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The Daily Stoic

BONUS | The Novels Every Stoic Should Read

31 May 2026

Transcription

Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.

Chapter 1: What are the key Stoic virtues introduced in this episode?

0.031 - 27.952 Ryan Holiday

Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, designed to help bring those four key Stoic virtues, courage, discipline, justice, and wisdom into the real world. So we were talking other Stoic-themed novels, and you only knew about Man in Full. Yes. There are many more. Okay. One of which I told Oprah about, because she loves your book.

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27.972 - 38.813 Ryan Holiday

So obviously, one of the most famous probably stoic novel is Hamill's A Man in Full, which is very Epictetus-themed. But have you read Walker Percy's The Moviegoer?

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38.793 - 43.183 Maria Semple

Oh, wait, no, but I've been meaning to, and I had no idea that it had a stoic theme.

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43.223 - 53.385 Ryan Holiday

No, so his character, Aunt Emily, is very stoic. Let me find it, if I can find this. He has this amazing passage.

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53.425 - 55.89 Maria Semple

That's like everybody's favorite book, and I haven't read it yet.

55.87 - 86.182 Ryan Holiday

Yeah, no, no, it's incredible. So his uncle introduces him to stoic philosophy. His parents both commit suicide or die in accidents, and he's adopted by his uncle, three boys. And he's this sort of poet in Mississippi, and he introduces him to stoicism. She sends him this note. I wish I could find it. Okay. But anyway, she's very stoic, so that's one. This is the other famous one.

87.443 - 92.248 Ryan Holiday

You haven't read Memoirs of Hadrian? This is a beautiful novel. This is the one I told Oprah about.

92.288 - 94.55 Maria Semple

Oh, Shirley Hazard. That's Adora Hazard.

Chapter 2: Which Stoic-themed novel is considered a classic in the discussion?

94.691 - 97.974 Maria Semple

I used the last name from Shirley Hazard. Oh, wow.

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98.795 - 101.818 Ryan Holiday

It's fictional, but it feels real.

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101.938 - 105.942 Maria Semple

It's one of those things where you... Oh, see, that's why I think I haven't read it, because it's like a docudrama.

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105.922 - 112.23 Ryan Holiday

But it's Hadrian as if he's writing down his memoirs for the benefit of Marcus Aurelius.

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112.511 - 113.592 Maria Semple

Okay, that's amazing.

113.712 - 115.875 Ryan Holiday

Okay, I don't know this book. You'll love it. Okay, great.

Chapter 3: What insights are shared about Walker Percy's 'The Moviegoer'?

115.895 - 124.066 Ryan Holiday

Amazing. Okay, so we could do... Have you ever read Ambrose Bierce? He has the greatest short story of all time, An Occurrence at Owl Creek. Oh, right.

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124.126 - 124.747 Maria Semple

I know that one.

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124.767 - 130.815 Ryan Holiday

I know that one. So this is the Ambrose Bierce thing. Ambrose Bierce's father is named Lucius Verus Bierce.

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130.795 - 154.575 Ryan Holiday

okay and his uncle is named marcus aurelius pierce whoa they were committed yeah and so he's very stoked there's a there's this great um there's this great story in here it's one of my favorites uh it's called parker adderson philosopher okay it's this guy he's about you can take this okay is this mine so he's about to be executed um and he's like sort of being very stoic which one

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154.555 - 155.697 Maria Semple

A philosopher?

156.197 - 175.645 Ryan Holiday

A Parker-Aderson philosopher. So you're going to be captured, you're going to be put to death. And he's being very stoic about it. He's telling him death doesn't matter. He's not afraid. He's willing to die for his country, blah, blah, blah. And then sort of towards the end, he goes, and of course we'll be hanging you as a spy.

176.026 - 188.089 Ryan Holiday

And he freaks out and he's like, and it turns out it's all, the message of the story is that it's very easy to pose as the philosopher until it gets real. And then it gets real, until you start poking fun at it. But it's a great story.

188.109 - 190.514 Maria Semple

It's like you become a Christian in the trenches.

190.534 - 209.058 Ryan Holiday

Yes, exactly. John Williams, who wrote Stoner, this is about Augustus. I own this, but I love Stoner. It's not extremely Stoic, but he does talk about Athena Doris, who was the Stoic teacher who's his advisor. So there's a little smidge of Stoicism. Let's see if we have Julius Caesar, just as I mentioned it.

Chapter 4: How does 'Memoirs of Hadrian' relate to Stoicism?

264.884 - 287.772 Maria Semple

and brings it into modern day situations. But now he's going through Shakespeare's works and he did Julius Caesar through the lens of philosophy at the time and how Shakespeare really knew his philosophy deeply. And it's just about how it really is a kind of an allegory for the battling different philosophical systems is what the play of Julius Caesar is.

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287.792 - 308.683 Ryan Holiday

And he's taking it from Plutarch. Shakespeare's taking it from Plutarch, which he's read. Yes. Plutarch is, writes a bunch about, it's sort of critical of Stoicism, but it's like, Shakespeare was so good at mining source material and getting the essence of it and then fictionalizing it. Speaking of which, Thornton Wilder also wrote a novel about Julius Caesar called The Ides of March.

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308.924 - 310.987 Maria Semple

Oh, okay, okay, that's good, okay, amazing.

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311.007 - 312.008 Ryan Holiday

I don't know if we have it.

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312.149 - 315.073 Maria Semple

Oh, please, no, there's an abundance of riches.

330.477 - 331.005

Thank you.

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