BookStoic

Enchiridion

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Some things are within our power, while others are not. Within our power are opinion, motivation, desire, aversion, and, in a word, whatever is of our own doing; not within our power are our body, our property, reputation, office, and, in a word, whatever is not of our own doing.

Epictetus, Enchiridion, 1, after Elizabeth Carter

What it is

Epictetus was a freed slave who taught philosophy at Nicopolis in Greece around the year 100. He wrote nothing. His student Arrian took down the lectures, publishing them as the Discourses, and then boiled them down into this handbook. It is fifty three numbered paragraphs, most of them a few sentences long, and the first one contains the rest.

Where to begin

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The first hour

Read the Enchiridion. It is fifty three paragraphs and takes an hour. Everything else on this shelf assumes its first sentence, so read that first sentence until you can say it without looking.

The first week

Then read the Letters to Lucilius, one a day, in order, for a week. Seneca is the easiest of the three to read because he is the only one who was writing to be read. If Letter 1 does not hold you, stop and try On the Shortness of Life, which is the same argument compressed.

Meditations

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Begin the morning by saying to thyself, I shall meet with the busy-body, the ungrateful, arrogant, deceitful, envious, unsocial. All these things happen to them by reason of their ignorance of what is good and evil.

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, II.1, trans. George Long

What it is

Twelve books of notes that Marcus Aurelius wrote to himself during the last decade of his life, much of it on campaign on the Danube. There is no argument, no structure and no audience. He repeats himself because he is not writing a book; he is reminding himself of what he already believes on days when it is hard to believe it.

Letters to Lucilius

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Continue to act thus, my dear Lucilius: set yourself free for your own sake; gather and save your time, which till lately has been forced from you, or filched away, or has merely slipped from your hands.

Seneca, Letters, 1, trans. Richard Mott Gummere

What it is

Seneca was the richest man in Rome and Nero’s tutor. In his last years he wrote to Lucilius, a procurator in Sicily, a series of letters on how to live: one subject per letter, drawn from whatever happened that week. The letters are literary rather than private, and were meant to be published, but they keep the tone of a friend talking.

On the Shortness of Life

Sat, 05 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0100

It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it. Life is long enough, and a sufficiently generous amount has been given to us for the highest achievements if it were all well invested.

Seneca, On the Shortness of Life, 1, after Aubrey Stewart

What it is

One of Seneca’s ten moral essays and the most read. The claim is in the first paragraph: life is not short, it is squandered. The rest of the essay is a catalogue of the ways, from ambition to leisure that is not really leisure, and a closing invitation to spend time with the philosophers of the past instead.

Discourses

Sat, 05 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0100

What, then, is to be done? To make the best of what is in our power, and take the rest as it naturally happens.

Epictetus, Discourses, I.1, after Elizabeth Carter

What it is

The classroom of Epictetus as one student heard it. Where the Enchiridion gives the conclusions, the Discourses give the arguments, the examples, the interruptions and the jokes. They are the closest thing we have to hearing a Stoic teach.

About this site

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BookStoic is a reading guide to the Stoic library. It gives one page to each book: the ancient core (Epictetus, Seneca, Marcus Aurelius and the fragments of the early Stoa), the writers around them, and the modern books that carry the name. Each page says what the book is, where to open it, which English edition to pick, and quotes one passage worth keeping.

How pages grow

Every book begins as a short entry with the essentials and a passage. Entries are expanded into full guides as the reading proceeds. The tracker shows which pages are done.

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