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Ancient philosophy is not just about talking or lecturing, or even reading long, dense books.
古代哲学不仅仅是说教，也不只是阅读冗长难懂的书籍。
In fact, it is something people have used throughout history--to solve their problems and to achieve their greatest triumphs.
事实上，历史上人们一直在用哲学解决他们的问题，取得他们最大的胜利。
Specifically, I am referring to Stoicism, which, in my opinion, is the most practical of all philosophies and therefore the most appealing.
具体来说，我指的是斯多葛学派，在我看来，它是所有哲学思想中最实用的，因此也是最有吸引力的。
Stoicism was founded in Ancient Greece by Zeno of Citium in the early 3rd century BC, but was practised by the likes of Epictetus, Cato, Seneca and Marcus Aurelius.
斯多葛学派是由生于西提姆的芝诺于公元前3世纪初在古希腊创立的，但后来被爱比克泰德、加图、塞涅卡和马可·奥勒留等人所践行。
Amazingly, we still have access to these ideas, despite the fact that the most famous Stoics never wrote anything down for publication.
令人惊讶的是，我们仍然可以接触到这些思想，尽管最著名的斯多葛学派学者从未留下任何出版作品。
Cato definitely didn't. Marcus Aurelius never intended his Meditations to be anything but personal.
加图绝对没有。马可·奥勒留的《沉思录》完全是个人思考录。
Seneca's letters were, well, letters and Epictetus' thoughts come to us by way of a note-taking student.
塞涅卡的书信只是书信，而爱比克泰德的思想是通过一个做笔记的学生传递给我们的。
Stoic principles were based on the idea that its followers could have an unshakable happiness in this life and the key to achieving this was virtue.
斯多葛派人的原则是基于这样一种观点，即其追随者今生可以拥有不可动摇的幸福，而实现这一目标的关键是美德。
The road to virtue, in turn, lay in understanding that destructive emotions, like anger and jealousy, are under our conscious control - they don't have to control us, because we can learn to control them.
反过来，通往美德的道路在于理解破坏性情绪（如愤怒和嫉妒）是在我们的意识控制之下的，它们不必控制我们，因为我们可以学会控制它们。
In the words of Epictetus: "external events I cannot control, but the choices I make with regard to them, I do control".
用爱比克泰德的话来说：“我无法控制外部事件，但我能控制有关它们的选择。”
The modern day philosopher and writer Nassim Nicholas Taleb defines a Stoic as someone who has a different perspective on experiences which most of us would see as wholly negative; a Stoic "transforms fear into caution, pain into transformation, mistakes into initiation and desire into undertaking".
现代哲学家兼作家纳西姆·尼古拉斯·塔勒布将斯多葛派人定义为对我们大多数人认为完全消极的经历持有不同看法的人；斯多葛派人“将恐惧转化为谨慎，将痛苦转化为变化，将错误转化为开始，将欲望转化为承诺”。
Using this definition as a model, we can see that throughout the centuries Stoicism has been practised in more recent history by kings, presidents, artists, writers and entrepreneurs.
以这个定义为范例，我们可以看到，最近几个世纪以来，国王、总统、艺术家、作家和企业家都实践了斯多葛主义。
