness, the purity of moral consciousness, the recognition of the equality and absolute value of human beings, and the concentration on the present instant represent the universal Stoic attitude.
The universal Epicurean attitude essentially consists, by way of "a certain discipline and reduction of desires, in returning from pleasures mixed with pain and suffering to the simple and pure pleasure of existing.”
― Pierre Hadot, Philosophy as a Way of Life: Spiritual Exercises from Socrates to Foucault

“> [The realization of philosophy’s importance] must be fixed more deeply through daily rehearsal. It is more work to follow through on honorable aims than it is to conceive of them. One must persevere and add strength by constant study, until excellent intentions become excellence of mind.
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― Lucius Annaeus Seneca, Seneca - Letters from a Stoic: The Complete Collection of 124 Letters, also known as Moral Letters to Lucilius. Translated by Richard M. Gummere

“When a person is sick, it makes no difference if you lay him on a wooden bed or a golden one: he’ll take the disease along where you carry him. Even so, it matters not at all whether one sick in mind is placed in wealth or poverty. The trouble is his own, and it follows him.”
― Lucius Annaeus Seneca

“The first is competence. Be brilliant in the basics. Don’t dabble in your job; you must master it.”
― Jim Mattis, Call Sign Chaos