Ryan Holiday

No earthly reward is worth your values or your ability to look yourself in the mirror.

Hey, it's Ryan Holiday.

Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast.

In the old days, in the ancient days, the Epicureans and the Stoics were rivals.

They hated each other.

In fact, there's one Stoic I talk about in Lives of the Stoics, this guy named Diotimus, who so hated Epicurus that he writes this series of letters that are purportedly to be

by Epicurus that are in fact forgeries to kind of frame the Epicureans as these hedonists, as these liars, as these bad influences.

None of it was true.

This is obviously a betrayalist dosism, but I think it just highlights the rivalry that was long believed to exist between these two major philosophical schools.

In some ways, kind of the narcissism of small differences because the Stoics and the Epicureans were closer than one might imagine.

The Epicureans weren't these pleasure-loving hedonists and the Stoics weren't these pleasure-hating gluttons for punishments, not by any means.

as we are going to talk about, as you are going to see in today's episode.

But I think it's worth pointing out, you know, who does Seneca quote more than any other philosopher?

It's Epicurus.

He quotes his rivals.

He says, because I read like a spy in the enemy's camp.

He said, I'll quote even a bad author if the line is good.

Well, what we're going to be doing today is quoting a whole letter, an actual letter, not a fraudulent one, from Epicurus himself.

This is Epicurus' letter to Menesius.

It's a fascinating letter, one I think you absolutely should listen to.