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Standard ebooks is a great place to get free books. They take Project Gutenberg books and tidy then up, improve the formatting for modern e-readers and add nicer covers.
Standard Ebooks is a great place for downloading public domain books that have been properly formatted by a huge volunteer user base.
Think Project Guttemberg, but with more quality than most print books you’ve paid for.
https://standardebooks.org/ definitely belongs on this list. They do amazing work cleaning up and producing excellent retail-quality copies of public domain works adhering to the most modern ebook standards.
I've been devouring their library since I found them on this subreddit a couple of weeks ago.
There's a chapter of the Discourses of Epictetus titled "On Anxiety". It includes a quote I like to remember:
>For this reason when Zeno was going to meet Antigonus, he was not anxious, for Antigonus had no power over any of the things which Zeno admired; and Zeno did not care for those things over which Antigonus had power. But Antigonus was anxious when he was going to meet Zeno, for he wished to please Zeno; but this was a thing external (out of his power). But Zeno did not want to please Antigonus; for no man who is skilled in any art wishes to please one who has no such skill.
If you're anxious when you're giving a presentation, it means you're nervous about getting something that isn't in your control. It could be acceptance or praise from your audience, or maybe a good grade from your teacher. The Stoic advice would be to focus on your own actions, and accept whatever results you get without attaching too much value to them- of course if you prepare well, you'll probably get positive results too.
But you'll probably need to practice this all the time, not just when you're already anxious - to think this through before you assent to the impression that gives you anxiety, not after.
Got to respect the GOAT. However I also like the ethos of Standard Ebooks. There is a section on the site on how they distinguish themselves from Project Gutenberg.
A totally legal site that a lot of people seem to miss, takes Project Gutenberg transcriptions and formats it in a way that makes it look better for e-book standards, that is standardebooks.org/ebooks.
Hi folks, I'm the guy leading the project. Glad to see people are enjoying all of our hard work. I can answer any questions you might have, and we're always looking for talented new contributors to help make great ebooks for everyone. If you're interested in ebooks check out our contributors section: https://standardebooks.org/contribute/
Hi folks, I'm the guy who runs Standard Ebooks. Glad to hear you all are liking the project! I can answer any questions you might have. We're always looking for contributors too, even if it's something as small as alerting us to a typo. Happy reading! :)
Pan is violently amoral in the same way as a young, rambunctious child is. Very little empathy, and everything is a game. He at minimum tries to kill pirates, though it's hard to know how serious he is about it. (Kids 'kill' each other during play all of the time.)
But he's not going around murdering kids. That's entirely modern edge.
The novel is really fun and I'd recommend it. The narration has a funny, sarcastic sense of humor.
I think the point of Stoic acceptance is happiness, cheerfulness, and contentment, rather than neutrality.
>This is the rod of Hermes: "Touch with it what you please," as the saying is. "and it will be of gold." I say not so: but bring what you please, and I will make it good. Bring disease, bring death, bring poverty, bring abuse, bring trial on capital charges: all these things through the rod of Hermes shall be made profitable. "What will you do with death?" Why, what else than that it shall do you honour, or that it shall show you by act through it, what a man is who follows the will of nature?
>"What will you do with disease?" I will show its nature, I will be conspicuous in, it, I will be firm, I will be happy, I will not flatter the physician, I will not wish to die. What else do you seek? Whatever you shall give me, I will make it happy, fortunate, honoured, a thing which a man shall seek.
https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/epictetus/discourses/george-long/text/book-3#chapter-3-20
Yes, I agree 100%. I'll add that vanity, greed, and a host of other ills are all born of the same error.
Like you said, experiencing our happiness in terms of comparison with others is madness. We can go a half-step further and say that experiencing our happiness in terms of any external thing is madness. Our happiness properly depends on internal things alone.
>... show me a man who is fashioned according to the doctrines which he utters. Show me a man who is sick and happy, in danger and happy, dying and happy, in exile and happy, in disgrace and happy. Show him: I desire, by the gods, to see a Stoic. ... Let any of you show me a human soul ready to think as God does, and not to blame either God or man, ready not to be disappointed about anything, not to consider himself damaged by anything, not to be angry, not to be envious, not to be jealous...
https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/epictetus/discourses/george-long/text/book-2#chapter-2-19
Three things, from Discourses 2:17:
>Give me one young man who has come to the school with this intention, who is become a champion for this matter and says, “I give up everything else, and it is enough for me if it shall ever be in my power to pass my life free from hindrance and free from trouble, and to stretch out (present) my neck to all things like a free man, and to look up to heaven as a friend of God and fear nothing that can happen.” Let any of you point out such a man that I may say, “Come, young man, into the possession of that which is your own, for it is your destiny to adorn philosophy: yours are these possessions, yours these books, yours these discourses.”
>Then when he shall have labored sufficiently and exercised himself in this part of the matter, let him come to me again and say, “I desire to be free from passion and free from perturbation; and I wish as a pious man and a philosopher and a diligent person to know what is my duty to the gods, what to my parents, what to my brothers, what to my country, what to strangers.” (I say) “Come also to the second matter: this also is yours.”
>“But I have now sufficiently studied the second part also, and I would gladly be secure and unshaken, and not only when I am awake, but also when I am asleep, and when I am filled with wine, and when I am melancholy.” Man, you are a god, you have great designs.
Probably not very helpful, though.
In all seriousness, you need to read and understand, and practice in real life. Here are some excellent starting points:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Stoicism/comments/pimttg/weekly_faq_link_introduction_beginners_qa_and/
Adding to this it's on project Gutenberg. Another good one is The enchiridion by Epictetus. Both of them are available in standard e-books which have great typography to read on mobile.
The public domain translation by George Long is little archaic and one by Hays or Hammond is recommended one. Also a shout out to r/stoicism.
Meditations : https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/marcus-aurelius/meditations/george-long
The Enchiridion : https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/epictetus/the-enchiridion/elizabeth-carter
Read meditations online : http://www.gutenberg.org/files/2680/2680-h/2680-h.htm
Some of my favorites from Hays translation :
- Think of yourself as dead. You have lived your life. Now take what’s left and live it properly.
- You want praise from people who kick themselves every fifteen minutes, the approval of people who despise themselves. (Is it a sign of self-respect to regret nearly everything you do?)
- People try to get away from it all—to the country, to the beach, to the mountains. You always wish that you could too. Which is idiotic: you can get away from it anytime you like. By going within. Nowhere you can go is more peaceful—more free of interruptions—than your own soul.
- People find pleasure in different ways. I find it in keeping my mind clear. In not turning away from people or the things that happen to them. In accepting and welcoming everything I see. In treating each thing as it deserves.
- It’s silly to try to escape other people’s faults. They are inescapable. Just try to escape your own.
- Perfection of character: to live your last day, every day, without frenzy, or sloth, or pretense.
- You’ve given aid and they’ve received it. And yet, like an idiot, you keep holding out for more: to be credited with a Good Deed, to be repaid in kind. Why?
- The tranquillity that comes when you stop caring what they say. Or think, or do. Only what you do.
It is a magnificent book.
Here's a different translation (George Long) of your Quote 2, it helps to compare different versions sometimes:
>I will show you this first in the matter of assent. Can any man hinder you from assenting to the truth? No man can. Can any man compel you to receive what is false? No man can. You see that in this matter you have the faculty of the will free from hindrance, free from compulsion, unimpeded." Well, then, in the matter of desire and pursuit of an object, is it otherwise? And what can overcome pursuit except another pursuit? And what can overcome desire and aversion except another desire and aversion? But, you object: "If you place before me the fear of death, you do compel me." No, it is not what is placed before you that compels, but your opinion that it is better to do so-and-so than to die. In this matter, then, it is your opinion that compelled you: that is, will compelled will.
https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/epictetus/discourses/george-long/text/book-1#chapter-1-17
"Moral purpose" and "will" are different ways of expressing the same idea.
Show me your friends, and I'll show you your future.
>If a man has frequent intercourse with others, either for talk, or drinking together, or generally for social purposes, he must either become like them, or change them to his own fashion. For if a man places a piece of quenched charcoal close to a piece that is burning, either the quenched charcoal will quench the other, or the burning charcoal will light that which is quenched. Since, then, the danger is so great, we must cautiously enter into such intimacies with those of the common sort, and remember that it is impossible that a man can keep company with one who is covered with soot without being partaker of the soot himself.
https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/epictetus/discourses/george-long/text/book-3#chapter-3-16
There's a good lecture by Epictetus about this.
>When I see a man anxious, I say: What does this man want? If he did not want something which is not in his power, how could he be anxious? For this reason a lute player when he is singing by himself has no anxiety, but when he enters the theatre, he is anxious even if he has a good voice and plays well on the lute; for he not only wishes to sing well, but also to obtain applause: but this is not in his power. Accordingly, where he has skill, there he has confidence. Bring any single person who knows nothing of music, and the musician does not care for him. But in the matter where a man knows nothing and has not been practiced, there he is anxious. What matter is this? He knows not what a crowd is or what the praise of a crowd is. However he has learned to strike the lowest chord and the highest; but what the praise of the many is, and what power it has in life he neither knows nor has he thought about it. Hence he must of necessity tremble and grow pale. (...)
>For this reason when Zeno was going to meet Antigonus, he was not anxious, for Antigonus had no power over any of the things which Zeno admired; and Zeno did not care for those things over which Antigonus had power. But Antigonus was anxious when he was going to meet Zeno, for he wished to please Zeno; but this was a thing external (out of his power). But Zeno did not want to please Antigonus; for no man who is skilled in any art wishes to please one who has no such skill.
This reminds me about a book I've read recently from Thomas Mann.
Going out, Bashan's owner (Bashan is a pointer) has two options: he can go toward the city or he can head to the fields. If he go towards the city Bashan stops following him, otherwise they go together on long walks where the owner observes and describes the sheer excitement of Bashan, his hunting istincts, his behaviour when he meets potential preys or other dogs.
https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/thomas-mann/bashan-and-i/herman-george-scheffauer
I'm not a dog owner myself, but from your comments it sounds like it would be a great read for you.
Someone was asking how to read Progress and Poverty the other day. My version for Standard Ebooks was just finished, grab it here: <https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/henry-george/progress-and-poverty>. Big thanks for /u/xXxlandvaluetax69xXx for the description.
!ping GEORGIST
>Well, then, it is you who must introduce this consideration into the inquiry, not I; for it is you who know yourself, how much you are worth to yourself, and at what price you sell yourself; for men sell themselves at various prices. ... Only consider at what price you sell your own will; if for no other reason, at least for this, that you sell it not for a small sum.
https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/epictetus/discourses/george-long/text/book-1#chapter-1-2
We mainly use Gutenberg sources, but not always. For example, the Bunin collection I did recently (https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/ivan-bunin/short-fiction/s-s-koteliansky_d-h-lawrence_leonard-woolf_bernard-guilbert-guerney_the-russian-review) was partially Gutenberg, but also from WikiSource and archive.org OCRs.
Dupa ce am citit "The Kingdom of God Is Within You" de Lev Tolstoi am oprit o nunta la 3 saptamani inainte de data fixata, am iesit din sanul bisericii (catolic practicant), am devenit vegetarian si am pornit pe drumul la ce s-ar numi dezvoltare personala. Mi-a schimbat viata destul de mult.
Cartea in limba romana pe care am cumparat-o si am facut-o cadou cel mai des este Conștiența – Anthony de Mello. Am cumparat 35 de exemplare pana acum. Cartea a avut un impact major in ceea ce percep eu ca fiind dezvoltarea mea spirituala.
Gutenberg’s amazing but often has formatting problems. I produce ebooks for Standard Ebooks which takes Gutenberg source texts and adds the missing typography. Obviously we don’t have the breadth of titles that Gutenberg does but there are a few hundred to choose from and more added every month: https://standardebooks.org/
Read The Kingdom Of God Is Within You. It is among the books the prof. Peterson recommends in his list but I don't think people realize just how big of an influence the ideas presented in this book are.
In addition, there's Standard ebooks. It's a volunteer driven non-profit project where anyone can convert a public domain book into a perfectly formatted open source ebook. They have strict regulations about the typography, formatting and spelling errors. They take it so seriously that they typeset their work off scanned copies off the original books
This might be a good time to plug a new hobby/project I'm working on, Standard Ebooks. We take public domain transcriptions from other projects like Project Gutenberg, carefully format them to adhere to strict and modern typography standards, add a nice public domain cover, do an additional proofread to correct errors, and distribute ebook files that take full advantage of modern ereading niceties like ereader-friendly tables of contents and popup endnotes. The result is put in source control so anyone can easily contribute corrections, or create their own ebooks based on our editions. Of course everything we distribute is also free of cost and dedicated to public domain. :)
PG is absolutely fantastic, but for book snobs the quality can be hit or miss. There's tons of great productions there, but depending on who produced a particular ebook, PG books can include uninteresting publisher ephemera like copyright pages from the 1800s, straight quotes instead of curly quotes and other weak typography, uncorrected errors, and poor poetry formatting. And since PG aims to produce "plain vanilla ASCII files", their ebooks usually don't take advantage of modern ereading technology like popup endnotes or even chapter breaks. Standard Ebooks is trying to very slowly improve the wide range of quality at PG and embrace strict, modern standards and new technology.
Another neat part of the Stoic take is that the angering idea of “they could have done otherwise, they didn’t have to do that” is always going to run against reason, because they couldn’t have made any other choice than the choice they made.
> What is the cause of assenting to anything? The fact that it appears to be true. It is not possible then to assent to that which appears not to be true. Why? Because this is the nature of the understanding: to incline to the true, to be dissatisfied with the false, and in matters uncertain to withhold assent. What is the proof of this? Imagine (persuade yourself), if you can, that it is now night. It is not possible. Take away your persuasion that it is day. It is not possible. Persuade yourself or take away your persuasion that the stars are even in number.182 It is impossible. When then any man assents to that which is false, be assured that he did not intend to assent to it as false, for every soul is unwillingly deprived of the truth, as Plato says; but the falsity seemed to him to be true. Well, in acts what have we of the like kind as we have here truth or falsehood? We have the fit and the not fit (duty and not duty), the profitable and the unprofitable, that which is suitable to a person and that which is not, and whatever is like these. Can then a man think that a thing is useful to him and not choose it? He cannot. https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/epictetus/discourses/george-long/text/book-1#chapter-1-28
From the Discourses Book 1 Chapter 2:
>But in order to determine the rational and the irrational, we use not only the estimates of external things, but we consider also what is appropriate to each person. For to one man it is consistent with reason to hold a chamber pot for another, and to look to this only: that if he does not hold it, he will receive stripes, and he will not receive his food; but if he shall hold the pot, he will not suffer anything hard or disagreeable. But to another man not only does the holding of a chamber pot appear intolerable for himself, but intolerable also for him to allow another to do this office for him. If then you ask me whether you should hold the chamber pot or not, I shall say to you that the receiving of food is worth more than the not receiving of it, and the being scourged is a greater indignity than not being scourged; so that if you measure your interests by these things, go and hold the chamber pot. “But this,” you say, “would not be worthy of me.” Well then, it is you who must introduce this consideration into the inquiry, not I; for it is you who know yourself, how much you are worth to yourself, and at what price you sell yourself; for men sell themselves at various prices.
It's entirely up to her to decide if it's appropriate for her to deal with the press or not. Each choice has a different price that needs to be paid. For example dealing with media means you start to become a celebrity - this isn't a path everyone is interested in.
Try https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/bram-stoker/dracula. I haven't read it, but Standard Ebooks claims to have the highest standards for converting out-of-copyright books. I agree that there are some bad ebooks on Amazon (e.g. I recently read one that seemed to be a raw, uncorrected OCR job), and I don't know how to separate the good ones from the bad ones. I'll try Gutenberg and Standard Ebooks more in the future. You might also try your local library: I assume they only buy from reputable publishers.
You may also want to try Standard ebooks.
>Standard Ebooks takes ebooks from sources like Project Gutenberg, formats and typesets them using a carefully designed and professional-grade style manual, lightly modernizes them, fully proofreads and corrects them, and then builds them to create a new edition that takes advantage of state-of-the-art ereader and browser technology.
If you want the same but in a much better format, here is the Standard Ebooks version.
You can read it in about 2 hours, it's definitely worth it!
Not sure if the same version, but there is one with a lot of words sticked together. Would recommend Standard Ebooks version Meditations
/u/casu-marzu's summary aside, it's kind of difficult to describe what it's about. I spent most of the book going, "What!? Also, what!?" Even the police officer thing is introduced as an unexpected twist.
Definitely read the book, though. I think I've seen it described as a surrealist thriller, and that's probably about the most accurate description I can think of.
If you do ebooks, you should know that Standard Ebooks has a very good copy available for free download.
The Stoics said that emotions and beliefs were tightly coupled together, and one source says that they saw them as actually being the same thing. One way to look at it is to say that an emotion is the feeling of being aware of a belief.
Our beliefs, in turn, are derived from our previous beliefs, and this ties in directly to what you've just said; our feelings, based on our prior beliefs, influence our current beliefs.
If I get bitten by a dog, I'll believe that dogs will bite. The next time I see a dog, a fearful emotion will accompany my newly-triggered awareness of this belief. This feeling will color everything I see and will likely lead me to further error.
This is why false beliefs are especially harmful to us, not only for the damage they directly cause on their own, but also because they fool us into assenting to new false beliefs, and the mess grows like a cancer.
The flip side of this is that correct beliefs have the same power, leading us to adopt additional correct beliefs as we go.
>Now reason, for what purpose has it been given by nature? For the right use of appearances. What is it then itself? A system of certain appearances. So by its nature it has the faculty of contemplating itself so. Again, sound sense, for the contemplation of what things does it belong to us? Good and evil, and things which are neither. What is it then itself? Good. And want of sense, what is it? Evil. Do you see then that good sense necessarily contemplates both itself and the opposite? For this reason it is the chief and the first work of a philosopher to examine appearances, and to distinguish them, and to admit none without examination.
https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/epictetus/discourses/george-long/text/book-1#chapter-1-20
Yep, that's why I mentioned it relies on people contributing. They've got a nice set of tools for automating a large part of converting to their standard but still requires people going through and manually fixing anything that doesn't get converted I imagine and to proof-read in case of errors in the transcription.
There's a nice step-by-step guide on their website for the more technically-inclined.
I recommend people check out standardebooks.org when they're after public domain stuff. Gutenberg is good as a repository but often the stuff there is just a scan, really poor OCR scan, poorly formatted etc so the experience is pretty terrible. Standard ebooks have been reviewed by volunteers and fixed up so there's no typos, they format it so it reads well on devices, they give it a cover, title page etc.
It is not very difficult to find non-drm ebooks online. Library Genesis is on good source especially for study books and technical stuff. Standard ebooks is another place with very good quality typesetting etc., but their selection is quite small. Then there is of course always Project Gutenberg. I remember seeing some websites in Tor network that were offering newer books with high quality typesetting.
Whatever you do, please don't pay any money for DRM'd books. It is better to break the law and download from some of the illegal websites than to have your money support unethical business practices.
>But now, when it is in our power to look after one thing, and to attach ourselves to it, we prefer to look after many things, and to be bound to many things, to the body and to property, and to brother and to friend, and to child and to slave. Since, then, we are bound to many things, we are depressed by them and dragged down. For this reason, when the weather is not fit for sailing, we sit down and torment ourselves, and continually look out to see what wind is blowing. "It is north." What is that to us? "When will the west wind blow?" When it shall choose, my good man, or when it shall please AEolus; for God has not made you the manager of the winds, but AEolus. What then? We must make the best use that we can of the things which are in our power, and use the rest according to their nature. What is their nature then? As God may please.
https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/epictetus/discourses/george-long/text/book-1#chapter-1-1
>Tolkien I don't think is known for this, and I'm not sure if or what horror influences he had on his writing, but the man has some serious horror chops for an English professor and good instincts for writing what, in any other context, would be called Lovecraftian horror; he writes some downright terrifying and unnerving things that play upon fear of the unknown. Things less have minds of their own as they did in the old animistic framework, but they can be cursed by events that call to ancient, eldritch evils to abide there. And one of the major reasons why it works is because he gives just a taste of unknowable, nameless fear, and then implies more.
Being a professor at an English university is no barrier to writing very powerful horror fiction. Many of M. R. James’ short stories are in the public domain and contain unexpectedly potent kicks.
Also check https://standardebooks.org/ :
>Standard Ebooks is a volunteer driven, not-for-profit project that produces new editions of public domain ebooks that are lovingly formatted, open source, and free. /u/Troothdotcom
Standard Ebooks is a fantastic resource for public-domain literature. It builds off of Project Gutenberg ebooks by making the formatting cleaner and the proofreading and typography more consistent. Highly recommend!
Check this out:
>why then are we angry with the many? They are thieves and robbers, you may say. What do you mean by thieves and robbers? They are mistaken about good and evil. Ought we then to be angry with them, or to pity them? But show them their error, and you will see how they desist from their errors. If they do not see their errors, they have nothing superior to their present opinion.
>Ought not then this robber and this adulterer to be destroyed? By no means say so, but speak rather in this way: This man who has been mistaken and deceived about the most important things, and blinded, not in the faculty of vision which distinguishes white and black, but in the faculty which distinguishes good and bad, should we not destroy him? If you speak thus, you will see how inhuman this is which you say, and that it is just as if you would say, “Ought we not to destroy this blind and deaf man?” But if the greatest harm is the privation of the greatest things, and the greatest thing in every man is the will or choice such as it ought to be, and a man is deprived of this will, why are you also angry with him? Man, you ought not to be affected contrary to nature by the bad things of another. Pity him rather: drop this readiness to be offended and to hate, and these words which the many utter: “these accursed and odious fellows.” How have you been made so wise at once? and how are you so peevish? Why then are we angry?
https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/epictetus/discourses/george-long/text/book-1#chapter-1-18
Not only that, it's even been formatted on standard ebooks. (They take their sources from project gutenberg and format them better for e-readers).
https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/leo-tolstoy/war-and-peace/louise-maude_aylmer-maude
In theory, Libertarianism results in no freedom, because you're just obligated to sign a contract giving up all your rights in order to obtain employment or buy food.
In practice, Libertarians are just Republicans who use slightly different arguments to justify their political opinions.
I suggest you read the book The Jungle by Upton Sinclair, which is a good description of what life was like in the US in 1906 before strong government regulation. It gets a lot of attention for its descriptions of unsafe food handling, but it goes into some detail about abusive contracts, including how lawyers were paid by landlords to give tenants misleading information about the contracts they were signing.
Bonus Edit: I should note that "Libertarian" used to describe a much more diverse set of beliefs, including Left-Libertarianism which basically tries to maximize personal freedom while understanding the above problems with people who have more power being able to force those with less into unfair contracts. But today we only have Right-Libertarians who vote alongside Conservatives.
Each book's page has a link for the azw (kindle) file.
eg https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/okakura-kakuzo/the-book-of-tea has four formats including the azw2.
Download the ones you want on your computer.
Here's a guide to various ways of getting the downloaded files onto your kindle from there. I think you can also email the file to your kindle account.
I put together a Wilfred Owen collection as a nicely formatted public domain ebook earlier this year: https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/wilfred-owen/poetry . Would be nice if someone discovers his work through this :)
Standard eBooks has books in the public domain that an individual has fixed and added common editing from sources like Project Guttenberg. You may want to look at this
https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/marcus-aurelius/meditations/george-long
Try reading some M. R. James. Very creepy. Almost never any violence or overt gore (maybe aside from “An Evening’s Entertainment”).
You can download a collection of most of his stories legally and for free here.
I have a kindle paperwhite and have convinced 2 mates to get one. It's small, light, waterproof backlit, all the shit. My only problems with it are the library is region locked which is dumb as fuck and the only physical button on it is in a spot that I tend to rest a finger so I used to turn it off accidentally sometimes.
Found https://standardebooks.org/ebooks from a reddit post and there's other ways to pirate what you want so I ended up getting around the first problem
One reason is that philosophy teaches intellectual humility. Another is that philosophers have made great inroads into unpacking complex problems and ruling out some highly flawed arguments that you can then avoid.
I'd suggest trying something like Bertrand Russell's The Problems of Philosophy to get a feel for what more modern philosophy can be like. It's a compilation of short essays on a wide range of topics, and concluded with a wonderful essay called The Value of Philosophy, which might more directly answer your question. Also: it's free. Others can likely recommend many other excellent texts by philosophers that you might find can help improve your thinking.
Yes.
>Of these topics the chief and the most urgent is that which relates to the affects [perturbations]; for an affect is produced in no other way than by a failing to obtain that which a man desires or a falling into that which a man would wish to avoid. This is that which brings in perturbations, disorders, bad fortune, misfortunes, sorrows, lamentations and envy; that which makes men envious and jealous; and by these causes we are unable even to listen to the precepts of reason.
Epictetus straight-up says (here and elsewhere) that the sole cause of human distress is this, and this alone.
1:27:
>For the origin of perturbation is this, to wish for something, and that this should not happen. Therefore if I am able to change externals according to my wish, I change them; but if I cannot, I am ready to tear out the eyes of him who hinders me. For the nature of man is not to endure to be deprived of the good, and not to endure the falling into the evil. Then, at last, when I am neither able to change circumstances nor to tear out the eyes of him who hinders me, I sit down and groan, and abuse whom I can, Zeus and the rest of the gods.
Reminds me of this excerpt from Discourses 4.12 (it’s worth reading the full chapter though):
> What then? Is it possible to be free from fault altogether? No, that cannot be achieved, but it is possible ever to be intent upon avoiding faults. For we must be satisfied, if we succeed in escaping at least a few faults by never relaxing our attention. 20. But now, when you say, “Tomorrow I will pay attention,” I would have you know that this is what you are saying: “Today I will be shameless, tactless, abject; it will be in the power of other men to grieve me; I will get angry today, I will give way to envy.” Just see all the evils that you are allowing yourself! But if it is good for you to pay attention tomorrow, how much better is it today! If it is to your interest tomorrow, it is much more so today, that you may be able to do the same tomorrow also, and not put it off again, this time to the day after tomorrow.
Worth checking out Discourses 1.18 and 1.28: https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/epictetus/discourses/george-long/text
The Stoics argued that money, reputation, and similar things are not good, and that misunderstanding this and attaching improper significance to these things leads inevitably to disturbance when they are threatened or heaped on. They also argued that wrongdoers act out of ignorance and suffer from a sort of moral blindness. All this is easier said than done, but the general idea is that the thirst for revenge and anger can be combated by thinking reasonably. Wish you well, I’m sure it’s tough
We all get there our own way. I've been getting Kindle books through my library, jeez, almost eight years I think. They go through an app called Overdrive.
I also like using Play Books. I find things on archive.org that I like and download it as EPUB and upload it to Play Books. (Kindle doesn't handle PDF and EPUB well.) The only problem is these books are scanned and might have problems.
Standard Ebooks is a great site for properly-formatted public domain books. They use volunteers to properly format books with linked tables of contents, etc. Even free Kindle books on the public domain are based on scans. These are really nice. You do have to sideload them in for Kindle. I do EPUB and send it to Play Books.
I ran a Spirit of the Century campaign based in a Hollow Earth scenario. For inspiration I used <em>Lands of Mystery</em>, an old supplement for Hero Games' Justice Inc. pulp RPG. It has lots of system agnostic advice and ideas for running what it called "Lost World Romance" games, along with its own sample Lost World.
Might also be worth looking at some of the original old pulp source material:
Funny you talk about this as I have been deleting a ton of public domain books from my Kindle. Now, they were all free, so throwing money away is not an issue here. But with 500 books on there, I realised I am not going to get through them all. Also, when it comes to public domain reading, I like this site: https://standardebooks.org/
They are all public domain books, but you can sideload them for Kindle or download the EPUB and then upload to Play Books, which is what I do. The nice thing about Standard Ebooks is they are all professionally formatted and have cover art. It is a non-profit and occasionally I throw a fiver because I have read a lot on there. Their books have replaced the simple digital scans (often error prone) for the Kindle digital books.
If you are like me and have sent documents to Kindle, you can also use the permanent deletion option for those. So if you use the dropdown and choose "docs," any PDFs or Word docs you sent will appear. I find Play Books handles PDFs better than the Kindle app for Android (they are impossible on a Kindle device).
I can't imagine anyone needing to free up storage on a Kindle or a device with the app. You'd have to have thousands of books on there.
I do use the permanently delete option. Again, not for anything I've paid for, but I have used it.
I don't disagree, but I remembered this and smiled:
>... how can I become free?" For he is free to whom everything happens according, to his will, and whom no man can hinder. "What then, is freedom madness?" Certainly not: for madness and freedom do not consist. "But," you say, "I would have everything result just as I like, and in whatever way I like." You are mad, you are beside yourself. Do you not know that freedom is a noble and valuable thing? But for me inconsiderately to wish for things to happen as I inconsiderately like, this appears to be not only not noble, but even most base. For how do we proceed in the matter of writing? Do I wish to write the name of Dion as I choose? No, but I am taught to choose to write it as it ought to be written. And how with respect to music? In the same manner. And what universally in every art or science? Just the same. If it were not so, it would be of no value to know anything, if knowledge were adapted to every man's whim. Is it, then, in this alone, in this which is the greatest and the chief thing, I mean freedom, that I am permitted to will inconsiderately? By no means; but to be instructed is this, to learn to wish that everything may happen as it does.
I'm not sure specifically what you mean, but there are a plethora of sites out there that provide downloads of Public Domain works - My favourite is https://standardebooks.org/ebooks ; You can build up a decent library of ebooks of a commercial quality for free.
Somewhere like Project Gutenburg (https://www.gutenberg.org/) will have a much larger selection in terms of quantity, but the quality, formatting and curation is somewhat hit-and-miss.
No they aren’t. Try Standard Ebooks instead. Only benefit of Amazon Classics is being able to read and listen to the audiobook because of Whispersync. I prefer Standard Ebooks.
The most affordable books are free: https://standardebooks.org/
An earlier post on same topic.
Meditations, by Marcus Aurelius, an example.
It's also under public domain. The translation is little archaic and the one by Gregory Hays is a recommended one. Also a shout-out to r/stoicism
https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/marcus-aurelius/meditations/george-long
I'm a big fan of Meditations, one of my favorite books. You can download it for free from my project, Standard Ebooks: https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/marcus-aurelius/meditations/george-long
You might also like The Enchiridion, another short and interesting "manual" of Stoicism: https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/epictetus/the-enchiridion/elizabeth-carter
Also check out Seneca's Dialogues, which are much longer but also dive deep into Stoic philosophy: https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/seneca/dialogues/aubrey-stewart
This may be of interest; Epictetus discusses demeaning work and defying what authority figures may want from us: https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/epictetus/discourses/george-long/text/book-1#chapter-1-2
Use this site for high quality public domain and free ebooks. Unfortunately not all books on Project Gutenberg have a high quality. Standard Ebooks fixes these books and uploads them.
Project Gutenberg is the vital first step.
In my opinion, the second step is Standard Ebooks:
>The Standard Ebooks project is a volunteer driven, not-for-profit effort to produce a collection of high quality, carefully formatted, accessible, open source, and free public domain ebooks that meet or exceed the quality of commercially produced ebooks. The text and cover art in our ebooks is already believed to be in the public domain, and Standard Ebook dedicates its own work to the public domain, thus releasing whole ebooks files themselves into the public domain.
>
>... we aim to make free public domain ebooks that are carefully typeset, cleaned of ancient and irrelevant ephemera, take full advantage of modern ereading technology, are formatted according to a detailed style guide, and that are each held to a standard of quality and internal consistency. For technically-inclined readers, Standard Ebooks conform to a rigorous coding style, are completely open source, and are hosted on Github, so anyone can contribute corrections or improvements easily and directly without having to deal with baroque forums or opaque processes.
Hope this helps.
XHTML! For an example, I produced a nice edition of Flatland: https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/edwin-a-abbott/flatland . This has 22 chapters and a bunch of ancillary sections (dedication, preface, etc). Here’s the markup for chapter 1: https://github.com/standardebooks/edwin-a-abbott_flatland/blob/master/src/epub/text/chapter-1.xhtml . Nothing particularly different from a standard basic webpage apart from the epub namespacing and semantic attributes. The styling is all done with standard CSS too. Here’s the book specific rules for Flatland: https://github.com/standardebooks/edwin-a-abbott_flatland/blob/master/src/epub/css/local.css
Sounds like a good idea! Have you posted on their mailing list?
I could give the first few steps a try this evening if you like. The instructions are here: https://standardebooks.org/contribute/producers
Open Library has a good selection, though I imagine that their formatting (scanned texts) can be challenging for reading on devices that aren't a desktop. Standard Ebooks has the opposite problem: great format, limited selection.
if you're into classics at all, project gutenberg is a great resource for free ebooks, and https://standardebooks.org/ has really nice, polished versions of many project gutenberg books.
Nice complement:
>Standard Ebooks is a volunteer-driven effort to produce a collection of high quality, carefully formatted, accessible, open source, and free public domain ebooks that meet or exceed the quality of commercially produced ebooks. The text and cover art in our ebooks is already believed to be in the public domain, and Standard Ebooks dedicates its own work to the public domain, thus releasing the entirety of each ebook file into the public domain. All the ebooks we produce are distributed free of cost and free of U.S. copyright restrictions.
Reminds me of his, from Discourses 3:6:
>It is not easy to exhort weak young men; for neither is it easy to hold cheese with a hook. But those who have a good natural disposition, even if you try to turn them aside, cling still more to reason.
>Wherefore Rufus generally attempted to discourage, and he used this method as a test of those who had a good natural disposition and those who had not. "For," it was his habit to say, "as a stone, if you cast it upward, will be brought down to the earth by its own nature, so the man whose mind is naturally good, the more you repel him, the more he turns toward that to which he is naturally inclined."
He lived in Nexø on Bornholm, and took it as an additional surname. (I put together a free nice edition of his Pelle the Conqueror if you want to read anything he wrote: https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/martin-andersen-nexo/pelle-the-conqueror/jessie-muir_bernard-miall)
Maybe standard ebooks? They basically take books from Project Gutenberg and typeset/proofread them to publication quality. Obviously this takes a lot of time do they only have really famous stuff.
> The beginning of philosophy, to him at least who enters on it in the right way and by the door, is a consciousness of his own weakness and inability about necessary things… Observe: this is the beginning of philosophy, a perception of the disagreement of men with one another, and an inquiry into the cause of the disagreement, and a condemnation and distrust of that which only “seems,” and a certain investigation of that which “seems” whether it “seems” rightly, and a discovery of some rule (κανόνος), as we have discovered a balance in the determination of weights, and a carpenter’s rule (or square) in the case of straight and crooked things.—This is the beginning of philosophy…https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/epictetus/discourses/george-long/text/book-2#chapter-2-11
1.4, On Progress, is also interesting: https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/epictetus/discourses/george-long/text/book-1#chapter-1-4
The Cynics were a pretty hardcore group, that saw social norms and material goods as being inconsistent with human nature. They basically lived homeless, exposed to the elements, and often expressed a contemptuous attitude towards regular people. Epictetus admired them, but cautioned his students that it was a very challenging path to pursue.
https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/epictetus/discourses/george-long/text/book-3#chapter-3-22
The wikipedia chapters on the famous Cynics are very much worth reading, and you can follow all the links and be there for quite some time. Here's a good place to start:
No problem. Sorry I couldn't figure it out. If you're using the epub to throw onto an ereader, you can use a program like Sigil to combine them. And yes, the formatting can be quite nice and sometimes they have multiple editions compared to Gutenberg or editor annotations. If you read older books like these, you might also find the Standard Ebooks project interesting.
It's a euro jester dancing. There is a book that is public domain if you want to know more: https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/rafael-sabatini/scaramouche
It's DeDRM_tools. It more or less works by having you open the DRMed book in the official tool for the format (Kindle reader or Adobe Digital Editions) and then it grabs a decrypted copy from the official program.
For future purchases, I recommend specifically looking for DRM-free books and asking the publisher and author^(0) for them if you can't find anything. eBooks.com has a pretty good collection of DRM-free books, and each book's info page has a section explicitly describing the presence or absence of DRM for the book. Standard Ebooks is a nice resource for classic, out-of-copyright books. All of its content is volunteer-prepared, carefully and aesthetically formatted, and DRM-free.
^(0)The author typically doesn't have a lot of say in DRM use, unless they're particularly high-profile, but it can be useful to give them the feedback that it's something people are looking for. Just don't be put off if the author says they can't do anything about it.
George Long is my personal favorite but many folks find him old fashioned.
His translation of Discourses is available on-line, too:
https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/epictetus/discourses/george-long/text
Gutenberg.org Frankenstein, the e-book, in various formats, for free.
StandardBooks.org Frankenstein, the e-book, in various formats, for free, but "cleaned up".
You're welcome. :)
You can download a free high quality ebook edition of Hadji Murad at Standard Ebooks!
We also just released a collection of all of Tolstoy's short fiction, which we think is the first time they've ever been collected into a single ebook. (Hadji Murad is not included in this one since it's not short.) Check it out :)
If you're talking about the control of actions as in "he was tied down" then the Stoic answer is that even then he has a choice of trying to fight, or accepting this, or thinking about escaping, cursing his captors in his mind etc. There's even a quote about this by Epictetus in the very first chapter of the Discourses:
>Tell me the secret which you possess. I will not, for this is in my power. But I will put you in chains. Man, what are you talking about? Me in chains? You may fetter my leg, but my will not even Zeus himself can overpower.
If you mean control of one's actions as in he was suicidal and insane, then that's more difficult. But I believe people like that still have the capability to choose freely - it's just that the information they base their choices on is distorted.
Frankl's book is very heavy, he wrote many descriptions of hardships in the camps. You can always just read some analysis of it. In general his attitude was very similar to what I explained:
>Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms — to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.
I don't know how to solve your issue, but you may have bought a badly-proofread copy of these books - They are both in the public domain, you see, and as such anybody can upload a version and sell it.
You'll certainly be better off getting a good quality free version from here:
I use Overdrive to check out books from my local library. Also, someone mentioned standardebooks.org on another thread a few days ago and I went a little bonkers there. Public domain works similar to Project Gutenberg, but they've taken the time to format and tag the books they've put on there.
Shameless plug, you can download the carefully-formatted ebook for free at Standard Ebooks: https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/arthur-conan-doyle/a-study-in-scarlet
We also have the entire Holmes series for free download as well: https://standardebooks.org/collections/sherlock-holmes/
For the short stories, which are an excellent way to start, try A Scandal in Bohemia and The Speckled Band, along with the rest of the Adventures. You can find them online freely: Kindle/e-reader: https://standardebooks.org/collections/sherlock-holmes/
Text: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1661/1661-h/1661-h.htm
I'd make a plug for Standard Ebooks, has very high-quality ebooks. Not as easy to download as from the Kindle store, but since people are recommending Calibre anyway, they're easy enough.
Open Library has legal, free scanned books, most of which are at least a decade old, but which still make up a pretty impressive SFF catalog. Fair warning, though. Some of the scans are terrible.
And if you plan to read anything from the Project Gutenberg library, as u/sailorfish27 suggested, you should check to see if Standard Ebooks has done one of their much nicer, reformatted, e-reader-friendly versions.
The trick is to balance it out. I still buy used books but whenever something goes on sale on Amazon I'll grab it on Kindle instead.
Also sign up to the Tor.com newsletter for a free monthly SFF ebook and check out Standard Ebooks for well polished ebook versions of public domain stufd
Did you use the instructions in our How to use our ebooks page? If you transfered using Calibre, all bets are off. Generally the best way to do it is with a USB cable and copying files with your OS's file explorer program.
Our ebooks are designed to be transfered in that way. Calibre often makes its own silent change to ebook formats when transferring to different kinds of devices, and so Calibre's changes can stomp on our own and introduce errors into the book.
Not too long ago, two of my dogs and I were ambushed by a massive Rottweiler. The lady left her fence gate open and the behemoth charged as soon as he saw us walking past. Long story short, there was a lot of commotion, but hardly any injuries. I don’t think the lady’s dog wanted to fight or even knew how. There was certainly no reason to be angry at the dog, and neither was there reason to be angry with the woman, who was guilty of nothing other than a lapse of judgment. Truly, it’s the same way even with people who intentionally shirk their responsibilities. Poor judgment.
Epictetus’ Discourses contains two chapters on the topic of being angry at wrongdoers, 1.18 and 1.28; I think they’re worth checking out: https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/epictetus/discourses/george-long/text
Donald Robertson has a bunch of material on anger as well, for a modern treatment.
In a word, anger relies on unfounded judgments, for example that the wrongdoer could choose differently than they do, in fact, choose, or that their wrongdoing is an actual evil for me. We can challenge these judgments with reason, and by refining them we find relief.
That’s tough. It sounds like the tension comes from vacillating judgments:
- this is my station. I am performing my duty (well).
doesn’t fit well with:
- I desire that this is not my station. I am performing someone else’s duty, or else I am performing poorly.
Frustration in general comes from judgments that run up against each other, when what we would like to be the case departs from what must be the case. I’m sure this is easier for me to say, but I think it would be wonderful if you were able to find your carrying out your duties and your care and respect for your grandparents as actually good and morally beautiful things that benefit you, since being admirable is surely a good thing, while the standoffishness of your family only harms their own selves. This doesn’t mean ignoring issues—maybe it makes sense to bring something up, or to seek some kind of help; what it does mean, though, is that, and please excuse the grotesque language here, your own inner radiance has the ability to brighten up the situation. As to the question of whether you’ve chosen wrongly, I think it’s worth dismissing. We should invite caution in our judgments, but we should also not become convinced that the mere utterance of criticism makes that criticism true. For this, we ought to develop our own reasoning skills, learning how to avoid contradiction, since every error involves contradiction.
It’s out of copyright and freely available at places like Gutenberg.org, although I personally prefer the free reformatted and better spellchecked version over at StandardEbooks.
You're working hard and paying attention - that's good.
My guess is that your discomfort comes from a common misunderstanding of the idea of Stoic indifference. As crazy as it sounds, Stoics do not feel indifferent towords external things.
Most folks understand that external things are neither good nor bad, in and off themselves, it's how they are used that matters. For example, a hammer can be used to build a house or commit a murder - the hammer itself is morally neutral.
the translators have chosen the word 'indifferent' to mean 'morally neutral' in this sense, and this causes no end of confusion. People naturally understand this to mean that we should feel indifferently towards the indifferent things, but that's not the case at all.
Going back to the hammer example - and I'm quoing Epictetus here directly - things themselves are indifferent, but the use of them is not indifferent. Stoics care about stuff and work hard for it.
So how do we balance the idea that externals aren't good or bad, and yet still care about them? the link goes to a whole chapter on just that topic. the short answer is that we can want things and care about things without needing them to be happy; this sets us free. We can happily work towards something and be happy right now, instead of waiting to be happy after we get it.
If I want a donut, I can go to get one. Maybe I find one, eat it, am satisfied, and now I don't want a donut anymore. Maybe I learn that the donuts are gone and getting one means a long drive that's not worth the trouble. Either way, it ends with me not wanting the reality of a donut any more, and I focus on the next thing I most want instead. We get to constantly pursue what we want, without getting hung up on anything. It's us that matters, not the stuff itself.
I have an older Sony e-reader. I usually take it on flights because it's lighter than most books I read.
You might want to check Standard Ebooks, they are Project Gutenberg books (so completely free) except properly formatted.
I like that.
Michael Trembley pointed out that our ruling faculty is itself made up of impressions:
>Now reason, for what purpose has it been given by nature? For the right use of appearances. What is it then itself? A system (combination) of certain appearances.
https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/epictetus/discourses/george-long/text/book-1#chapter-1-20
Getting just a touch more Stoic about this, vice, in the Stoic view, is literally false belief.
Having the wrong idea about reality, and then feeling bad (or worse, choosing badly), is what harms us. It's also the only thing that harms us.
Your core self - your ability to judge, and to choose - remains intact. Your brain might be fuzzy, your body might distract you with discomfort, but you're still you, and still unharmed; you're just in a fuzzy, distracting environment, that's all. We're always in the environment we're in.
You're that core self, you're not your body. If your body is having a rough day it does not mean that you are having a rough day.
>But what says Zeus? "Epictetus, if it were possible, I would have made both your little body and your little property free and not exposed to hindrance. But now be not ignorant of this: this body is not yours, but it is clay finely tempered. And since I was not able to do for you what I have mentioned, I have given you a small portion of us, this faculty of pursuing an object and avoiding it, and the faculty of desire and aversion, and, in a word, the faculty of using the appearances of things; and if you will take care of this faculty and consider it your only possession, you will never be hindered, never meet with impediments; you will not lament, you will not blame, you will not flatter any person."
https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/epictetus/discourses/george-long/text/book-1#chapter-1-1
One of the things I love the most about learning history is finding out how people in the past were so similar in many ways and so different in others. Much of the advice given 1000 years ago in the Hávamál or 2000 years ago in Marcus Aurelius' meditations still holds up today, despite how different those cultures were from ours.
It’s what Suetonius suggested, but he was famous for his unfavourable remarks. Regardless, I’d strongly recommend reading his Lives of the Caesars, it’s highly entertaining because it’s compilation of all the gossips, scandals and slanders concerns the super rich
P. G. Wodehouse is as feel good as you're gonna get, a very good choice! Standard Ebooks have a bunch of his books for free, they're very well produced and typeset.
Try reading some of the free ebooks available here (sorted from shortest to longest). A very nice collection of classic topics: https://standardebooks.org/ebooks?query=&sort=length&view=grid&per-page=24