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Why the Stoics Believed Success Is Not the Measure of a Good Life

Antoine Bourdelle’s Herakles the Archer (1909) captures the Stoic ideal: complete commitment to the action, complete detachment from the outcome. 

We tend to measure ourselves by success: the goals we reach, the recognition we receive, the outcomes of our efforts. But for the Stoics, this is precisely where we go wrong. Because the world has a way of foiling even our best-laid plans. The question, then, is this: if success cannot be guaranteed, what should we measure ourselves by?

The Stoics captured this predicament in a simple but timeless image: the archer. The archer does all he can to shoot accurately. But once the arrow leaves the bow, its fate is no longer within the archer’s control.

The lesson is not that the archer should stop caring about the target. It is that the archer should understand where responsibility ends — and peace of mind begins. Behind this distinction lies the deeper Stoic conviction that a good life cannot be measured by outcomes alone.

The Stoic Archer

The allegory of the archer features in On the Ends of Good and Evil, a Socratic dialogue dedicated to Brutus, murderer of Caesar, in which Cicero, through a number of mouthpieces, expounds and critiques the central tenets of the three main philosophies of his day: Stoicism, Epicureanism, and a version of Platonism. Cicero puts the allegory into the mouth of his contemporary and ally, the Stoic statesman Cato the Younger, even though it predates both Cato and Cicero:

Take the case of one whose task it is to shoot a spear or arrow straight at some target. One’s ultimate aim is to do all in one’s power to shoot straight, and the same applies with our ultimate goal. In this kind of example, it is to shoot straight that one must do all one can; none the less, it is to do all one can to accomplish the task that is really the ultimate aim. It is just the same with what we call the supreme good in life. To actually hit the target is, as we say, to be selected but not sought.

The allegory encapsulates the essence of Stoic action. The archer does everything he can to shoot accurately: his bow is well strung, his arrows are carefully calibrated, and he has taken full account of the prevailing wind and other variables. Even so, the arrow may miss the bullseye, or even the target itself. Once it leaves the bow, it is subject to forces beyond the archer’s control — a sudden change in wind, an unexpected movement, or some other contingency.

Similarly, having decided upon the optimal course of action, the good Stoic carries it out to the best of their ability. But whether the enterprise succeeds depends on unpredictable external factors — or, as the Stoics called them, “externals”. Thus, the good Stoic bases self-worth and happiness not on the success of their actions, but on their correctness. The target matters, of course — but it is not what makes the archer a good archer.

Intention Rather Than Outcome

The Stoics were not indifferent to outcomes, but understood that the quality of an action and its result are not the same thing.

In the words of Epictetus:

Some things are up to us and some things are not.

Our judgements, intentions, and choices belong to us. Reputation, success, and the opinions of others do not.

Seneca echoed the same idea:

The wise person considers intention, rather than outcome, in every situation. The beginnings are in our power; the results are judged by fortune, to which I grant no jurisdiction over myself… Death at the hands of a robber is not a condemnation.

This is not quite saying that we must do the right thing, but that the right thing is the most that we can do — and therefore all we need worry about.

The Secret to Stoic Calm

Chance, says Seneca, has a great deal of power in our lives, “necessarily so, since it is by chance that we are alive.” When it comes to things over which we do not have complete control, we play our part and do our best, like the Stoic archer, but we do not fret over the outcome — which, if we have done our best, says nothing about us.

Thus, we seek to be loveable, not to be loved, because the one is within our control whereas the other is not. We seek to write well, not to become a bestselling author, because the one is within our control whereas the other is not. We seek to act with integrity, not to be admired for our integrity, because the one is within our control whereas the other is not.

So long as we focus on the things that are within our control, we will be calm and happy. But if we concern ourselves with things outside our control, we surrender our peace of mind to chance. We become anxious and angry and miserable, and all on false grounds.

The Stoic archer teaches a simple but demanding lesson:

Aim carefully. Do your best. But do not tie yourself to outcomes.

They are none of your business.

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Neel Burton is the author of Stoic Stories, a comprehensive account of Stoic philosophy told through its greatest stories, from the life of Zeno to the meditations of Marcus Aurelius. Fittingly, the cover features the Stoic archer.

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What the Stoics understood about offence.

The Death of Socrates, by Jacques-Louis David (1787).
The Death of Socrates, by Jacques-Louis David (1787). Others may scatter the words. Only we can turn them into an insult.

A playwright once mocked the Stoic philosopher Cleanthes before a packed theatre in Athens.

‘Driven by Cleanthes’ folly like dumb herds,’ he declaimed.

Everyone waited for the old philosopher’s response. But Cleanthes neither protested nor replied. He did not even alter his expression. Faced with such composure, the audience turned against the playwright, heckling him off the stage. Later, the playwright came to apologise, but Cleanthes brushed off the incident as too trivial to dwell upon.

What did Cleanthes understand that the rest of us so often forget?

Insults can sting. They can undermine our confidence, poison our relationships, and linger in the mind—sometimes, for years. A cutting remark from a colleague, a sarcastic comment from a friend, a stranger’s contemptuous glance, being left out, ignored, or spoken over—these small slights can accumulate into resentment, anxiety, and self-doubt.

The Stoics did not deny the pain of such experiences. But they did make a remarkable claim: an insult does not exist independently of our response to it. Words are only sounds, gestures only movements. They become insults only when we accept them as such.

This is not to deny that people can be malicious or cruel, or, at best, thoughtless. They can. The question is whether we are prepared to hand them authority over our peace of mind.

First, ask whether it is really an insult

Whenever someone appears to insult us, we should consider three questions.

Is what they are saying true, or partly true?

Do they know us well enough to judge?

And why are they saying it?

If the criticism is fair and comes from someone whose judgement we respect, then it is not really an insult but valuable information. Parents, teachers, trusted friends, and respected colleagues often tell us things that we would rather not hear. Their intention is not to diminish us, but to help us grow.

If, on the other hand, the criticism comes from someone who is ill-informed, malicious, or simply foolish, why should we grant it any weight? We do not feel wounded if a dog growls at us, a naughty child calls us names, or someone beside themselves raves against us. Why should an unreasonable person have any greater power over us?

Either way, offence begins to lose its grip.

Often, an ‘insult’ is not really an insult. It is admonition, advice, or just noise.

Anger is the weakest response

True insult or not, our instinct is to get angry.

But anger is the weakest possible response.

It tells the other person that they have succeeded in disturbing us. It suggests that there may be some truth in what they have said. And it unsettles our judgement, making us liable to say or do things that we later regret. As Seneca observed, ‘Anger, if not restrained, is frequently more hurtful to us than the injury that provokes it.’

People who habitually insult others are often struggling with frustrations of their own. Their words reveal more about their character than ours. If anything, they deserve our pity rather than our anger.

Should we answer back?

The perfect put-down is one of life’s great fantasies.

Unfortunately, it usually occurs too late. The French have a delightful expression for this: l’esprit de l’escalier—’staircase wit’—because the burning reply only enters our mind when we’re on the way home.

But even when a clever retort is perfectly timed, it is rarely the strongest response. By exchanging insults, we allow the encounter to become a contest on the insulter’s terms. We bring ourselves down to their level while raising them to ours.

Humour, however, is different.

When used lightly, it exposes the absurdity of the situation without escalating it. The Roman statesman Cato the Younger was once spat upon by an opponent in court. Wiping his face, he remarked, “I will swear to anyone that people are wrong to say you cannot use your mouth.”

Another strategy is to embrace the criticism. “If you knew me better,” we might reply, “you would find much greater faults than that.”

Such responses undermine the insult by depriving it of its oxygen.

The strongest response

But humour, too, demands wit, timing, and presence of mind.

The strongest response is often the simplest: to ignore the insult altogether.

One day, a boor accidentally struck Cato at the public baths. Upon recognising the senator, the horrified man hurried to apologise.

“I don’t remember being struck,” Cato replied.

The point was not to humiliate the man, but to show that the incident had not disturbed his tranquillity—that, though his body had been struck, his mind had not been touched.

This was also Cleanthes’ secret.

He did not suppress his anger. He had no need to. The playwright’s words had remained just that—words—because he had not collaborated in turning them into an insult.

Of course, there are occasions when we should speak up. If someone repeatedly insults us at work, at home, or in any unavoidable relationship, calmly and firmly asserting our boundaries may be the wisest course.

The crucial distinction is between defending our dignity and defending our ego. The first may sometimes be necessary. The second seldom is.

The insult we create

An insult begins with another person’s words, but it ends with our judgement.

We cannot control whether people are careless, cruel, arrogant, or simply foolish. Nor should we pretend that hurtful words do not hurt. They can wound, and some wounds take a long time to heal.

But we need not add a second injury to the first: the injury of allowing another person’s behaviour to disturb our peace of mind.

The Stoics understood that our freedom lies not in preventing every insult, but in refusing to become its accomplice. We may examine criticism, learn from what is useful, laugh at what is absurd, ignore what is beneath us, and challenge what genuinely crosses a boundary. But we need not hand over our tranquillity to the person who would disturb it.

A barking dog, a naughty child, or someone raving beside themselves may all make noise. But noise is not the same as an insult. It becomes an insult only when we assent to it.

That was Cleanthes’ achievement.

The playwright thought he was insulting a philosopher.

In reality, he was only scattering words into the air.

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Neel Burton is author of Stoic Stories: Stoicism by Its Best Stories. Through the lives of Zeno, Cleanthes, Cato, Seneca, Marcus Aurelius, and many others, Stoic Stories introduces the philosophy not through abstract theory, but through the memorable stories that have kept it alive for more than two thousand years.

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