Are You “Well-Read” in This Sense?

As Marcus would say, we can't be satisfied with just “getting the gist” of things we read. Read deeply. Read repeatedly. 📕 The Daily Stoic eBook https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01HNJIJB2?ref=cm_sw_r_ffobk_cp_ud_dp_F4DFB52S5WNSN0VE4HJC&ref_=cm_sw_r_ffobk_cp_ud_dp_F4DFB52S5WNSN0VE4HJC&social_share=cm_sw_r_ffobk_cp_ud_dp_F4DFB52S5WNSN0VE4HJC&skipTwisterOG=1&bestFormat=true is on sale for $2.99! Grab yours now at dailystoic.com/discount https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01HNJIJB2?ref=cm_sw_r_ffobk_cp_ud_dp_F4DFB52S5WNSN0VE4HJC&ref_=cm_sw_r_ffobk_cp_ud_dp_F4DFB52S5WNSN0VE4HJC&social_share=cm_sw_r_ffobk_cp_ud_dp_F4DFB52S5WNSN0VE4HJC&skipTwisterOG=1&bestFormat=true 📔 Pick up your own leather bound signed edition ofThe Daily Stoic https://store.dailystoic.com/products/the-daily-stoic-leatherbound-signed-edition! Check it out at the Daily Stoic Store:https://store.dailystoic.com/ https://store.dailystoic.com/products/the-daily-stoic-leatherbound-signed-edition 👉 Support the podcast and go deeper into Stoicism by subscribing toThe Daily Stoic Premium https://dailystoic.supercast.com/ - unlock ad-free listening, early access, and bonus content:https://dailystoic.supercast.com/ 🎥 Watch the video episodes onThe Daily Stoic YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/@DailyStoic/videos:https://www.youtube.com/@DailyStoic/videos 🎙️ Follow The Daily Stoic Podcast onInstagram https://www.instagram.com/dailystoicpodcast/?hl=en:https://www.instagram.com/dailystoicpodcast ✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email athttps://dailystoic.com/dailyemail 🏛 Get Stoic inspired books, medallions, and prints to remember these lessons at the Daily Stoic Store:https://store.dailystoic.com/ 📱 Follow us: Instagram https://www.instagram.com/dailystoic/,Twitter https://twitter.com/dailystoic,YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@DailyStoic,TikTok https://www.tiktok.com/@daily_stoic?lang=en, andFacebook https://www.facebook.com/dailystoic See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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

• 0:05Speaker 00

  Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, where each day we bring you a Stoic-inspired meditation, designed to help you find strength and insight and wisdom into everyday life. Each one of these episodes is based on the 2,000-year-old philosophy that has guided some of history's greatest men and women, help you learn from them, to follow in their example, and to start your day off with a little dose of courage and discipline and justice and wisdom. For more, visit DailyStoic.com.

• 0:55Ryan Holiday?

  This is what it means to be well-read. Have you noticed in Marcus Aurelius's Meditations that he quotes other writers dozens and dozens of times without explicitly stating who he is quoting? Presumably, considering he wrote most of Meditations in a tent on the battlefield, he didn't have his copies beside him when he was quoting Socrates, or Epictetus, or Homer, or Plato. No, he was transcribing these quotes straight from memory. And this capacity for recall is indicative of the ancients' approach to reading. The philosopher Mortimer Adler talked about how the phrase "well-read" has gotten somewhat distorted in recent history. We hear someone being described as well-read,

• 1:40Ryan Holiday?

  and we think it's characteristic of someone who has read widely, who's read lots and lots and lots of books. But the ancients would have used that phrase "well-read" to refer to someone who has read deeply, someone who has devoured a few books in their entirety, someone who has not just devoured, but understands.

• 2:01Ryan Holiday?

  Important books. A person who has read widely, Mortimer says of the modern reader, but not well, deserves to be pitied rather than praised. And the early 17th century philosopher Thomas Hobbes joked similarly, "If I read as many books as most do, I would be as dull-witted as they are." So paradoxically, great minds. The idea is that it's not about quantity. It's about quality. It's about actually understanding what you're reading. It's not about knowing a bunch of facts. It's not about having a massive reservoir of information. It's about developing a mind you can use, not at dinner parties and trivia nights, but in the real world.

• 2:44Ryan Holiday?

  And that's why, as we talked about recently, reading and rereading a select few works of a select few authors is so powerful. The insights that come from their minds gradually get permanently implanted into ours. And now, it doesn't matter if you're a philosopher or an entrepreneur, a teacher or a football coach, the goal of reading should be the same, to cultivate wisdom, a mind that helps you get better at what you do. So as Marcus would say, "Don't be satisfied with just getting the gist of something. Read attentively," he said. "Read deeply. Read repeatedly. Aim for quality, not quantity." And as we told you earlier this week, the ebook of The Daily Stoic,

• 3:27Ryan Holiday?

  366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living, is $2.99 on Amazon right now. That's the cheapest that it will ever be. We do this the first of the year because we want to bring people in. You can check it out on Amazon or wherever you get your ebooks. And if you do prefer the physical version, which is, of course, what I prefer, we have signed copies of The Daily Stoic at store.dailystoic.com. And we have a premium edition, a leather edition, that should really stand the test of time. We make it in limited quantities. It's not a mass-produced thing. It's a handcrafted, premium leather-bound edition. You can check that out as well at dailystoic.com/leather.