How to Live a Good a Life - Stoic Wisdom & the Founding Fathers - Highlights - JEFFREY ROSEN

""That idea of planting seeds for future generations came from the Tusculan Disputations. There’s something especially empowering about Cicero. And it's very striking that Thomas Jefferson and John Adams and so many in the Founding Era viewed this manual about overcoming grief as the definition for achieving happiness. And I think it's because it's a philosophy of self-mastery, self-improvement, and self-empowerment. The habits of deep reading are themselves the most tangible expression of the virtues. In that sense, the virtue of industry is the one that I still take with me. So many of the Founders did, too. They fell short of so many virtues, as we all do every day. But it was the habits of deep reading and writing, keeping up a consistent daily schedule, and setting aside time for deep reading and writing that they maintained until the end of their lives."