Is There Anything Better Than This?

There is almost no situation that hatred improves, but love enhances nearly everything.🎉 Celebrate Marcus Aurelius' Birthday this month by reading Meditations with us and the Daily Stoic community. On April 26th, 1905 years after the day of his birth, Ryan Holiday will host an invite-only LIVE Q&A to talk about all things Marcus Aurelius and Meditations. Get 20% off with a Meditations BOOK & GUIDE bundle. Join the LIVE Meditations Q&A with Ryan Holiday by purchasing before April 26th! Get all our Meditations offering and learn more at our official Meditations Collection at dailystoic.com/meditations today. 🎙️ Follow The Daily Stoic Podcast on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dailystoicpodcast🎥 Watch top moments from The Daily Stoic Podcast on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@dailystoicpodcast✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://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, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and 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.

• 0:05Ryan Holiday?

  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?

  Marcus Aurelius said that if you ever found anything better in life than courage, discipline, justice, and wisdom, those four Stoic virtues, that it must be an extraordinary thing indeed. Which raises the question, is there anything better? Well, here's one pretty extraordinary thing: love. Sure, you could argue that love fits within the virtue of justice, but it's notable how much the Stoics speak about it. Hikado said, "I can teach you a love potion made without any drugs, herbs, or special spell, and it's this: if you would be loved, love." Marcus Aurelius himself says in meditations that he learned from his teacher Sextus, "The key to life was to be free of passion but full of love."

• 1:37Ryan Holiday?

  Indeed, there is almost no situation in which hatred helps, but almost every situation is made better by love. Love is something that transforms us. "Pure love, careless of all other things, kindles the soul," Seneca said. "It makes us selfless and inspires us to be better." In the end, the Beatles wrote, "The love you take is equal to the love you make," and that love is the thing that gives us meaning. Love may not be better than the four virtues, but is certainly their equal. It emboldens courage, it inspires discipline, it strengthens justice, it gives purpose to wisdom, and it is an extraordinary thing, indeed.