September 30, 2026

Be Your Own Judge

Let each man know his own nature, and show himself a strict judge of his own merits and faults.

Panaetius of Rhodes led the Stoic school in Athens during the second century BC and later became a close friend and advisor to the Roman statesman Scipio Aemilianus, helping carry Stoic ethics into Roman public life. His own treatise on duty is lost, but its arguments survive because Cicero used it as the model for Book One of his own work On Duties. In this passage, Panaetius says every person must come to know his own nature and act as a strict, unflinching judge of his own strengths and weaknesses, rather than flattering himself the way lesser men do. The Stoic tradition turns this kind of self-scrutiny into a daily discipline: Seneca reviewed his conduct each night before sleep, and Hierocles urged asking each evening what was done well, what was done badly, and what was left undone. Practiced honestly and regularly, this self-judgment is how character gets shaped on purpose, action by action, rather than left to drift.

A principle of Stoicism: Daily Self-Examination →