Tao of Seneca – Free PDFs

207 Comments
Written by Topics: Practical Philosophy

Tao of Seneca - Letters from a Stoic Master

My team and I have been working on this for more than six months, and it’s finally finished!  

The Tao of Seneca: Letters from a Stoic Master is a small thank-you gesture to all of you — three volumes of Stoic writing starring Seneca, complete with original illustrations, profiles of modern Stoic figures, interviews, original Japanese and Chinese calligraphy to match themes, and much more. It’s totally free and you can download the PDFs below. Sharing is encouraged. Kindle versions are coming shortly, but it’s easy to get the PDFs on your Kindle now (instructions below).

I hope you find Seneca’s wisdom as life-changing as I have. I also owe a very special thanks to my entire team and all of the contributors who took part in the project. Thank you!

Tao of Seneca: Volume 1

Tao of Seneca: Volume 2

Tao of Seneca: Volume 3

If interested, I also turned Seneca’s letters into an audiobook series (paid). I often listen to one letter (5-15 minutes each) while walking to coffee in the morning. You can find it here: The Tao of Seneca.

For Those Interested: How to Put a PDF on Your Kindle

Below is a breakdown (directly copied from Amazon with my comments in [brackets]) on how you can easily email a PDF document and upload to your Kindle.

  1. You and your approved contacts can send documents to your registered Kindle devices, free Kindle reading applications, and your Kindle Library in the Amazon Cloud by e-mailing them to your Send-to-Kindle e-mail address ([name]@kindle.com). Your Send-to-Kindle e-mail address is a unique e-mail address assigned to each of your Kindle devices and free Kindle reading applications upon registration.
  2. How to send a document to your Kindle:

To find your Send-to-Kindle e-mail address, visit the Manage your Devices page at Manage Your Kindle. [TIM: To skip to the part you need, go to the “Settings” tab and then scroll down to “Personal Document Settings.” That will be true if you click on any of the links in these instructions.]

Documents can only be sent to your Kindle devices or apps from e-mail accounts that you added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List. To add an e-mail account, visit the Personal Document Settings page.

To send a document to your Kindle device or app, simply attach it to an e-mail addressed to your Send-to-Kindle e-mail.

[TIM: Note that the above does NOT work for the Kindle app on Mac desktop. If you want to read a PDF in that app, go to “File” –> “Import PDF…” and you’re off to the races.]

 

Posted on: July 6, 2017.

Please check out Tribe of Mentors, my newest book, which shares short, tactical life advice from 100+ world-class performers. Many of the world's most famous entrepreneurs, athletes, investors, poker players, and artists are part of the book. The tips and strategies in Tribe of Mentors have already changed my life, and I hope the same for you. Click here for a sample chapter and full details. Roughly 90% of the guests have never appeared on my podcast.

Who was interviewed? Here's a very partial list: tech icons (founders of Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Craigslist, Pinterest, Spotify, Salesforce, Dropbox, and more), Jimmy Fallon, Arianna Huffington, Brandon Stanton (Humans of New York), Lord Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Ben Stiller, Maurice Ashley (first African-American Grandmaster of chess), Brené Brown (researcher and bestselling author), Rick Rubin (legendary music producer), Temple Grandin (animal behavior expert and autism activist), Franklin Leonard (The Black List), Dara Torres (12-time Olympic medalist in swimming), David Lynch (director), Kelly Slater (surfing legend), Bozoma Saint John (Beats/Apple/Uber), Lewis Cantley (famed cancer researcher), Maria Sharapova, Chris Anderson (curator of TED), Terry Crews, Greg Norman (golf icon), Vitalik Buterin (creator of Ethereum), and nearly 100 more. Check it all out by clicking here.

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Gravatar
WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Google photo

You are commenting using your Google account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Cancel

Connecting to %s

Comment Rules: Remember what Fonzie was like? Cool. That’s how we’re gonna be — cool. Critical is fine, but if you’re rude, we’ll delete your stuff. Please do not put your URL in the comment text and please use your PERSONAL name or initials and not your business name, as the latter comes off like spam. Have fun and thanks for adding to the conversation! (Thanks to Brian Oberkirch for the inspiration)

207 comments on “Tao of Seneca – Free PDFs”

  1. Thanks Tim this is awesome! Thanks for getting me into Stoicism, its been a huge help to me and I’ll be sure to share, thanks for the amazing work you do!

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  4. I hope I’m able to buy this in book form! Thanks so much for helping me man up Tim, Meditations by Marcus Aurelius has been an amazing resources and I expect nothing less from the Tao of Seneca and TOT of has inspired me to be my authentic self

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

    • Agreed! Meditations is wonderful, primarily for its “no nonsense” approach to life. Marcus spends a lot of time–and it’s time well spent–telling you to “get over it.” Like I said, time well spent!

      Like

      Reply

    • I really wish I could pick this up in a softcover. I enjoy the experience of reading deeper stuff so much more that way. Wouldn’t it simply be a matter of uploading the file to Createspace and let them do the fulfillment and everything?

      Like

      Reply

  7. Just when I thought there was nothing to read to the kids at bedtime. It may be a little late for me, hopefully it’ll help the next generation, thanks.

    Like

    Reply

  10. What a wonderful contribution to the world. Thank you for making such an effort to make the world a little better place. I’m looking forward to digging in!

    Like

    Reply

  11. My coming across Epictetus in a college Philosophy course was a turning point in my life. Book 1, Ch 6 “Of Providence” from the Discourses is my personal favorite reading and I have gifted The Enchideron many times.

    This was going to be my next reading material so thank you for being so timely. Thank you for putting in the resources to make this happen and mostly thank you for creating an access to the mastery of self.

    Like

    Reply

  16. Hi Tim, thanks for the downloads! I would love to see this in book form someday. Having read a few Stoic texts, I think “Letters From a Stoic” is the most accessible and easy to read. I wouldn’t describe “Meditations” as a difficult read, I just found the format of Seneca’s writing more appealing. Thanks again, keep doing what you are doing, you are an inspiration to a lot of people.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  17. Nicely done Tim! Thank you again for providing us all with such great content in so many forms! Your books and podcasts have been truly inspirational for me and I’m sure countless others will agree that you have helped change their lives, just like you have done for mine! Cheers

    Like

    Reply

  18. Awesome sauce, Mr. Tim Ferriss. As always, every email I receive, every podcast I make the time for a listen — they all produce value with untold, innate results.

    Like

    Reply

  30. Thank you so much! This is amazing. What a generous gift.
    You share so much and provide such insight into life and living.
    With infinite gratitude,
    Michael

    Like

    Reply

  31. Thanks, Tim! This is awesome. Already own all your content and dig the freebies too. I appreciate what you do, it has certainly had a positive impact on my life and thus, for those around me (I hope!). Cheers.

    Like

    Reply

  39. Supremely surprised when opening today’s email. I love Seneca, Osho, and the other Stoics. Thanks for sharing the love with these 3 volumes of Seneca!

    Like

    Reply

  40. I’m old school – even though you’ve given me the free PDFs and an audio book, I still want an actual book. Plans for that at all?

    Like

    Reply

  41. Just received my Tools of Titans book, WOW it is huge, definitely not a carry it around with you book =). Looking forward to reading it

    Like

    Reply

  44. Thanks very much for these wonderful books Tim. I have the first two volumes on audible, but I still like to be able to read them as well. You are awesome!

    Like

    Reply

  45. Thanks so much,Tim, for putting together this useful and valuable resource and for making it available free of charge!

    Like

    Reply

  46. This is great…thanks, Tim! I downloaded the “Send to Kindle” app, which makes it super easy to drop and drag documents

    Like

    Reply

  47. Thanks Tim, I was listening the ‘Tao of Seneca’ podcast of yours today and here comes the email in the evening 🙂
    I’ll be sure to share, thanks for the amazing work you do!

    Like

    Reply

  52. What a timely gift , almost like you knew it was my birthday. You put out almost too much amazing material to keep up with. Thanks for all of the great work that you do! I know your birthday is coming up in a couple of weeks as well and this one is a milestone. Happy early birthday I hope it is awesomenacious.

    Duane

    Like

    Reply

  53. This is amazing! Thank you for providing the world with such tremendous value! As some have mentioned, let us know when physical copies can be purchased.

    Like

    Reply

  54. Thanks so much Tim! I’m working my way through TOT and love your podcasts on stoicism and fear-setting. Looking forwarding to reading the Tao of Seneca. Thanks again!

    Like

    Reply

  57. What a generous gift! Thank you! And thank you for answering “how can I get this into my Kindle?” A wry smile traced my face as I scrolled down the blog post to see my question already answered (of course!).

    Like

    Reply

  58. This great! I especially appreciate all the additional content and perspective from modern ‘philosophers’.

    Thank you
    Nick

    Like

    Reply

  63. It’s great to see you and your team’s generosity focused on such a noble effort. I’m looking forward to digging in. Thanks!

    Like

    Reply

  64. Awesome Tim, thanks for sharing. Excited to see the new content and read the classic letters.

    If you get around to it .epub versions would be fantastic too.

    Like

    Reply

  65. Awesome Tim, thanks for sharing. Excited to see the new content and read the classic letters.

    If you get around to it .epub versions would be fantastic too.

    Like

    Reply

  67. Thanks Tim!

    A great trick I use when sending PDFs to my kindle, is to put “Convert” in the subject line. This will convert the pdf to mobi format so you get some more reading benefits.

    Like

    Reply

  70. Adding instructions for folks so they can learn how do this via their Kindle? Yet another example of above and beyond. You’re a good egg.

    Like

    Reply

    • Incidentally, I would be very interested to hear your opinions on Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s comments about Seneca and the “barbell strategy”. IMHO, Seneca does best at playing both sides of the philosophical field – on the one hand he was a politically active entrepeneur who really likes to party; on the other hand, he didn’t seem to give a lark’s tongue about any of it.

      Like

      Reply

  83. Tim – I can’t believe how much value you deliver to the world for free. Would buy your premium products in a heartbeat if I had the resources. Thanks for making the rest of us Tims look good!

    Like

    Reply

  86. Thanks for the share, Tim! 974 pages = EPIC! The cover art is gorgeous. While I’m here, I’ll take this opportunity to say, “thanks for the awesome podcast!”

    Like

    Reply

  89. Thank you so much for providing the 3 volumes of Seneca AND instructions for sending to Kindle. I continually learn from you and appreciate all you do!

    Like

    Reply

  91. Thank you, just in time…I wanted something on my phone to do during chemo next week. Eight hours of pumping chemical engineering into my system can make my mind monkey crazy. This will help me focus on something else.

    Like

    Reply

  95. Thanks SO MUCH for these!!  They’re beautifully done!  Salute!  LaKisha D. Jones, D.O. Division of Hospital Internal Medicine, Mayo Clinic Instructor in Medicine, Mayo Clinic College of Medicine President, Premier Hospitalist Services

    Like

    Reply

  98. You’re a legend Mr Ferriss – great effort with this. Ta very much. Time you popped out to NZ (home of the America’s Cup) for a beer or two.

    Like

    Reply