Wisdom doesn't come to us by accident or luck. Marcus Aurelius didn't grow wise by doomscrolling social media. Epictetus didn't become a renowned philosopher through a quick hack or downloading an app.
Wisdom, the Stoics understood, is something we must work toward—not something we're born with or given. It must be earned through the same hard work people have done for millennia: reading, thinking, living, reflecting. "No man was ever wise by chance," as Seneca put it.
Like the other virtues, wisdom is a by-product of doing the right thing in the right way at the right time, not just once but consistently over the course of a life. It is the result of a method, and yet it is never actually possessed.
That's because it is the method.
That's what Ryan Holiday's new book, Wisdom Takes Work, is about: the method. The timeless practices that help us get a little wiser each day. The questions we must keep asking. The habits and disciplines that, over a lifetime, bring us closer to wisdom—and a life well-lived.
Drawing on the lives of great thinkers like Montaigne, Seneca, Lincoln, and Joan Didion, it's filled with the insights of some of history's wisest people, and how we can follow in their footsteps.
Wisdom Takes Work officially comes out in less than a month on Oct. 21, but we have a limited supply of signed, numbered first-edition copies available for preorder now!
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