Stoic affirmations
Stoic confidence affirmations, in the Stoics’ own words
The Stoics wrote no confidence affirmations, but Seneca says where faith in oneself comes from: our powers inspire it only when many difficulties have confronted us. Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius add the other condition, that the wish to please anyone ruins one’s scheme of life, and that time spent in thoughts about others is time taken from one’s own ruling part.
In the texts
Seneca · Letter 13, §1
For our powers can never inspire in us implicit faith in ourselves except when many difficulties have confronted us on this side and on that, and have occasionally even come to close quarters with us.
Epictetus · Enchiridion, XXIII
If you ever happen to turn your Attention to Externals, so as to wish to please any one, be assured, that you have ruined your Scheme of Life.
Epictetus · Enchiridion, XX
Remember, that not he who gives Ill Language, or a Blow, affronts; but the Principle, which represents these Things as affronting.
Marcus Aurelius · Meditations, III, 4
Do not waste the remainder of thy life in thoughts about others, when thou dost not refer thy thoughts to some object of common utility.
Seneca’s thirteenth letter to Lucilius, in Gummere’s 1917 translation, begins with confidence before it turns to fear. Lucilius, he says, took pride in his contest with Fortune even before he had learned the Stoic maxims, and all the more once he had grappled with her and tested his powers. Then comes the rule: our powers can never inspire in us implicit faith in ourselves except when many difficulties have confronted us on this side and on that. The true spirit is tested only in this way, the spirit that will not come under the jurisdiction of things external. Confidence, in this letter, is a result, not a starting point. See Letter 13.
Epictetus, in Elizabeth Carter’s 1758 translation of the Enchiridion, names what undoes it. If you turn your attention to externals so as to wish to please anyone, you have ruined your scheme of life; it is enough to be a philosopher, and if you wish to be thought one, to appear so to yourself (chapter XXIII). Chapter XX makes the same point about insult: it is not the one who gives ill language or a blow who affronts, but the principle that represents these things as affronting (Inner citadel).
Marcus Aurelius, in book III of the Meditations, translated by George Long in 1862, counts the cost of the opposite habit. Thoughts about what such a person is doing, saying, thinking or contriving take the opportunity of doing something else and make us wander from the observation of our own ruling power (Hegemonikon). Book III has its page: Book III.
Read together, the passages make confidence a by-product of two things: difficulties actually met, and a judgment that does not wait on the opinion of others (Prohairesis).
Why this is not a positive affirmation
A confidence affirmation asks the reader to state that he is capable, strong or unstoppable, ahead of any test. Seneca puts the order the other way round: faith in oneself follows difficulties met, and cannot be had before them. Repeating that one is confident, on his account, skips the only thing that produces confidence.
Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius add that the wish to appear confident to others is itself a turning toward externals. Their sentences do not raise an opinion of oneself; they remove the opinion of others from the place where it does not belong.
Terms in the glossary
- Inner citadel — ἀκρόπολις (akropolis)
- Hegemonikon — ἡγεμονικόν (hēgemonikon)
- Prohairesis — προαίρεσις (prohairesis)
In Stoïque, the life theme “Fear of judgment” opens the passages on this subject, each with its reference. The theme is part of Stoic+.