Hey, prime members, you can listen to the Daily Stoke podcast early and add free on Amazon music. Download the app today.

Welcome to the Daily Stoke. For each day, we read a short passage designed to help you cultivate the strength, insight, wisdom necessary for living good life.

Each one of these passages is based on the 2000 year old philosophy that has guided some of history's greatest men and women. For more, you can visit us at DailyStoic.com.

Put everything in the calm in mild light. You know sometimes you hear a quote or an aphorism and think, that's it. That's me. That's my philosophy for life.

Well, it turns out that that is a pretty common and timeless thing. At the very least, we know it goes back to the time of George Washington. You see, Washington's favorite play was the Play Cato about the Roman Senator and Stoke philosopher by the playwright Joseph Addison.

This play, which was written in 1712, was hugely famous in its time and with some irony might be called the Hamilton of its day.

It was so familiar to people in the late 18th century that it could be quoted without attribution and everyone knew exactly where the line came from.

And Washington in particular liked to quote one line that must have spoken to him the way those quotes speak to us now, where you just know that nothing will capture what you think and feel about life better than that.

Free, he said in a letter to a friend after the revolution about his return to private life from the bustle of camp and the intrigues of court, I shall view the busy world in the calm light of mild philosophy.

And with that serenity of mind, which the soldier in his pursuit of glory and the statesman of fame have not time to enjoy.

In fact, in the book, the political philosophy of George Washington, the author Jeffrey H. Morrison notes that in a single two week period in 1797, Washington quoted the same line in three different letters.

And later in Washington's greatest, but probably least known moment, he talked down the mutinist troops who were plotting to overthrow the US government at Newberg.

And he quoted the same line again as he urged them away from acting on their anger and frustration in the calm lights of mild philosophy, that stosism, that's using reason to temper our impulses and our emotions.

As Epic teed has said, it's about putting our impressions up to the test. It's what Marcus really has talked about when he said that our life is what our thoughts make it, that what we choose to see determines how we will feel.

We must follow this advice today and every day, it served K-Doh well and Washington even better. All that we see must be illuminated by the calm lights of mild philosophy.

So we can see what it really is, so we don't do anything we regret. So we can enjoy this wonderful gift of life we possess, whatever our station.

Hey, just a quick reminder, stillness is the key. It's the key to success. It's the key to happiness. It's the key to insight. It's also the title of my next book.

You can get stillness is the key. It comes out October 1 everywhere, books are sold. It's currently available for pre-order. You can get it in audiobook, ebook, physical. Barnes and Noble even has a few signed copies.

If you've gotten anything out of my writing, anything out of this podcast or my emails over the years, I would love your support. Stillness is the key available everywhere, books are sold in pre-order now and it comes out October 1.

Hey, prime members, you can listen to the Daily Stoic early and ad free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today or you can listen early and ad free with Wondery Plus in Apple podcasts.