About

Stoicism is a Greco-Roman philosophy practiced as a way of life. Its central claim is severe and freeing: virtue is the only good, vice the only evil, and everything else — health, wealth, reputation, even our bodies — is borrowed.

This site is a working reference. Browse passages by philosopher or theme, or type a question and let the Stoics answer.

How the Ask feature works

We keep a curated corpus of canonical passages with their author, work, section, and translator. When you ask a question, a language model selects the most relevant entries from that corpus by id, then writes a modern reading in plain English. Citations on those quotes come from the corpus itself, not from the model.

The model may occasionally add a “further passage” outside the corpus. Those are clearly labeled. Treat them as suggestions to verify, not as scholarship.

Translations

Quoted translations are drawn from public-domain editions (George Long, Thomas Higginson, Elizabeth Carter, Richard Gummere, John Basore, Aubrey Stewart) and more recent named translators where indicated. For Musonius Rufus the source is the modern edition by Cynthia King.

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