Premeditatio Malorum is a stoic exercise of expecting of terrible things that can happen at any event or time. Some people mistakenly view this practice as pessimism but it’s actually a great way to prepare for setbacks. Most of disappointment in people’s life came from an unrealistic view of a perfect world – that things ought to happen the way we want it to be. Obviously that’s not the case. When you expect the worst things, you become less reactive to them and prepare contingency plans when they do actually happen.
Top Quotes About Premeditatio Malorum From The Ancient Stoics
“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. ”
“Think about awful-seeming things, especially death, every day. Then you can be grateful to be alive, and you won’t make unreasonable demands.”
“If you really want to pursue philosophy, be ready to take flak from people who’ll say “Here comes Mr. Philosopher again,” and “Where’d he get the snotty look?” As for you, skip the snotty look and stick to your job, just as though God Himself had given it to you. Make these principles part of your life and the people who jeered will eventually respect you. If you let them get to you instead, they’ll get to laugh at you twice.”
“Set aside a certain number of days, during which you shall be content with the scantiest and cheapest fare, with coarse and rough dress, saying to yourself the while: “Is this the condition that I feared?”
“If you would not have a man flinch when the crisis comes, train him before it comes. Such is the course which those men[4] have followed who, in their imitation of poverty, have every month come almost to want, that they might never recoil from what they had so often rehearsed.”
“I hold it essential, therefore, to do as I have told you in a letter that great men have often done: to reserve a few days in which we may prepare ourselves for real poverty by means of fancied poverty. There is all the more reason for doing this, because we have been steeped in luxury and regard all duties as hard and onerous.”
"I am not now heaping up these illustrations for the purpose of exercising my wit, but for the purpose of encouraging you to face that which is thought to be most terrible... Believe me, Lucilius; death is so little to be feared that through its good offices nothing is to be feared."
"We shall be rich with all the more comfort, if we once learn how far poverty is from being a burden."
“This is a great accomplishment, Lucilius, and one which needs long practice to learn—to depart calmly when the inevitable hour arrives”
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