Great IdeasLiving well
Peace of mind
Staying calm and steady when things go wrong.
The question
How can a person stay calm and steady when life goes wrong?
How the books answer
Oldest first. Each stop is our own short summary of what the author argued; follow the link to the rung for the whole lesson.
c. 55 BC
Lucretius, On the Nature of Things (in the set: The Way Things Are)
Lucretius writes his poem to free readers from fear. If we understand that the world is made of atoms moving by natural laws, he argues, we will stop fearing angry gods and death. A calm mind comes from knowing how nature works.
c. AD 108 (taken down by his student Arrian)
Epictetus, The Discourses
Epictetus says we are upset not by things but by our judgments about them. So the key is to sort what is up to us, our choices and opinions, from what is not. If someone puts him in chains, he says, they can bind his leg but not his will.
“Does any man then hinder me from going with smiles and cheerfulness and contentment?”
c. AD 170–180
Marcus Aurelius, The Meditations
Marcus Aurelius ruled an empire at war, yet he wrote about finding quiet inside himself. People long for a cottage in the country, he says, but a person can retreat into their own mind at any moment. There he reminds himself of what is true and returns to work calmer.
“For nowhere, either with more quiet or more freedom from trouble, does a man retire than into his own soul.”
c. AD 397–400
Augustine of Hippo, The Confessions
Augustine searched for calm in success, friendship and philosophy, but his heart stayed restless. He finds peace, he writes, only when he turns to God. For him, a quiet mind is not something we make for ourselves but something we receive.
1580–1595
Michel de Montaigne, Essays
Montaigne retired to a tower full of books to sit with his own thoughts. He found his mind running off like a wild horse, so he started writing to watch it. His calm comes from honest self-knowledge, accepting his limits and taking life as it comes.
1670 (published after his death)
Blaise Pascal, Pensées (Thoughts)
Pascal notices that people rush into games, hunting and busy work to avoid thinking about themselves. Much of our trouble, he says, comes from not being able to sit quietly in a room. For Pascal, real peace comes only when we face the big questions, and he believed it was found in God.
“Let us endeavour, then, to think well; this is the principle of morality.”
1677 (published after his death)
Baruch Spinoza, Ethics, Demonstrated in Geometrical Order
Spinoza calls it bondage when our emotions run us. The way out, he argues, is to understand the causes of what we feel, because a feeling we understand clearly loses its grip. He admits this path is hard but says it can be found.
“But all things excellent are as difficult as they are rare.”
For young readers
Everyone gets upset sometimes: when a game is lost, a tower falls down or a friend is mean. Peace of mind means being able to calm down and think clearly again.
A Greek teacher named Epictetus had a good trick. Ask: is this in my control? You can't control the rain on your picnic day, but you can choose to play a board game indoors instead. When we stop fighting what we can't change, we feel calmer.
Talk about it
- What helps you calm down when you are upset?
- Make two lists: things in your control today, and things that aren't.
- Marcus Aurelius says you can retreat into your own mind. What would your quiet place look like?
- Pascal says people stay busy to avoid thinking. Is it hard for you to sit quietly for five minutes? Try it together.
- Is being calm the same as not caring?
Where else on the site
- Self-Control and Indulgence
- You Can't Remember What You Didn't Notice
- Sleep On It
- Answering a Rude Remark
Every rung tagged with this idea:
These pages are our own short synthesis, written for families. They were inspired by Mortimer J. Adler's Syntopicon, the index of great ideas in volumes 1 and 2 of Great Books of the Western World, but the questions, summaries and groupings are ours, not the Syntopicon's. Short excerpts come from public-domain translations, credited where they appear.