Keep In Mind How Fast Things Pass By

In 1859, before he was president, before he suffered through that harrowing train ride to Washington on his way to office where many thought he would be killed before he arrived, before the Union tore itself to pieces and around 750,000 people died in the Civil War (the total number dead is still unknown), Abraham Lincoln gave a speech at the Wisconsin State Fair. The subject of the speech was supposed to be agriculture, but Lincoln decided to go a little deeper.✉️ Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail🏛 Check out the Daily Stoic Store for Stoic inspired products, signed books, and more.📱 Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, FacebookSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. 📢 Share | ⚙️ Manage Subscription

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:03Ryan Holiday?

  Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, where each day we bring you a passage of ancient wisdom designed to help you find strength, insight, and wisdom in everyday life. Each one of these passages is based on the 2,000-year-old philosophy that has guided some of history's greatest men and women. For more, you can visit us, dailystoic.com.

• 0:29Speaker 01

  In 1859, before he was president, before he suffered through the harrowing train ride to Washington on his way to office, where many thought he would be killed before he arrived, before the Union tore itself to pieces and hundreds of thousands of people died in the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln gave a speech at the Wisconsin State Fair. The subject of the speech was supposed to be agriculture, but Lincoln decided to go a little deeper. He told the story of an eastern king who asked his wisest philosophers to provide him a sentence that would not just be true in each and every situation, but always be worth hearing. "They presented him the words," Lincoln said, "and this too shall pass away."

• 1:14Speaker 01

  "How much it expresses how chastening in the hour of pride, how consoling in the depths of affliction," Lincoln said. "And this too shall pass away." Did Lincoln know that this story was a core teaching in Buddhist philosophy? Did he know the incredible triumphs and fiery trials that lay ahead? Could he have been morbid enough to sense that it applied to his brief existence on this planet, that he had less than six years left to live, with which to do his work, before he too would pass away? Marcus Aurelius certainly understood this, writing that "we must keep in mind how fast things pass by and are gone, those that are now and those to come."

• 1:56Speaker 01

  The events of the world, good and bad, beautiful and tragic, or terrifying, flow past us quickly. None of them are stable. Each of them disappears with due time into the rush of the water and is never seen again. "It would take an idiot," Marcus wrote, "to feel distress, or arrogance, or anger." "Just wait a second," he said, "whether you're being elevated to the highest office in the land or sucked into the awful carnage of a war or locking yourself indoors during a pandemic, this too shall pass. It will be taken care of soon enough.