There are a lot of comments here asserting that this advice is outdated. That is exactly why it is important. The present is a vast echo chamber, which constantly repeats what we now believe, what is consistent with our values; it is critical that we listen to voices from the past that can make us question our beliefs and values. Many — even most — of these seem to me excellent guides to an upright and moral life.

Er, yeah, I feel like a lot of the outdated comments are regarding the sexually negative or blatantly sexist maxims. And honestly, I don't mind an echo chamber of treating ourselves and others right.

Which maxims, specifically, did you think were sexist?

"Do not marry till you are able to support a wife."

It's not so much sexist as just outdated.

Sometimes the wife will be supporting the husband. Sometimes the "wife" will actually be a husband. Sometimes there will be something close to parity between partners. At some points in a person's life they'll be economically on the up-and-up while the other isn't, and the situation might reverse, in which case the direction of support ought to change.

"Do not marry till you are able to support a wife."

Sounds pretty valid to me. It doesn't specify whether you're male or female (or other), and doesn't specify that you will have a wife to support; only that you shouldn't marry until you are able to support a wife. Maybe you'll have a wife, maybe you'll have a husband, maybe you'll reject those terms or find them inapplicable. Whatever term you use, if you could support a wife, you could support your <other>.

I believe this still to be a very good advice and applies to both sexes. In family life circumstances when a household must depend only on a single source of income are abound. Families where each participating adult can provide a basic standard of living for the entire family in times of need are much stronger financially.

Don't you think it becomes a lot more difficult to make your fortune, once you are tied down in a relationship? Suddenly the concern becomes about stability instead of success? Would you want your own son getting married before he had made a success of himself?

I reject the premise that stability is the opposite of success. For some people, having a stable home life might be a condition of their success.

Again, it rests on a gendered notion of support and a traditional model of marriage/relationships, which a lot more people reject these days. I'm currently single, but let's say I were to get into a fairly serious relationship in the next few weeks such that new partner moved in with me: would that mean that my work life would now change to be less concerned about success? No. They'd presumably have a job too. Difference is when I got home at the end of the day, there'd be a friendly, kind, loving companion to care for me.

Having a dual income supporting the household means that in that particular case, I can be less concerned about stability - because making rent and paying bills and so on is a lot less of a struggle.

In the long-term, it might change if one were to have kids, but having kids and getting married are not the same thing. I certainly wouldn't want to have kids until I reached a certain level of success and financial independence (and, hey, one of the benefits of being gay: no unplanned pregnancies!) but that's separate from the question of having a relationship or not, or even getting married or not.

This is why I'm saying it's outdated advice rather than sexist advice: it presumes a model of marriage and relationships that has changed (incidentally, contrary to the views of anti-gay social conservatives, it was mostly changed by straight people unhappy with the previous arrangements). Most of the people I know - straight or gay - spend a lot longer living together before getting married. And they tend to delay having children or opt-out of childbearing altogether. How are people in long-term childless unmarried relationships "tied down" exactly? How does whether I go home to an empty apartment or an apartment with a boyfriend in it change whether or not I can be successful at work?

Think of it like a partnership in business: a successful partnership means the partners can do more together than they could do apart (provide services to bigger clients, say, or have more capital to invest). But there might be a partnership where one partner works very hard, produces a lot of value and the other mooches off their success without doing much. Saying that a romantic relationship leads to people being tied down and stepping away from risk in business is a bit like saying all business partnerships are of the latter rather than the former kind. Some relationships enable both parties to flourish more than they would separately.

Fair enough if you are gay. However, having been in relationships with various women, I can say my experience has been quite different. There is constant pressure against risk-taking and business-starting, in favor of "finding a normal stable job" as a wage-slave and spending more time away from work, so as not to make her feel neglected.

Her concerns are legitimate, of course, and rooted in her own evolutionary strategy, but I would certainly recommend to my sons that they make their fortune _before_ getting tied down, and that they not get married too early, for this reason. Because they are less likely to take the necessary risks. Women, like it or not, tend to be much more risk-averse than men, and in a committed relationship, they will apply pressure toward this end. (And no risk, no reward.)

This is probably the same reason why many trust-funds are designed to give payouts to those who remain unmarried until at least the age of 25. There are many benefits to having a wife, including their perceptiveness and sensibility, which can be very valuable especially while climbing the social ladder, but given what I know now, I would want to make a success of myself first, before taking one on, and I would advise the same to my sons. (Just as I would advise my daughters to find a man who is already a success, versus getting tied down early on with Johnny Football Hero.)

One piece of advice I was given a few years back, is to "be your own inner parent." Which is to say, whenever you find yourself making a decision, to ask yourself what you would advise your own children to do, if they were to find themselves in the exact same situation you are facing. Then do precisely that.

> This is why I'm saying it's outdated advice rather than sexist advice: it presumes a model of marriage and relationships that has changed...

It very well could be that society has evolved, as you say. But it might instead be that the sexes are living in a bubble of wealth that was created by those who came before, enabling them to afford the luxury of a society that is able to constantly subsidize the "new reality" through educational programming, entertainment programming, social programming, glass ceiling legislation, welfare spending, etc which poorer societies are simply unable to afford.

What we see in Kazakhstan, for example, is a society returning to polygamy as the realities of poverty leave them unable to afford such luxuries as we enjoy. Perhaps, as you say, our culture has progressed. But maybe, just maybe, our culture is currently in a bubble, and as our economic freedoms decline, so will our wealth, causing gender relations to resolve back to equilibrium again -- the same mean we see in many other nations in the world.

Dual incomes may actually be a harbinger of this. For we know from the research that many women in our society do not work because they want to, but because they have no choice. A "modern" household cannot sustain itself without those dual incomes, can it? Yet in decades past, households were easily supported on a single income. Our society is becoming poorer.

Some of these are outdated, some are flawed, and some are plain Victorian silliness.

But this maxim is one of the most important that I guide myself by, and the way it's stated really resonates with me:

"Your character can never be essentially injured except by your own acts."

And if it spoke to you too, you should read Marcus Aurelius.

Mine is 'never start lying to yourself'

Convincing yourself of BS is the first step along any path leading to bad outcomes. Whether it is 'another donut doesn't matter' or 'customers won't care about this bug' or any other number of self-delusions, constantly failing to reject your own BS will erode your character.

But that's hard to do, considering our minds are natural born lawyers. There is a fine line between confidence and believing BS, one that I can't always find.

Well, going to the gym or learning a new programming language are also hard. Most things that matter in the long run are.

Being honest with yourself is not the same S confidence building. BSing yourself is saying 'my new app will sell a million units'. Being honest with yourself is saying 'if I do x and y, then I can see a market size for my app of a million units. There is risk that this won't happen becaue of z, but I am going to proceed'. If it then fails, the person prone to lying to themsleves will blame everything and anyone else. The person who is honest with themselves will look at the hard lessons and take them on board, and benefit from the experience.

To me, there is no line at all.

Great one, thanks!

Thinking / talking to oneself is a huge puzzle-space in general because of the self-modifying aspect of it, and not lying to oneself sounds like a great foundational value to keep the entire OS sane.

Your premise is itself a delusion of knowing the truth from a lie.

Not the way I see it. A lie is an intentional untruth. An honest person knows when they tell a lie, whether to themselves or to someone else. To start lying to others, first you have to lie to yourself.

A habitual liar eventually ends up in a whirl of relative truths, justifications and evasions. An effective person must never end up in such a place.

Telling yourself things that are ultimately wrong is OK, as you will eventually learn the truth. It's at the point where you learn the truth that determines whether you will continue to delude yourself or face up to it.

> "Your character can never be essentially injured except by your own acts."

In a similar direction, but I think more powerful, is this one:

"If any one speak ill of you, let your life be so virtuous that none will believe him."

Absolutely not. This is not about others' opinions, which you cannot ultimately control. This is about your own action, which is the only thing you can.

Not really. If you conduct yourself in a way that makes a lie of half-truth seem implausible, then those lies will never catch on.

There are a great many 'trtuhs' about people out there that are actually complete untruths. But they gain traction because they confirm an exiting belief about a person. Presidents are particularly susceptible to that, especially where the lie adheres to an impression of character.

A person who is forthright and honest in their dealings, and consistently hard working and punctual will find that other people gossiping about them will have little effect. This you can control what others think by being of good character.

I've noticed this - the lie only sticks if it seems plausible. People believe that Al Gore said he invented the internet because he's made several fantastic statements, is self-aggrandizing, and while what he did say about his role in shepherding the internet was not unreasonable, it was just a slight overstatement of his role. So instead of getting the credit that he deserves, he gets laughed at.

But different people will hold you to different and often contradictory standards. It's hard to go through life without pissing anybody off. Work too hard and you make others look bad for example.

Also worth noting that people will subconsciously judge you based on all kinds of superficial factors you have no control over. Have the wrong facial features and people will think you untrustworthy, and of course there's skin colour etc.

Well, you can't control individuals perceptions - everyone brings a bias to the table - but you can control the aggregate perceptions by being consistent. The point being that if you are always trustworthy, that fact eventually gets out, and it then doesn't matter what your face is like.

It is the same as Wikipedia being not necessaarily right on every singe detail, but being correct in aggregate. People should aim to be like Wikipedia - not flawless, but reputationally good.

Individual perceptions can matter greatly, especially those of influential people. People are also often distrustful of people who seem "too perfect".

I believe the word "character" means "reputation" in this context.

If we define it that way, I agree, but this is not a useful guide, imo. You cannot control your reputation, though of course treating others well should be extremely important.

Marcus Aurelius is some serious feel good, better-than-Oprah material! He talked me through a few winters.

"Choose not to be harmed and you won't feel harmed. Don't feel harmed and you haven't been."

> "Your character can never be essentially injured except by your own acts."

If only this were true, we would not need laws against defamation.

Again, there is literally no thing on Earth that can stop you from acting with dignity. That is the point of stoicism.

> Again, there is literally no thing on Earth that can stop you from acting with dignity.

Nothing except serious illness.

Involuntarily vomiting your guts out is not dignified. Being paranoid and acting on your bizarre delusions is not dignified. Ranting on and on about the same things every few minutes because your short-term memory is gone is not dignified.

Maybe your definition is different from mine. Try to apply it the next time you see and smell a homeless person mumbling to themselves in public.

My statement was overly general; when something affects your mind, that's a whole other area - life advice is necessarily useful only to those who can act on it, unfortunately. There are also those who have been so forgotten by society that they have no dignity left, and that's our failing collectively.

However, with something like disease that leaves your mind unharmed, I suppose the dignified way to go is assisted suicide, though honestly I probably wouldn't choose to act with dignity in that situation. Though it's clear that many people do, since assisted suicide is even a topic.

I like the one about how if you cannot be employed, rather than being idle you should cultivate your mind. True now more than ever with all our access to online university education etc.

"Have no very intimate friends"?

I read 'intimate friends' as a metaphor for homosexuality; or at least what is now known as. Although buggery in itself was a capital offense, AFAIA before the later part of the century there was no prescribed behavioural or other stereotype for a gay person. Victorian men were all just a bunch of straight dudes.

src wikipedia:

'Foucault cites "Westphal's famous article of 1870 on 'contrary sexual sensations'" as the "date of birth" of the categorization of the homosexual'

I take it as don't really, deeply trust anyone. It's hard to unpack given the drift in meanings of things like 'intimate'. It could mean don't have affairs with women, or it could mean don't go sharing your secrets. Given the very next line is about keeping secrets to yourself, that's how I take it.

You can separate this into two statements: 1) Your wife/husband is not your friend. 2) Your friend is not your wife/husband.

That sounds like a stereotypical victorian thing.

What is it meant to achieve?

Be cautious of the backstabbing, blackmail, gossip you might/can get involved in if you trust the wrong person.

Personally it's hard for me to imagine life without deep trust friendships.

Fuck buddies.

Reminds me of some of the advice early Islamic scholars would give people, particularly contemplating over God and death regularly.

Considering that America was overwhelmingly Christian and that many of the maxims borrow ideas from Ecclesiastes, Proverbs, and Psalms, it isn't surprising.

"Never play at any kind of game."???

Right... This may have been of interest and gone "viral" 150 years ago, but I fail to see how it's of much interest today...

That some of the advice is still relevant is hardly surprising. After all, human nature has changed very little over the last few thousand years...

I'm guessing that's either a reference to gambling or a caution against unproductive fun in general.

Are you sure it's not more along the lines of "don't 'play' at it, do it properly?"

Perhaps I'm reading too much into it. I guess that's the problem with this sort of vague generalised advice :)

If you read the second version, it is modified into "never play at any game of chance", so I think they meant gambling.

That's how I read it, too.

>Right... This may have been of interest and gone "viral" 150 years ago, but I fail to see how it's of much interest today...

And then you go to someplace like Vegas and see people playing in some kinds of games and losing it all. One example of how it can be of interest today.

Or you see young people be X times more productive than another, because they don't waste their time playing some BS console game. Another example.

On the other hand, I doubt they could have imagined the riches earned by professional athletes today. And what about professional gamers? I think they're heads might explode.

True, but since those are 1 in a million or less, their advice still holds.

(Except for people who always assume the will be the exception -- Vegas is full of them also).

I assumed the meaning was about "playing games" in the sense of gossip, innuendo and lies.

Don't be devious and underhanded, be genuine.