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Books

How To Be A Stoic by Massimo Pigliucci

Don Berry finds modern-day applications for life advice from antiquity.

Written in a lively and engaging style, How to be a Stoic (2018) focuses on Stoic ethics and its application to life in the modern world.

Stoicism began as an innovative school of Classical Greek and Roman philosophy, offering an unconventional and revisionary take on the received ideas of the culture of its time, many of which are still prevalent today. One core imperative of Stoic ethical theory is to make a clear distinction between those things which are under our control and ‘up to us’, and those which are not. In an increasingly complex and confusing world, where much time is spent worrying about matters we can do very little about, the Stoic notion that we should only concern ourselves with what we have the power to change offers a possible antidote to the endemic anxiety of modern times.

Perhaps the most important principle of Stoic ethics is the claim that only the quality of our character and its expression through our actions is truly of value to us.

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