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This time around we are focusing on Seneca, who along with Marcus Aurelius, and Epictetus, is one of the most important figures of Stoicism. Often accused of being an hypocrite due to his extreme riches and power, Seneca brings us a more humane side of Stoic philosophy. Seneca admits that he's flawed, at one point describing himself as: “a long way from being a tolerable, let alone a perfect human being”

For Seneca, the key to a happy life lies in attaining wisdom, but this cannot be attained by accident or gifted by fortune, it requires daily practice and hard work.

We will be dividing Seneca's quotes in two parts as there are just too many of them. There's a somewhat famous statement used to describe Seneca's work, it goes as follows:

“I cannot bear Seneca... His works are made up of mottoes. There is hardly a sentence which might not be quoted: but to read him straightforward is like dining on nothing but anchovy sauce”

So in order to make the reading easier for you, here is the first part of my compilation of Seneca's quotes:

“What progress, you ask, have I made? I have begun to be a friend to myself.”

“Withdraw into yourself, as far as you can. Associate with those who will make a better man of you. Welcome those whom you yourself can improve. The process is mutual; for men learn while they teach.”

“What good does it do you to go overseas, to move from city to city? If you really want to escape the things that harass you, what you’re needing is not to be in a different place but to be a different person.”

“There are more things, Lucilius, likely to frighten us than there are to crush us; we suffer more often in imagination than in reality.”

“The fact that a person is living for nobody does not automatically mean that he is living for himself”

“You want to live but do you know how to live? You are scared of dying and tell me, is the kind of life you lead really any different from being dead?”

“It is a great man that can treat his earthenware as if it was silver, and a man who treats his silver as if it was earthenware is no less great.”

“Each day acquire something that will fortify you against poverty, against death, indeed against other misfortunes as well; and after you have run over many thoughts, select one to be thoroughly digested that day.”

“As it is with a play, so it is with life – what matters is not how long the acting lasts, but how good it is.”

“‘He’s a slave!’ But is that really to count against him? Show me a man who isn’t a slave! One is a slave to sex, another to money, another to ambition; all are slaves to hope or fear.”

“For many men, the acquisition of wealth does not end their troubles, it only changes them”

“But when you are looking on anyone as a friend when you do not trust him as you trust yourself, you are making a grave mistake, and have failed to grasp sufficiently the full force of true friendship.”

“Happy the man who improves other people not merely when he is in their presence but even when he is in their thoughts!”

“Nothing, to my way of thinking, is a better proof of a well ordered mind than a man's ability to stop just where he is and pass some time in his own company”

“The outcome of violent anger is a mental raving, and therefore anger is to be avoided not for the sake of moderation but for the sake of sanity.”

If you missed any of the previous releases you can find them here. As usual you can donate to charity by retweeting this.

See below for some extra quotes by Zeno of Citium the founder of Stoic philosophy:

This week on our Reading club we focused on a short story called 'The Egg' written by Andy Weir.

You might be familiar with Andy Weir already, after all he's the author of 'The Martian', the best selling book that got turned into a movie starring Matt Damon. In it, an astronaut by the name Mark Watney gets trapped in Mars after his operation has to abort its mission due to weather conditions. Mark has to battle the extreme conditions of Mars in order to survive until the rescue team comes back for him. It is a pretty good book, or movie whichever you prefer, filled with funny moments and striving for scientific accuracy.

But we should be focusing on 'The Egg' on this post so let's get right back into it. The short story features an unnamed man who has just died in a crash accident, he finds himself face to face with God, and starts this amusing conversation with him, filled with questions, including the most important of all... okay, I won't spoil it, you will have to read it if you want to find out.

The Egg presents some really interesting ideas, from challenging our perception of time, our view of religions, and how we are related to one another. All this while trying to keep a funny vibe, well you could call it dark humour but it's humour after all.

If this piqued your interest you can find the story in Andy Weir's blog which is linked here. It is available in multiple languages in case you want to share with someone else.

If you're wondering why the 'Weekly Readings' are not really published weekly and want some ideas to run your own reading club, the next section is for you.

Danger can arise when investors come to assume that any trend or state is no longer cyclical but has rather become SECULAR or even permanent. It is then most likely to reverse through REGRESSION TO THE MEAN. As the financial writer James Grant has observed, “In markets all things are cyclical, even the idea that markets are not cyclical.”

The Devil's Financial Dictionary was recommended to me by a friend, with whom I share some interest on financial topics, whether following the stock market or cryptocurrencies. Written by Jason Zweig, an investing columnist for the Wall Street Journal and editor of “The Intelligent Investor” (also known as Warren Buffet's favorite book about investing), the book presents a satirical take on many concepts used on Wall Street.

The book is short enough and really funny at times, being Jason's take on the classic book The Devil's Dictionary. Filled with simple descriptions of complicated concepts, as well as their historical origin, anyone who has been following the crypto market over the past years will find something of interest here. As an added bonus, the book can be read in any order and in short amounts without substracting from its enjoyment, it is a dictionary after all.

That being said, the book assummes you have some knowledge about how the Stock Markets operate; someone without the right familiarity with the concepts at hand might find this book a bit confusing or plain boring.

Overall the book is a fun and useful read, not only will you walk away the wiser about financial matters but you will have a good laugh, most likely at the expense of yourself.

As it has been the trend, you can donate to charity by retweeting this review. You can find some of my favorite definitions from the book below:

You can find part one here in case you missed it. If you enjoy this post feel free to retweet this and help donate to charity

For this part we will be focusing on quotes by Epictetus, who, along with Marcus Aurelius and Seneca, is one of the three most important Stoic philosophers. Epictetus was born a slave and acquired his freedom soon after the death of emperor Nero. He started teaching philosophy at Rome until his banishment upon which he founded a philosophy school in Greece.

While Epictetus never wrote anything down, it is through one of his students that we have access to his lessons. Epictetus believed that philosophy is a way of living instead of just theoretical knowledge, so keep that in mind while you reflect on the following quotes:

“It's not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters.”

“The key is to keep company only with people who uplift you, whose presence calls forth your best.”

“No thing great is created suddenly, any more than a bunch of grapes or a fig. If you tell me that you desire a fig, I answer you that there must be time. Let it first blossom, then bear fruit, then ripen.”

“We must not believe the many, who say that only free people ought to be educated, but we should rather believe the philosophers who say that only the educated are free.”

“Man is not worried by real problems so much as by his imagined anxieties about real problems”

“Freedom is secured not by the fulfilling of men's desires, but by the removal of desire.”

“Don't just say you have read books. Show that through them you have learned to think better, to be a more discriminating and reflective person. Books are the training weights of the mind. They are very helpful, but it would be a bad mistake to suppose that one has made progress simply by having internalized their contents.”

“Your happiness depends on three things, all of which are within your power: your will, your ideas concerning the events in which you are involved, and the use you make of your ideas.”

“You become what you give your attention to.

“If anyone tells you that a certain person speaks ill of you, do not make excuses about what is said of you but answer, “He was ignorant of my other faults, else he would not have mentioned these alone.”

“Circumstances don't make the man, they only reveal him to himself.”

“It isn’t the events themselves that disturb people, but only their judgements about them.”

“It is impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows.”

“You are not your body and hair-style, but your capacity for choosing well. If your choices are beautiful, so too will you be.”

“Most of what passes for legitimate entertainment is inferior or foolish and only caters to or exploits people's weaknesses. Avoid being one of the mob who indulges in such pastimes. Your life is too short and you have important things to do. Be discriminating about what images and ideas you permit into your mind. If you yourself don't choose what thoughts and images you expose yourself to, someone else will, and their motives may not be the highest. It is the easiest thing in the world to slide imperceptibly into vulgarity.”

“You will do the greatest services to the state, if you shall raise not the roofs of the houses, but the souls of the citizens: for it is better that great souls should dwell in small houses than for mean slaves to lurk in great houses.”

“If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid.”

“Remember, it is not enough to be hit or insulted to be harmed, you must believe that you are being harmed. If someone succeeds in provoking you, realize that your mind is complicit in the provocation. Which is why it is essential that we not respond impulsively to impressions; take a moment before reacting, and you will find it easier to maintain control”

If you enjoyed these quotes I recommend you to check the following works by Epictetus: Enchiridion and Discourses, although if this is your first time delving into stoic works I believe you should try reading Marcus Aurelius or Seneca first.

See below for a Stoic practice to prepare you for though times:

I dedicate this to all those who did not live to tell it. And may they please forgive me for not having seen it all nor remembered it all, for not having divined all of it

Such opens the Gulag Archipelago by Alexander Solzhenitsyn, often ranked as one of the most influential books of our time. On its abridged version the work is reduced from its original three volumes into a single book, a modification welcomed by the author to make this book more accessible for people who do not have the time to sit through the whole work. Even with this changes it is still a monumental work, but one that is really worth it.

Solzhenitsyn narrates all the horrors from the Soviet Gulags, from the moment one was arrested, taken into interrogation, tortured into confession, declared guilty (If you were arrested it followed that you were guilty, there was no other way around), and transported into one of the forced labor camps.

The Universe has as many different centers as there are living beings in it. Each of us is the center of the Universe, and that Universe is shattered when they hiss at you: “You are under arrest.”

And in spite of all the horrors he saw, Solzhenitsyn still believes that we aren't all that different from the people that committed these atrocities, that we cannot easily separate the good from the bad, that it all may be just a matter of circumstances:

If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?

You would think that the above would make for a really grim book, and yet The Gulag Archipelago is surprisingly easy to read. Its weird mix between journalism, history book, and personal anecdotes merges together spectacularly well due to Solzhenitsyn's style.

Sure, at times the book feels a bit too long and repetitive, even for an abridged version, but this can easily be forgiven when you consider the situation in which Solzhenitsyn had to work: in hiding, never having a complete manuscript of the book at hand, fearing arrest at any moment.

This has easily being one of my favorite books this year and one that is highly recommended. In case you're looking for a similar book, you could try Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl, another classic, relating Frankl's experiences on the Nazi's concentration camps and the lessons he was able to extract from them.

See below for some of my favorite quotes from this book. Fair warning this might get lengthy.

We all need some help at some point in our lives, whether to motivate us to accomplish a task at hand, to do the right thing or to overcome some adversity. During these times, we can look out to philosophy as a friend that is there whenever you need it, a friend that calls for you to be better. As Seneca would say, philosophy offers counsel.

For our first post we will focus on Marcus Aurelius, the last of the rulers known as the Five Good Emperors and the writer of Meditations. As an emperor, Marcus Aurelius faced a lot of difficult decisions, that's why he wrote his meditations, to remind himself how he should act, to strengthen his will and to help him live as virtue demanded of him. So today, consider the following quotes from Marcus Aurelius to help you as you struggle with any problem that may be at hand:

“You have power over your mind – not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.”

“So remember this principle when something threatens to cause you pain: the thing itself was no misfortune at all; to endure it and prevail is great good fortune.”

“If someone is able to show me that what I think or do is not right, I will happily change, for I seek the truth, by which no one was ever truly harmed. It is the person who continues in his self-deception and ignorance who is harmed.”

“Never esteem anything as of advantage to you that will make you break your word or lose your self-respect.”

“Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one.”

“Just that you do the right thing. The rest doesn't matter. Cold or warm. Tired or well-rested. Despised or honored. Dying...or busy with other assignments. Because dying, too, is one of our assignments in life. There as well: To do what needs doing.”

“When people injure you, ask yourself what good or harm they thought would come of it. If you understand that, you'll feel sympathy rather than outrage or anger. Your sense of good and evil may be the same as theirs, or near it, in which case you have to excuse them. Or your sense of good and evil may differ from theirs. In which case they're misguided and deserve your compassion. Is that so hard?”

“It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live.”

“Whenever you are about to find fault with someone, ask yourself the following question: What fault of mine most nearly resembles the one I am about to criticize?”

“If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.”

“Men seek retreats for themselves – in the country, by the sea, in the hills – and you yourself are particularly prone to this yearning. But all this is quite unphilosophic, when it is open to you, at any time you want, to retreat into yourself. No retreat offers someone more quiet and relaxation than that into his own mind, especially if he can dip into thoughts there which put him at immediate and complete ease: and by ease I simply mean a well-ordered life. So constantly give yourself this retreat, and renew yourself”

“The best revenge is to be unlike him who performed the injury.”

“I have often wondered how it is that every man loves himself more than all the rest of men, but yet sets less value on his own opinion of himself than on the opinion of others.”

“When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: the people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous and surly. They are like this because they can't tell good from evil. But I have seen the beauty of good, and the ugliness of evil, and have recognized that the wrongdoer has a nature related to my own – not of the same blood and birth, but the same mind, and possessing a share of the divine. And so none of them can hurt me. No one can implicate me in ugliness. Nor can I feel angry at my relative, or hate him. We were born to work together like feet, hands and eyes, like the two rows of teeth, upper and lower. To obstruct each other is unnatural. To feel anger at someone, to turn your back on him: these are unnatural.”

This is just a small sample of what is found on Meditations, which you can download for free here. I am sure that there are plenty of passages that will resonate with you if you read it. If you enjoyed this post feel free to retweet this and help donate to charity.

See below for further recommendations on Stoic philosophy

The last couples of days have been pretty hectic, between work, traveling, family celebrations and some other projects that are still shaping up, there's been little time for reading. Funnily enough, one of the reasons I haven't had time to read is due to a weekly reading club I attend. Our club focus on short stories and this week it was up to me to decide the featured short stories.

After some consideration I decided to share two short stories by Kurt Vonnegut, Harrison Bergeron and Look at the Birdie, which I will be linking below.

Vonnegut (1922-2008) was an American author known by his satirical writing style coupled with black humor, as well as his lectures on writing. If you are interested in writing you might be familiar with his theory on the shape of stories, if not you might like to give it a check. His experiences during world war II hugely influenced his views and the themes of his stories.

Now, onto the stories. Both are fairly short reads, spanning around 5 pages longs, touching upon deep topics while maintaining their humorous style.

Harrison Bergeron is set on a dystopian future where everyone is equal to one another, this is achieved by enforcing disabilities on people with above average capabilities, a clear warning of what can happen if we mistake equality of opportunity with equality of outcome.

Look at the Birdie is one of the short stories included in the book with the same name. It follows a short conversation in a bar between two unnamed men, one of whom claims to be a therapist who has invented a novel way of murdering people.

Both short stories are really interesting and provide plenty of food for thought. If you are looking for a book rather than short stories you should look up Cat's Cradle, Slaughterhouse Five or The Sirens of Titan all three of them are pretty good reads. If you would like to try a different author/genre you can check more recommendations here, else feel free to visit my other posts for some book reviews.

You can find some of my favorite quotes by Kurt Vonnegut below:

“When you handle books all day long, every new one is a friend and a temptation.”
- Elizabeth Kostova, The Historian

Whether you're a casual reader or an avid fan of books, sometimes it is pretty difficult to decide on what to read next, especially when none of your friends share your reading taste. I'm usually urging people to try on new books and start their reading habit, I currently have around 10 books loaned out to friends and acquaintances, and while I know that I won't be seeing most of them back, I think it is a small price to pay if someone finds their new favorite book thanks to me.

Following that trend I have started writing book reviews for every new book I read here on Coil, but what about those books that I love that I read a long time ago? Well, I think it is fair to give them some credit too. So without further ado, here are a few of my favorite books, in no particular order, from the past years:

The Last Wish by Andrzej Sapkowski: A collection of short stories that introduce us to the world of The Witcher. The narrative follows the adventures of Geralt of Rivia. Highly recommended for fans of the Fantasy genre.

The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky: One of the bests novels ever written, Dostoevsky delves into Faith, Morality, Reason… As Kurt Vonnegut would put it:

“There is one other book, that can teach you everything you need to know about life... it's The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky, but that's not enough anymore.”

Fair warning, this is not an easy book and will require some time to go through, but it is really worth it. I recommend going with the Pevear Volokhonsky translation.

Let The Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist: A vampire book done right. This book is dark, filled with horror and dread, coupled with a complex story. The writing is beautiful and really disturbing at the same time.

What if? by Randall Munroe: Former NASA employee and xkcd comic creator Randall Munroe decided to answer a lot of absurd questions, such as:

What would happen of everyone on Earth stood as close to each other as they could and jumped, everyone landing on the ground at the same time?

using 'serious' science. The result is this book. The writing is simple, witty and accompanied by funny drawings. This book is perfect for reading in small amounts as each question should take you around 5 minutes to read through.

Meditations by Marcus Aurelius: The personal notes of emperor Marcus Aurelius and one of the greatest works of philosophy. Aurelius teaches us how to live as best we can and confront the daily struggles that come in our way.

If you have read my previous reviews you may have noticed that I'm a fan of Stoicism, this book is the one that introduced me into it. You can download a copy from here.

Hopefully you will find at least one of these recommendations to your taste. In case you were wondering about the book I took that opening quote from, you can find my thoughts about it below:

If someone were to ascend into the heavens and gaze at the nature of the universe and the beauty of the stars, that very wonder would be bitter for him, which would be the most delightful of all if he had someone to tell. Nature loves nothing that is solitary, but always inclines toward some sort of support. And the sweetest support is a very dear friend.

How to Be a Friend: An Ancient Guide to True Friendship by Cicero is a pretty short read, but that isn't to say it is lacking in meaningful content. This small essay on the nature of true friendships was extremely influential during medieval times, and after reading the book myself, it is easy to understand why. This work is specially relevant in an age where deep lasting friendships are being replaced with more superficial connections.

How to Be a Friend serves as a guideline on how to choose the right friends, what we should be looking out for, how we should behave with friends during good and bad times. The book is filled with practical tips on the subject, highlighting the importance of virtue in order to develop true friendships.

This particular edition includes the original text in Latin side by side with the translation, which seems like a pretty nice detail, even for readers, like me, who don't know Latin.

Overall the book is a pretty easy read about an important topic, although the first few pages can be a bit confusing due to the high number of names being tossed around.

I believe that this is a book that will come in handy for most people and will surely warrant a re-read from my part in the years to come.

You can find my favorite quotes for this book below: