October 18, 2026

Respect Before The Reckoning

But, above all things, reverence yourself.

Hierocles was a fifth-century Stoic philosopher who wrote a detailed commentary explaining the ancient Pythagorean Golden Verses, a short poem of ethical instruction that students memorized and lived by for generations. This line comes early in that poem, well before its famous instruction to review one's actions each night, and Hierocles treats it as the hinge the whole practice turns on. You cannot judge your own conduct fairly if you have not first taken your own character seriously enough to care how it turns out. Stoics inherited this Pythagorean discipline and made it their own, reviewing the day's choices with the honesty and goodwill a trusted friend would bring, naming what was done well, what was done poorly, and what was left undone. The aim was never self-punishment but calibration, so that character gets built on purpose, action by action, instead of left to drift.

A principle of Stoicism: Daily Self-Examination →