Why We Admire Socrates

"Socrates was smart. He was clever and funny. He was, as we can tell from just two of his students, Xenophon and Plato, clearly a great teacher. But is that the only reason we admire him? Because of his contributions to philosophy?"Ryan explains the main reason we admire Socrates, and describes how we can emulate his example, in today's Daily Stoic Podcast.***If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to the podcast, the more we can invest into it and make it even better. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/signupFollow @DailyStoic:Twitter: https://twitter.com/dailystoicInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/dailystoic/Facebook: http://facebook.com/dailystoicYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/dailystoicSee 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.

• 0:06Ryan Holiday?

  Welcome to The Daily Stoic, where each day we read a short passage designed to help you cultivate the strength, insight, wisdom necessary for living the good 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 at DailyStoic.com. Why we admire Socrates? Socrates was smart. He was clever and funny. He was, and we can tell this from just two of his students, Xenophon and Plato, clearly a great teacher. But why is it that we admire him? Because of his contributions to philosophy? Sure. But that's not sufficient to explain

• 0:47Ryan Holiday?

  why his example has lasted for so many thousands of years, why he's known to so many people who couldn't possibly name any other philosopher, and why he's resonated so much with the Stoics who usually looked on with scorn at other schools. We admire Socrates because he lived up to what he talked about. As Marcus wrote, "The truly impressive thing about the man was that he was satisfied to treat men with justice and the gods with reverence, and didn't lose his temper unpredictably at others, didn't make himself a slave to other people's ignorance, didn't treat anything that nature did as abnormal or put up with as an unbearable imposition, and didn't put his mind in his body's keeping." In his own time, Socrates

• 1:31Ryan Holiday?

  was respected for his bravery as a soldier. He was respected for the patience he showed his wife, for the kindness he treated children with, and for finally, the restraint he showed when he was sentenced to death. He wasn't just a thinker. He was a great citizen, a great human being. He lived those ideas of justice, and courage, and self-discipline, and wisdom. It wasn't an act. It wasn't a career. It was who he was. Let that sober you, and let it inspire you. If you want to be admired, be a good person, stand up for others, endure their slights and silliness, or worse, insist on truth, be in control of yourself, live those four virtues every day. Day, even if no one is watching, and then you'll be worthy of undying fame.

• 2:16Ryan Holiday?

  And I actually keep in my left pocket our Four Virtues coin, which has that idea of courage, justice, wisdom, temperance, and glazend on it. And it's just a reminder there for me to touch, to pull out, to spin on the table when I'm bored, and just to keep me honest. And you can check that out at dailystoic.com/fourvirtues.