How Stoicism Shaped 5 World Leaders

George Washington was 11 when his father died and the future president never received a formal education. Washington’s older brother Lawrence married into the Fairfax family, where philosophers like Marcus Aurelius and Plutarch were required reading. That's where Washington learned about Cato the Younger, a Roman philosopher and statesman who chose to commit suicide rather than submit to the dictatorship of Julius Caesar.    

“Cato acted according to principle rather than compromise in any way for his own benefit,” says John Sellars, a philosophy professor at the University of London. “There’s much discussion in ancient texts generally about philosophy not being a matter of just words but also something to be put into practice. Cato did this in the ultimate test. He didn’t just talk about Stoicism—he lived and died according to his Stoic principles.” 

During the long and transformative winter encampment at Valley Forge, Washington tried to motivate his troops by staging a play called Cato, a Tragedy by Joseph Addison. One of Washington’s favorite lines from the play, which he quoted in multiple letters, was this: “Tis not in mortals to command success; but we’ll do more…we’ll deserve it.” 

For Washington, a successful military or political leader needed to cultivate virtues like moral goodness, generosity and courage. These were lessons he absorbed directly from Stoic writers and other classical philosophers, says Sherman. 

“All of ancient Greek and Roman philosophy is about what comes from within,” says Sherman. “It’s not Homeric goodness, which is all about status or what’s sometimes called ‘conspicuous honor.’ The philosophical movement that began with Socrates moved away from conspicuous honor toward inner virtue.” 

Thomas Jefferson was a voracious reader and well-versed in classical philosophy. He identified himself as an “Epicurean,” a follower of the Ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus, who taught that the point of life was to attain pleasure (or tranquility) by limiting both desire and fear. But when friends asked for book recommendations, Jefferson frequently listed works by stoics like Seneca, Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius.  

“These books were readily available and they were really popular,” says Sherman. “Any educated person would have read the Stoics.”  

Proof that Jefferson was inspired by Stoicism is found in his “Canons of Conduct,” lists of practical advice that Jefferson shared (on request) with family and friends. Some of the more familiar axioms include, “Never put off to tomorrow what you can do today,” and “Never spend your money before you have it.”  

But one piece of Jeffersonian advice was a direct reference to something written by Epictetus, a formerly enslaved Roman philosopher whose works inspired Marcus Aurelius. Jefferson cautioned, “Take things always by their smooth handle.” On the surface, the meaning isn’t clear, but that’s because Jefferson is summarizing a longer teaching from Epictetus. 

In the Handbook, Epictetus wrote, “Every event has two handles, one by which it can be carried, and one by which it can’t. If your brother does you wrong, don’t grab it by his wronging, because this is the handle incapable of lifting it. Instead, use the other—that he is your brother, that you were raised together, and then you will have hold of the handle that carries.” 

Sellars explains that the image of the “two handles” is a way of saying that you can look at every situation from a positive or a negative perspective.  

“If someone were in an accident, for instance, they could be very angry that it happened, or very happy that it wasn’t fatal,” says Sellars, author of Lessons in Stoicism: What Ancient Philosophers Teach Us About How to Live. “Epictetus’s point is that this is a choice we all have—to see the positive or focus on the negative. Once we see that this is in our power, we can see that whether we are content or miserable is also in large part up to us.” 

In another of his “canons,” Jefferson wrote, “How much pain have cost us the evils which have never happened!” This meditation on unnecessary suffering caused by worry and anxiety echoes another saying popularized by Epictetus: “Man is not worried by real problems so much as by his imagined anxieties about real problems.” 

Toussaint Louverture was a leading figure in the Haitian Revolution of the late 18th century, in which self-liberated slaves rebelled against French colonial rule. Louverture was born into slavery on a Haitian sugarcane plantation. He became a favorite of the plantation master, who gave Louverture full access to his library. According to some biographers, one of Louverture’s most-prized books was the Discourses of Epictetus.  

“Epictetus was originally a slave from Asia Minor, taken to Rome, who eventually gained his freedom,” says Sellars. “He subsequently moved to Greece to set up a school of philosophy around 100 A.D., and his Discourses are reports of those lectures. Epictetus focused on very practical and psychological topics, which have resonated with readers since. He was especially popular in the 17th and 18th centuries, as well as today.” 

In 1791, more than 100,000 enslaved plantation workers revolted against their French overlords in a rebellion known as the “Night of Fire.” Louverture used this event as an opening to gain favor with the French government and consolidate power in Haiti. In 1801, he helped to craft a new constitution for Haiti, which declared that all inhabitants of the island were “free and French.”  

Threatened by a free Haiti, Napoleon arrested Louverture, who died alone in a French prison. Just a few years later, however, one of Louverture’s generals finished his work and Haiti became the first slavery-free nation in the Americas.  

A student of Epictetus, perhaps Louverture took comfort in the philosopher’s admonition to “make the best of what is in our power and take the rest as it occurs.” Louverture was an imperfect leader, but he used his power to steer Haiti toward independence.  

In 1912, Theodore Roosevelt was shot while campaigning in Chicago for a third term as president. The bullet passed through the pages of a speech tucked into Roosevelt’s suit jacket and lodged in the former president’s chest. But instead of racing to the nearest hospital, the 53-year-old Roosevelt insisted on delivering his speech. 

“It takes more than that to kill a bull moose,” quipped Roosevelt to the crowd of supporters. “I give you my word, I do not care a rap about being shot; not a rap.”  

Roosevelt was an avid reader of Stoic philosophy—he took copies of Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus on his dangerous South American expedition to explore the River of Doubt—and he would have been familiar with this famous line from Meditations: “Choose not to be harmed, and you won’t feel harmed. Don’t feel harmed, and you haven’t been.” 

Even when he was shot, Roosevelt chose not to let it deter him or even upset him.  

“The stoics taught that our emotional lives are determined by the value judgements we make, and so they are—in principle—completely within our control,” says Sellars. “Thus, feeling harmed is a choice. No one can upset you by an insult if you don’t care what they think, or if you interpret their action as a product of their problems rather than a reflection on you. It’s all a matter of interpretation and judgement.” 

The anti-apartheid activist Nelson Mandela spent more than 27 years in prison. Mandela suffered terrible deprivation and isolation in prison, but in other ways the experience strengthened him.  

The journalist Richard Stengel, who collaborated with Mandela on his autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom, wrote, “Prison was his great teacher. It burned away a lot of his character, a lot of the youthful impulsiveness and recklessness, and taught him incredible self-control, because in prison that was all he could control.” 

Books were hard to come by in prison, but some accounts say that Mandela got his hands on a copy of Meditations. Either way, Mandela absorbed the stoic principle known as the “dichotomy of control,” which teaches that all we can really control are our own thoughts and actions—everything else is outside of our control, even our own bodies.  

Mandela’s favorite poem was “Invictus” by William Ernest Henley, which says that no matter the pain and cruelties of life, we still have a choice in how we respond. It ends with the inspiring lines: “I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul.”  

As a younger man, Mandela had supported violent resistance against South Africa’s apartheid regime. When Mandela was finally released from prison in 1990, he emerged a different man with the moral authority to lead a free South Africa toward reconciliation instead of revenge.