Stoic Manuals
A Stoic Manual for Relationships and Duty
Clarify role, justice, criticism, boundaries, and the action that belongs to you.
What this manual is for
Clarify role, justice, criticism, boundaries, and the action that belongs to you. Work with one actual situation at a time; the aim is to practise judgment and conduct, not to guarantee an external result.
Read the primary-source anchors first, then use the sequence as a repeatable course of attention and action.
The sequence
1. Values Clarification. Compare what you desire with the qualities you admire. Use it when drift or low meaning.
2. Making All People Your Teachers. Remove the sting from criticism and examine what is useful. Use it when criticism or defensiveness.
3. Imagining the Sage Observes You. Borrow the attention of a wise observer for one honest check-in. Use it when midday or automatic behaviour.
How to review the work
After the final step, record what belonged to your judgment and action, what remained outside your command, and what you would rehearse differently next time.
A review is evidence for the next practice, not a verdict on your worth.
Practice sequence
- 1Values Clarification
Compare what you desire with the qualities you admire.
- 2Making All People Your Teachers
Remove the sting from criticism and examine what is useful.
- 3Imagining the Sage Observes You
Borrow the attention of a wise observer for one honest check-in.
Primary-text evidence
These excerpts are shown with their exact work locators. Read them as evidence for study, not as detached slogans.
“And this also is evident, that in these natural things the wise man is not altogether inactive. He therefore, when he acts, judges that that is his duty; and because he is never deceived in forming his judgment, duty must be classed among neutral things; and this is proved also by this conclusion of reason. For since we see that there is something which we pronounce to have been rightly done (for that is duty when accomplished), there must also be something which is rightly begun: as, if to restore what has been justly deposited belongs to the class of right actions, then it must be classed among the duties to restore a deposit; and the addition of the word “justly” makes the duty to be rightly performed: but the mere fact of restoring is classed as…”
“Now these things which we have spoken of as preferred, are preferred some for their own sake, some because they effect something else, and some for both reasons. Some are preferred for their own sake, such as some particular appearance or expression of countenance, some particular kind of gait, or motion, in which there are some things which may well be preferred, and some which may be rejected. Others are said to be preferred because they produce something, as money; and others for a combination of both reasons, as soundness of the senses, or good health. But respecting good reputation, (for what they call εὐδοξία is more properly called, in this place, good reputation than glory,) Chrysippus and Diogenes denied its whole utility, and used to say…”
“Where is the good? In the will. Where is the evil? In the will. Where is neither of them? In those things which are independent of the will. Well then? Does anyone among us think of these lessons out of the schools? Does anyone meditate (strive) by himself to give an answer to things as in the case of questions? Is it day?—Yes.—Is it night?—No.—Well, is the number of stars even?—I cannot say.—When money is shown (offered) to you, have you studied to make the proper answer, that money is not a good thing? Have you practiced yourself in these answers, or only against sophisms? Why do you wonder then if in the cases which you have studied, in those you have improved; but in those which you have not studied, in those you remain the same? When the…”