Stoicism is a noble philosophy that has proven to be more practicable than a modem cynic would expect. The Stoic viewpoint is often misunderstood because the casual reader misses the point-that all talk is in reference to the "inner life." Stoics belittle physical harm, but this is not braggadocio. They are speaking of it in comparison to the devastating agony of shame they fancied good men generating when they knew in their hearts that they had failed to do their duty vis-Q-vis their fellow men or God. Though pagan, the Stoics had a monotheistic natural religion and were great contributors to Christian thought. The fatherhood of god and the brotherhood of man were Stoic concepts prior to Christianity. In fact, Chrysippus, one of their early theoreticians, made the analogy of what might be called the soul of the universe to the breath of a human (pneuma, in Greek). Saint Paul, a Hellenized Jew brought up in Tarsus, a Stoic town in Asia Minor, always used the Greek work pneuma, or breath, for soul.

5 Core Principles of Stoicism:

1. Focus on what you can control.
2. You control how you respond to things.
3. Ask yourself, “Is this essential?”
4. Meditate on your mortality every day.
5. Value time more than money/possessions.

"The Stoics say, " Retire within yourselves; it is there you will find your rest." And that is not true. Others say, "Go out of yourselves; seek happiness in amusement." And this is not true. Illness comes. Happiness is neither without us nor within us. It is in God, both without us and within us."

Undisturbed calmness of mind is attained by cultivating friendliness toward the happy, compassion for the unhappy, delight in the virtuous, and indifference toward the wicked.

Stoicism doesn’t mean repressing emotion and shunning pleasure, I learned, but, in essence, focusing on what is within our power and letting go of everything we can’t control.

My mind has been a tumult of opposing systems, — Stoicism, Quietism, Buddhism, Christianity. Shall I never be at peace with myself? If impersonality is a good, why am I not consistent in the pursuit of it? and if it is a temptation, why return to it, after having judged and conquered it? Is happiness anything more than a conventional fiction? The deepest reason for my state of doubt is that the supreme end and aim of life seems to me a mere lure and deception. The individual is an eternal dupe, who never obtains what he seeks, and who is forever deceived by hope. My instinct is in harmony with the pessimism of Buddha and of Schopenhauer. It is a doubt which never leaves me, even in my moments of religious fervor. Nature is indeed for me a Mala; and I look at her, as it were, with the eyes of an artist. My intelligence remains skeptical. What, then, do I believe in? I do not know. And what is it I hope for? It would be difficult to say. Folly! I believe in goodness, and I hope that good will prevail. Deep within this ironical and disappointed being of mine there is a child hidden — a frank, sad, simple creature, who believes in the ideal, in love, in holiness, and all heavenly superstitions. A whole millennium of idyls sleeps in my heart; I am a pseudo-skeptic, a pseudo-scoffer.

Show me someone who is ill and yet happy, in danger and yet happy, dying and yet happy, exiled and yet happy. Show me such a person; by the gods, how greatly I long to see a Stoic!

A Stoic is a Buddhist with attitude, one who says “f*** you” to fate.

Stoicism is not about being emotionless; it is about being in control of your emotions, not letting them control your decisions.

Show me one who is sick and yet happy, in peril and yet happy, dying and yet happy, in exile and happy, in disgrace and happy. Show him me. By the gods I would fain see a Stoic. Nay you cannot show me a finished Stoic; then show me one in the moulding, one who has set his feet on the path

Momentary pleasure and true happiness are two very different experiences. As scientist and spiritual leader James Talmage wrote, “Happiness leaves no bad after-taste, it is followed by no depressing reaction; it brings no regret, entails no remorse. True happiness is lived over and over again in memory, always with a renewal of the original good; a moment of pleasure may leave a barbed sting, [as] an ever-present source of anguish.” Ancient philosophies such as stoicism and spiritual beliefs such as Buddhism and Christianity fundamentally oppose a hedonistic approach to life. Embracing challenges, pain, and difficulty are among the primary paths to meaning and growth according to these perspectives. Rather than a hedonistic worldview, ancient philosophy and most spiritual perspectives embrace a eudemonic worldview, which advocates seeking a virtuous and meaningful life of growth and contribution.

A doctrine which advocates indifference to wealth and to the comforts of life, and a contempt for suffering and death [the Stoics'] is quite unintelligible to the vast majority of men, since that majority has never known wealth or the comforts of life; and to despise suffering would mean to despise life itself, since the whole existence of man is made up of the sensations of hunger, cold, injury, loss, and a Hamlet-like dread of death.

As the Stoics and Buddhists taught long ago, happiness cannot be reached by eliminating all “triggers” from life; rather, happiness comes from learning to deprive external events of the power to trigger negative emotions in you.

'Tis pride, rank pride, and haughtiness of soul: I think the Romans call it Stoicism.