Thomas Ricks on the Wisdom of the Classics and Balancing Power | This Is What It Means To Be “Well-Read”

The Daily Stoic

Daily Stoic | Backyard Ventures

Business, 694393, Society & Culture, Daily Stoic, Stoic, Education, Ryan Holiday, Philosophy, Stoic Philosophy, Stoicism, Self-improvement

4.5 • 5.3K Ratings

🗓️ 5 January 2022

⏱️ 75 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Ryan reads today’s daily meditation and speaks with author and historian Thomas Ricks about his newest book First Principles, the founding fathers familiarity with the ancient Stoics, the wisdom that was embedded into the constitution, how America’s 3 part system was meant to reflect the wisdom of the Classics, and more.

Thomas Ricks is an American journalist and author who has won the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting multiple times. He is the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq and A Soldier's Duty.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, prime members. You can listen to the Daily Stoic Podcast early and add free on Amazon music. Download the app today.
0:11.2	Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast where each weekday we bring you a
0:16.0	meditation inspired by the ancient Stoics, a short passage of ancient wisdom designed to help you find strength and insight
0:24.0	here in everyday life. And on Wednesdays we talk to some of our fellow students of ancient philosophy
0:32.0	well-known and obscure, fascinating and powerful. With them we discuss the strategies and habits that have helped them become who they are
0:41.0	and also to find peace and wisdom in their actual lives. But first we've got a quick message from one of our sponsors.
0:48.0	Let's say you love sports but are also, you know, a busy person.
0:54.0	You want to know the latest sports news but don't want to sit through a two hour podcast.
0:59.0	Alright, if we're talking about you right now then check out the new podcast from Wondering.
1:03.0	Listen to the lead starting five on Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcast.
1:10.0	This is what it means to be well read. You may have missed it but in
1:16.0	Meditations Marcus Aurelius quotes dozens and dozens of other writers and philosophers.
1:22.0	He rarely attributes these quotes and presumably that's because he was writing it in a tent in the middle of a battlefield.
1:29.0	And so he didn't have his books beside him when he was quoting Socrates or Epictetus or Homer or Plato.
1:35.0	No, he was transcribing it from memory. And this capacity for recall is indicative of the ancient's approach to reading.
1:44.0	The philosopher Mortimer Adler has talked about how the phrase well read his lost its original meaning.
1:50.0	We hear someone referred to as well read today and we think of someone who has read lots of books.
1:56.0	But the ancients would have thought of someone who really knows their stuff who has dived deeply into a few classic texts to the point that they really understood them.
2:06.0	A person who has read widely Mortimer says of the modern reader but not well deserves to be pitted rather than praised.
2:15.0	And the early 17th century philosopher Thomas Hobbes joked that if I were to read as many books as most people do, I would be as dull-witted as they are.
2:25.0	And that's why as we talked about recently that reading and rereading a select few works of a select few authors is so powerful.
2:34.0	The insights that come from their minds gradually get permanently implanted into hours.
	...

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