You Should Meditate on Greatness

"The Stoics were some of the keenest admirers of human greatness. Marcus Aurelius opens his Meditations with seventeen entries—nearly ten percent of the book—reflecting upon the various influential individuals in his life. Nearly every other page thereafter has at least one quote or one story or one mention of a story about his heroes: Socrates, Plato, Epictetus, Hadrian, Augustus, Heraclitus, Pythagoras, Diogenes—'When you need encouragement,' he wrote, explaining this practice, 'think of the qualities the people around you have.'"Learn about the importance of reflecting on the best of those who came before us, on 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/ryanholidayInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/ryanholiday/Facebook: http://facebook.com/ryanholidayYouTube: 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. You should meditate on greatness. The Stoics were some of the keenest admirers of human greatness. Marcus Aurelius opens Meditations with 17 entries, nearly 10% of the book reflecting upon the various influential individuals in his life. Nearly every other page thereafter has at least some quote or one story or one mention of a story about

• 0:50Ryan Holiday?

  his heroes: Socrates, Plato, Epictetus, Antoninus, Augustus, Herakles, Pythagoras, Diogenes. When you need encouragement, he wrote, "Explaining this practice, think of the qualities the people around you have." Marcus was constantly thinking of the qualities of the greats, and clearly this had an effect on him as a person. Somehow, despite facing incredible temptations and pressures, he too became a great man worthy of the countless statues made of his likeness, many of which survive to this day. Recently, we had a discussion with the sculptor E. S. Schubert, whom we commissioned to design the original portrait bust of Marcus Aurelius for dailystoic.com. Given that E.

• 1:32Ryan Holiday?

  S. has spent his life shaping people's likeness into clay and marble and other materials, he seemed like the right person to ask, "Why do statues matter?" He said, "We all need load stars, and we need constant, daily, hourly, and minute-by-minute reminders of how we want to act in the world. Obviously portraits and monuments of great thinkers, philanthropists, and innovators are a great way to do that. And then more broadly, there is joy to be found in things that exist for no definably productive purpose." In a culture increasingly focused on measuring everything, he said, and supremely valuing product

• 2:10Ryan Holiday?

  It's difficult to quantify why we should spend money on art, both publicly and privately. But this isn't a race. There isn't an end goal, just an end. So how we enjoy the journey matters. Beautiful things exist. Just because they exist, make the journey better. It's okay for us just to want to look at beautiful things. Even the Stoics, who were not much for material possessions, seem to have made a special exemption for beautiful statues. As Seneca wrote, "Our predecessors have worked much improvement. Why should I not keep statues of great men to kindle my enthusiasm? Why should I not continually greet them with respect and honor? And as we have written about before, Matthew Arnold spoke about the symbolism of Marcus's busts,

• 2:55Ryan Holiday?

  as it wasn't a mere depiction of a deceased emperor, but a humble reminder of the passage of a great man upon the earth. Life is very short, and the good life is easy to miss. That is why art is so important. It inspires us. It calls us to greatness. Can look at it, touch it, and be looked at it and touched by it in return. And that's a special thing. And I just recorded this looking across my desk at my Marcus Aurelius statue, which, yes, Schubert was nice enough to make for me. We sell them in the Daily Stoic store. You can see it at dailystoic.com/statue. But I have this there because it's a reminder of the principles that Marcus lived by. It's a reminder of what I'm trying to be in my writing, in my life.

• 3:40Ryan Holiday?

  And having that there to greet and honor and to kindle my enthusiasm, as Seneca said, is just really, really important and powerful. So I hope you check it out. Go to dailystoic.com/statue, or just go to the Daily Stoic store at dailystoic.com/store.