Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, designed to help bring those four key stoic virtues,

courage, discipline, justice, and wisdom into the real world.

Marcus Aurelius called them the touchstones of goodness, courage, temperance, justice, wisdom. To millions, they're known as the

cardinal virtues, four near universal ideals adopted by Christianity and most of Western philosophy,

but equally valued in Buddhism, Hinduism, and just about every other philosophy and religious tradition you can imagine.

They're called cardinal, C.S. Lewis pointed out, not because they come down from church

authorities, but because they originate from the Latin cardo or hinge. It's pivotal stuff, the stuff

that the door to the good life hangs on. Like the cardinal directions,

the four main points on the compass, north, south, east, west, the four virtues are a kind of

compass, a guide to what to do, who to be, how to behave, how to respond in every situation,

to respond with courage or bravery or

fortitude, honor, sacrifice, temperance, that's self-control, moderation, composure, balance,

justice, that's fairness, service, fellowship, goodness, kindness, and then wisdom, that's knowledge,

education, truth, self-reflection, and serenity.

These are the key to a life of excellence in every sense.

If at some point in your life, Marcus wrote,

you should come across anything better than justice, prudence, self-control, courage,

if you find anything better than that, embraceudence, self-control, courage. If you find anything better than that,

embrace it without reservations, must be an extraordinary thing indeed. And that was 20 centuries

ago. And there's no question we've discovered a lot of things since then. Automobiles, the

internet, curious for diseases that were previously a death sentence. But if we found anything

better, no, we have not. And it's unlikely that we ever will. So memorize those four virtues,

...