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Stoicism for Relationships
You cannot control other people, only your own responses, expectations, and honesty. Stoic relationships are built on accepting others as they are, speaking truthfully, and not making your peace depend on their behavior.
Stoic ideas for this
“Do not be ashamed to need help. Like a soldier storming a wall, you need your comrades.”
Marcus Aurelius · Meditations
“Rare as is true love, true friendship is rarer.”
Seneca · Letters from a Stoic
“We are members of one great body, planted by nature.”
Seneca · On Anger
We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak.
Zeno of Citium
“What is not good for the swarm is not good for the bee.”
Marcus Aurelius · Meditations
“Begin the morning by saying to thyself, I shall meet with the busybody, the ungrateful, arrogant, deceitful, envious, unsocial. All these things happen to them by reason of their ignorance of what is good and evil.”
Marcus Aurelius · Meditations
“All things are interwoven with one another; a sacred bond unites them; there is scarcely one thing that is isolated from another.”
Marcus Aurelius · Meditations
The only way to have a friend is to be one.
Seneca · Letters from a Stoic
He who does not know what the universe is, does not know where he is. He who does not know for what purpose the universe exists, does not know who he is, nor what the universe is.
Marcus Aurelius · Meditations
Girls as well as boys should study philosophy; the things that befall men befall women too, and they have the same nature.
Musonius Rufus · Lectures
Marriage is a partnership, not a hierarchy.
Musonius Rufus · Lectures
Treat your inferiors as you would like to be treated by your superiors.
Seneca · Letters from a Stoic
Train your children in virtue, not in wealth.
Musonius Rufus · Lectures
I am a part of the whole which is governed by nature.
Marcus Aurelius · Meditations
Men exist for the sake of one another. Teach them then, or bear with them.
Marcus Aurelius · Meditations
Be firm, not hard; steady, not stiff. Strength that cannot bend breaks.
Seneca · Letters from a Stoic
Be patient with others, for they are as imperfect as you are.
Marcus Aurelius · Meditations
Be yourself, without pretense; nothing is more dignified than simple honesty.
Marcus Aurelius · Meditations
No one has ever lived a good life without helping others to live theirs.
Seneca · Letters from a Stoic
Learn from everyone, for there is no one from whom nothing can be learned.
Seneca · Letters from a Stoic
No one is wise alone; wisdom is formed in the company of others.
Seneca · Letters from a Stoic
Teach by example, not by words alone; the pupil follows what you do, not what you say.
Musonius Rufus · Lectures
We should listen to our friends, for they see our faults more clearly than we do.
Zeno of Citium · Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Philosophers
Put it into practice
A Stoic tool is only useful if you actually use it. Try this small loop the next time relationships shows up:
- Name it plainly. Say what is happening without the story you are adding on top of it.
- Split what’s yours from what isn’t. Invest your energy only in the part you can actually choose.
- Do one small thing. A single deliberate action today beats a week of intending to.