Stoicism: Do Stoics Feel Love? | What does Stoicism Say about Love

Stoics are known for being cold and emotionless. In fact, according to Meriam Webster, Stoic is defined as a person not affected by or showing passion or feeling. That’s why most people who’ve met or researched Stoic would usually ask themselves if stoics feel love.

Stoics feel love because love is a universal emotion defined as a strong form of relationship with another. The difference is that Stoics are taught to view love logically rather than an emotional one. This is what separates Stoics from other people when talking about love.

This blog post will answer how the Stoics view love in a basic way. Furthermore, we will introduce Seneca, one of the Stoic philosophers, and his take on love.

Do Stoics feel love?

All humans experience love. It may be love for your wife, husband, girlfriend, boyfriend, son, daughter, and many more.

Love is a universal emotion that we all experience.

Thus, this includes Stoics.

The reason why Stoics are viewed as cold and emotionless is that they react differently to love.

One of the core beliefs of Stoicism is that we can’t control emotions but what we can control is our reaction to these emotions.

For example, if you’re mad, you can either throw a tantrum, or you can find the root cause of why you’re mad to fix it.

That’s the same with love.

Instead of reacting to love based on emotions, Stoicism teaches us that love should be handled logically.

It is not true that Stoics are neglecting love just because it’s an emotion. On the contrary, Stoics have accepted love ever since it began.

For example, according to Seneca, love is an intense form of friendship.

That’s why you can find letters made by Seneca which show his love for his wife.

But how logical do Stoics act on love? That’s what we’re going to talk about next.

Stoics love logically by loving, not because of the person’s appearance. Instead, Stoics are taught to love based on the person’s character and virtues. Furthermore, Stoics are taught to love logically with temperance. Lastly, Stoicism teaches us that loving obsessively is not a good idea since it promotes irrationality.

According to Stoics, you should love not because of the person’s appearance but because of their character and virtues.

If you’re familiar with people saying that you should love because of what’s inside and not the outside, the Stoics also teach that.

Furthermore, they also warned about loving obsessively.

One reason why they don’t want a person to love obsessively is that they become irrational.

That’s why it is common to see someone who acts on things they’ll regret because of obsession.

Stoics teach about temperance. To not be overwhelmed with emotions.

A Stoic must always try to remain logical.

Furthermore, the Stoics also taught about not feeling free because of love.

A person who is loving excessively is prone to be bound to someone.

One of the things Stoics value is freedom. If a person’s freedom is lost due to too much obsession, then they need to rethink.

That’s why it is easy to see Stoics as someone who is emotionless. The truth is, they are practicing temperance.

Furthermore, there is a reason why Stoics are being cautious about loving obsessively.

Stoics are known to always think about the impermanence of things. So, for example, if you love a particular cup, you should understand that the cup might break anytime.

To Stoics, being too dependent on something is a bad idea because it doesn’t make us independent.

This is also true for people. Stoics always keep in mind that the people they love aren’t permanent.

There will always be a chance that they will leave you.

That’s why Stoicism also teaches us to love someone while they’re still around.

Instead of having regrets in the future, Stoics are taught to always give their best in loving the people they care about.

These are proofs that Stoics know about love and accept that love is something we all feel.

Stoics are also taught to always give love.

Now, let’s talk about the basic principle of Stoicism.

Stoicism always talks about thinking only about the things we can control.

If we can’t control something, then we better not think of it.

When talking about love, the Stoics know that we can’t control how others feel about us.

We can’t control if someone will love us back.

That’s why one of the things Stoicism teaches us is to love and not expect.

It teaches us to give love and not expect anything since we have no control over what others think of us.

Thus, love without expecting someone to love you back. Love unconditionally, that’s one of the things Stoicism teaches us.

Since we can’t control others, we can’t force them to love us.

Now, to prove that Stoics believe in love, let me introduce you to one of the famous Stoic writers, Seneca.

What does Seneca say about love?

Seneca says that love is a strong form of friendship. Furthermore, he also said that love should not always be about pleasure. Instead, he advised to always follow moderation and self-control as a virtue. Seneca respects love as an emotion and has records of writing about his love for his wife.

Seneca is a Roman Stoic philosopher that lived from 4BC until 65AD.

Because of this, his writings are always being studied by Stoics.

For Seneca, love is a strong form of friendship. Therefore, he accepts love and has been shown to write about his love for his wife.

He also teaches us that love is not about pleasure. Instead, to love in moderation and self-control.

He also explained that if you want to be loved by someone, you should love.

“If you wish to be loved, love.”

Seneca

I hope that these proved the point that Stoics do feel love. Stoics are not emotionless.

Instead, they feel emotions such as love.

What separates them from others is how they handle emotions such as love.

What’s Next? Now that you understand Stoicism and love, you may have a question about Stoicism and happiness. I have another blog post talking about Stoicism and how they’re happy despite controlling their emotions. As we know, happiness is also a type of emotion. You can find the blog post here: Do Stoics Live a Happy Life?

Frequently Asked Questions

Do Stoics have emotions? Stoics feel and have emotions. Emotions are a universal feeling we humans have, and Stoics aren’t an exception. The only difference between Stoics and other people is that Stoics know how to handle these emotions logically rather than emotionally.

Do Stoics feel happy? Stoics feel happiness because they know how to take matters into their own hands when it comes to happiness. Stoics are known to focus on the things they can control to make them happy, making them generally happier and content with life than others.