19 Stoic Quotes Every Hiker Should Read
Stoicism leads to a life of virtue. To be a stoic means to live a life in accordance with nature, to accept what is not in our control and to better our thoughts, because they are the only piece of nature which we do have control over.
Boiled down to it’s the deepest meaning, to follow the teachings of stoicism you simply need to do the right thing. By adhering to this principle and doing what is right at any given moment, you are living in accordance with nature, with your own nature, and through this you are bettering yourself and the world which surrounds you.
Now, of course, doing the right thing isn’t always so easy.
So, what is the right thing?
The right thing for who? For me? For my neighbor? For future freakin generations?
That’s for you to decide. That’s when your own nature comes into play. Sometimes you are the priority, and sometimes you can spare some of your wealth (not just money, but also time or food or compassion) for others.
One of the best reasons to study stoicism is to alter your way of thinking. Others have spent their entire lives thinking about and dissecting everything from all-of-existence to the inner anxieties and complexities of the human mind. Since they did this, you don’t have to. You can gain some of their insight by reading their books or skimming the highlight reel of their best quotes.
Below are some great quotes by stoic masterminds. We’re only covering but a sliver of stoicism as a whole, focusing on a handful of quotes that can be applied to nature– specifically your time outdoors (but also, and more intentionally, the innate nature of everything). Let these words inspire your next hike and guide your thoughts as you wander onto the next trail.
19 Stoic Quotes for the Trail
1. “A gem cannot be polished without friction, nor a man without trials.” – Seneca
Which is part of the reason you are heading out on an arduous hike. Whether you’re hiking 1 mile or backpacking 100, you’re putting in the effort to see the world with your own eyes. It’d be easy enough to go online and conduct an image search for beautiful waterfalls and very very green ferns, but that’s not good enough for you. Why? Because you’re bettering yourself by simply going out into the world and experiencing it for yourself.
Seneca was the right hand of the Roman Empire during the prime of his life, guiding the emperor with his Stoic principles. In Letters from a Stoic, Seneca divulges the practical wisdom he used in both his personal and political lives.
2. “The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.” – Marcus Aurelius
Obstacles be damned. This one is easy to understand. Over the mountains and through the woods to our destination we go. Don’t fear obstacles because they block your path– instead, accept that they are a part of your path.
3. “We are more often frightened than hurt; and we suffer more in imagination than in reality.” – Seneca
It’s all in your head, well, mostly at least. Anxiety, fear, and depression can hit you hard at home as well as on the trail. I’ve suffered through a lot of my own self-made mental breakdowns, and in recent years I turn to this quote as a reminder that the pain I’m feeling was engorged by a whirlwind of cyclical frustrations that I created, that I kept feeding with worsening thoughts. Fear had consumed me on several occasions during solo backpacking trips. Fear of isolation. Fear of long falls. Fear of cougars. All of that fear was spurred on by my own thoughts, not by any actual threat or pain (although I have run into several cougars on trail and do NOT regret the fear I felt in those moments!).
4. “We cannot choose our external circumstances, but we can always choose how we respond to them.” – Epictetus
This is a true cornerstone of stoicism. Rain, blisters, troubles back at home– these are all out of our control, they exist despite our feelings towards them. You can feel angry, you can feel sad, or you can choose to a new perspective and feel something better.
Epictetus was a slave who earned his freedom. He then taught philosophy in Rome. His Discourses and Selected Writings is a collection of his lectures and notes on Stoicism.
5. “If melodiously piping flutes sprang from the olive, would you doubt that a knowledge of flute-playing resided in the olive? And what if plane trees bore harps which gave forth rhythmical sounds? Clearly you would think in the same way that the art of music was possessed by plane trees. Why, then, seeing that the universe gives birth to beings that are animate and wise, should it not be considered animate and wise itself?” – Zeno of Citium
If the universe gave birth to us, is it then at least as alive and intelligent as we are? The trails we make, the paths we take– take the time to see all that you’re traveling by. We can easily lose ourselves in the desire to reach our destination without noticing and appreciating all that exists along the journey.
6. “No person has the power to have everything they want, but it is in their power not to want what they don’t have, and to cheerfully put to good use what they do have.” – Seneca
Minimalism. This can be related to the ultralight movement as well. Those paths, though lighter in possession, can still be quite expensive to follow. You don’t need the best gear, name brands, or what most people consider necessities. Out on the trail is a great place to practice your escape from materialism, your escape from social acceptance, from the perceived judgment of others. Find yourself and be yourself.
7. “I judge you unfortunate because you have never lived through misfortune. You have passed through life without an opponent—no one can ever know what you are capable of, not even you.” – Seneca
You’ll never know until you struggle and succeed that struggle.
8. “What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for some goal worthy of him.” – Viktor Frankl
Isn’t that exactly what a hike is? A goal for the day, or days, or whatever length of time. Whereas before it was mentioned that you could lose yourself in chasing a destination, now that destination can be seen as something worth looking toward, something to achieve. It’s all about balance. You can appreciate the journey and celebrate the destination.
9. “We should always be asking ourselves: ‘Is this something that is, or is not, in my control?'” – Epictetus
And accept the reality of it.
10. “It’s something like going on an ocean voyage. What can I do? Pick the captain, the boat, the date, and the best time to sail. But then a storm hits… What are my options? I do the only thing I am in a position to do, drown — but fearlessly, without bawling or crying out to God, because I know that what is born must also die.” – Epictetus
On my thru-hike of the Pacific Crest Trail I missed several hundred miles due to injury. It took me three more years of attempts to finish that section because wildfires kept ravaging the area. All the planning in the world cannot prevent the universe from doing as it may. Take each step one at a time and know that you are but a finite being in an infinite universe of possibilities. You can’t account for it all.
11. “Fate leads the willing, and drags along the reluctant.” – Seneca
It’s going to happen whether you like it or not, so you may as well enjoy the ride.
12. “Remember: Matter. How tiny your share of it. Time. How brief and fleeting your allotment of it. Fate. How small a role you play in it.” – Marcus Aurelius
Your insignificance is your excuse for doing whatever the hell you want. Release your anxieties. Whatever you do or decide matters not in the end, so why struggle over it?
13. “Man conquers the world by conquering himself.” – Zeno of Citium
Your own mind is your greatest weakness and your greatest strength. Your limitations and pains are what you decide them to be.
14. “Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.” – Marcus Aurelius
Think of a photograph. Unedited, undoctored, you could argue that it is truth captured at the moment in time and place in which it was taken. You must consider, though, the perspective of the photograph. The image was captured by a singular person, standing in a particular place, pointing her lens in a very specific direction, likely intending to capture a specific moment or feeling. In that rectangular frame, the photographer has forced their own perspective upon the image. Feelings and facial expressions are fleeting, the world is always moving. That pure photograph, that moment of truth is not truth, but perspective, and your observation of it is not fact, but opinion.
Marcus Aurelius is considered the last “good” emperor of Rome. His Meditations are considered by some to be the ultimate stoic text because the book was never meant to be seen by anyone’s eyes but the creator’s own.
15. “All things are parts of one single system, which is called nature; the individual life is good when it is in harmony with nature.” – Zeno of Citium
You can struggle against it, but nature won’t change for you.
16. “All art is but imitation of nature.” – Seneca
Worth pondering. I can certainly understand this perspective, but I’m not sure I agree with it.
17. “Whether the universe is a concourse of atoms, or nature is a system, let this first be established: that I am a part of the whole that is governed by nature; next, that I stand in some intimate connection with other kindred parts.” – Marcus Aurelius
How are you connected to the trail? To the shoes on your feet? To the fresh air? Feel it. Take it in.
18. “Is any man afraid of change? What can take place without change? What then is more pleasing or more suitable to the universal nature? And can you take a hot bath unless the wood for the fire undergoes a change? And can you be nourished unless the food undergoes a change? And can anything else that is useful be accomplished without change? Do you not see then that for yourself also to change is just the same, and equally necessary for the universal nature?” – Marcus Aurelius
Change is hard. Painful. Destructive. And it’s also necessary.
19. “This is our big mistake: to think we look forward to death. Most of death is already gone. Whatever time has passed is owned by death.” – Seneca
The present is yours, as is an uncertain length of the future. But the past? That no longer belongs to you. Your memories are but fading thoughts at once had been, or may have been, but are no longer.
