Stoicism is in its entirety the greatest philosophy out of any in my opinion. I've studied philosophy for quite a while and nothing comes close to this in my opinion. Other philosophies are either weak (nihilism) or they have good elements (this being platon, nietzsche, kierkegaard, machiavellianism) but i feel like parts of these philosophies have a few weaknesses to them, i really cant see any weaknesses to stoicism because its really all about adhering to rationality and become independant of exhausting irrational emotions.

If everyone was stoic and if it was a philosophy that people adhered to like people adhere to a bunch of retarded ideas or contradictory religions we would see WAY LESS emotional suffering and people with mental illnesses.

I would recommend reading the following works:

  • Discourses of Epictetus
  • Marcus Aurelius - Meditations

In "Meditations" Marcus Aurelius writes:

"When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: the people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous and surly. They are like this because they can't tell good from evil. But I have seen the beauty of good, and the ugliness of evil, and have recognized that the wrongdoer has a nature related to my own - not of the same blood and birth, but the same mind, and possessing a share of the divine. And so none of them can hurt me. No one can implicate me in ugliness. Nor can I feel angry at my relative, or hate him. We were born to work together like feet, hands and eyes, like the two rows of teeth, upper and lower. To obstruct each other is unnatural. To feel anger at someone, to turn your back on him: these are unnatural.”

It's crazy how accurate this is. What we are seeing in the western world is this self-hate by many people on the left, they hate what we have become and they dont give a crap how privileged we are, they are constantly relativizing saying "all cultures are equally good" and other bullshit and theyre undermining our society with their soft ideas. Tolerance promotes intolerance. You need to be skeptic of each and every individual you encounter in life and you need to get after whatever you want.

But the greatest masterpiece I've ever read is the letters the younger Seneca wrote to a Roman Emperor called Lucilius. Epistulae morales ad Lucilium (whether Lucilius was an actual historical figure we don't know, but thats besides the point, epistles were really popular around this time so even if it was written personally to 1 person it was intended that it would be read by a larger portion)

Anyway you are doing yourself the biggest favor if you read these letters. Take what you want from it. But some of it is very useful. It deals with alot of important issues relating to our own lives and society its not some 'abstract' idea about cosmology or metaphysics.

I will just quote a few points from his letters that i've quickly picked out to give you an idea of his style and what hes about.

Moral Letters

Letter 1: On saving time

What is the state of things, then? It is this: I do not regard a man as poor, if the little which remains is enough for him. I advise you, however, to keep what is really yours; and you cannot begin too early. For, as our ancestors believed, it is too late to spare when you reach the dregs of the cask. Of that which remains at the bottom, the amount is slight, and the quality is vile. Farewell.

Letter 7: On crowds

"But both courses are to be avoided; you should not copy the bad simply because they are many, nor should you hate the many because they are unlike you. Withdraw into yourself, as far as you can. Associate with those who will make a better man of you. Welcome those whom you yourself can improve. The process is mutual; for men learn while they teach. 9. There is no reason why pride in advertising your abilities should lure you into publicity, so that you should desire to recite or harangue before the general public. Of course I should be willing for you to do so if you had a stock-in-trade that suited such a mob; as it is, there is not a man of them who can understand you. One or two individuals will perhaps come in your way, but even these will have to be moulded and trained by you so that they will understand you. You may say: "For what purpose did I learn all these things?" But you need not fear that you have wasted your efforts; it was for yourself that you learned them."

Letter 78: On the healing power of the mind

But do not of your own accord make your troubles heavier to bear and burden yourself with complaining. Pain is slight if opinion has added nothing to it; but if, on the other hand, you begin to encourage yourself and say, "It is nothing, – a trifling matter at most; keep a stout heart and it will soon cease"; then in thinking it slight, you will make it slight. Everything depends on opinion; ambition, luxury, greed, hark back to opinion. It is according to opinion that we suffer.