“‘What’s the meaning of life?’ There are few questions that are more human — and few that are more arrogant to ask. It’s a bit like going to a job interview and demanding to know what they can do for you, rather than showcasing why you’re perfect for the position.” — Phil Van Treuren
The ancient Stoics didn’t believe that we should do work just to do it . . . but they did see meaningful, necessary work as an important part of being human. We all have jobs to do, even if it’s not necessarily in the employ of another person. To Stoics, our work is also our roles as parents, friends, humans, and citizens of the cosmopolis.
The Stoic quotes on work that we’re including below don’t glorify going to work every day for a paycheck. Instead, they celebrate the kind of work that is common to the human condition, that makes us better because of the challenge it presents.
Regardless of how technology advances or society changes, human beings will always have to face the prospect of “work” in one form or another. As you’ll see from the quotes below, Stoicism helps us understand the necessity of our role in the world and why hard work is sometimes a necessity that should be embraced, not dreaded.
Stoic Quotes on Purpose & Work from Marcus Aurelius
“Remember how long you’ve been putting this off, how many extensions the gods gave you, and you didn’t use them. At some point you have to recognize what the world it is that you belong to; what power rules it and from what source you spring; that there is a limit to the time assigned you, and if you don’t use it to free yourself it will be gone and will never return.”
“Concentrate every minute like a Roman – like a man – on doing what’s in front of you with precise and genuine seriousness, tenderly, willingly, with justice. And on freeing yourself from all other distractions. Yes, you can – if you do everything as if it were the last thing you were doing in your life, and stop being aimless, stop letting your emotions override what your mind tells you, stop being hypocritical, self-centered, irritable. You see how few things you have to do to live a satisfying and reverent life? If you can manage this, that’s all even the gods can ask of you.”
“At dawn, when you have trouble getting out of bed, tell yourself: ‘I have to go to work — as a human being. What do I have to complain of, if I’m going to do what I was born for — the things I was brought into the world to do? Or is this what I was created for? To huddle under the blankets and stay warm?'”
“But we have to sleep sometime . . . Agreed. But nature set a limit on that — as it did on eating and drinking. And you’re over the limit. You’ve had more than enough of that. But not of working. There you’re still below your quota.”
Stoic Quotes on Purpose & Work from Epictetus
“What would have become of Hercules do you think if there had been no lion, hydra, stag or boar – and no savage criminals to rid the world of? What would he have done in the absence of such challenges? Obviously he would have just rolled over in bed and gone back to sleep. So by snoring his life away in luxury and comfort he never would have developed into the mighty Hercules. And even if he had, what good would it have done him? What would have been the use of those arms, that physique, and that noble soul, without crises or conditions to stir into him action?”
“From now on, then, resolve to live as a grown-up who is making progress, and make whatever you think best a law that you never set aside. And whenever you encounter anything that is difficult or pleasurable or highly or lowly regarded, remember that the contest is now, you are at the Olympic games, you cannot wait any longer, and that your progress is wrecked or preserved by a single day and a single event.”
Stoic Quotes on Purpose & Work from Seneca
“Putting things off is the biggest waste of life: it snatches away each day as it comes, and denies us the present by promising the future. The greatest obstacle to living is expectancy, which hangs upon tomorrow and loses today. You are arranging what lies in Fortune’s control, and abandoning what lies in yours. What are you looking at? To what goal are you straining? The whole future lies in uncertainty: live immediately.”
“You will hear many people saying: ‘When I am fifty I shall retire into leisure; when I am sixty I shall give up public duties.’ And what guarantee do you have of a longer life? Who will allow your course to proceed as you arrange it? Aren’t you ashamed to keep for yourself just the remnants of your life, and to devote to wisdom only that time which cannot be spent on any business? How late it is to begin really to live just when life must end!”