The Little Book of Stoicism

Practice 45

How to Deal with Insults

“How much better to heal than seek revenge from injury. Vengeance wastes a lot of time and exposes you to many more injuries than the first that sparked it. Anger always outlasts hurt. Best to take the opposite course. Would anyone think it normal to return a kick to a mule or a bite to a dog?” – Seneca

Simple yet mean remarks can ruin a whole day. But only if we let them.

It’s easy to get angry and counter with an insult. Or if we don’t agree what another person does, we might think, “Arrgh, I’ll get him for that!”

This is the worst possible response to bad behavior.

So, what’s the Stoic response to insults? William Irvine shares some strategies in a chapter on insults in his book A Guide to the Good Life. Let’s look at some from his book and some others.

One strategy is to pause and ask whether what’s been said is true. “Why is it an insult,” Seneca asks, “to be told what is self-evident?”

Plus, let’s ask who insulted us? If it’s someone we respect, then we value her opinion and accept it as something we can actually improve on. If we don’t respect the source, then why bother?

Seneca advises to look at an insulter as an overgrown child. Just as it would be foolish for a mother to get upset by remarks of her toddler, we’d be equally foolish to get hurt by insults of a childish person. People with such a flawed character don’t deserve our anger, says Marcus, they only deserve our pity.

Let’s remember that rational and wise people don’t insult others, at least not on purpose. So if a person insults us, we can be certain this person has a flawed and immature character. Irvine compares being insulted by another person is like taking the barking of a dog personally. We’d be fools to become upset by that dog and think for the rest of the day, “Oh dear! That dog doesn’t like me!”

Marcus Aurelius saw insulting people as a lesson: who not to be. “The best revenge is to be unlike him who performed the injury.” The best revenge is to let it go and be a better example.

And how should we respond when confronted?

The Stoics say with humor rather than a counter insult. Make a joke, laugh it off.

It can be hard to find the right words, right? So the better strategy might be not to respond at all. Instead of reacting to an insult, says Musonius Rufus, “calmly and quietly bear what happened.”

Remember the art of acquiescence: we want to accept everything as it happens. Because it’s not under our control and we can’t change it once it happened. Reality is as it is.

So let’s not show any resistance to the insult. Don’t go into reaction mode with an attack, defense, or withdrawal, but let it pass right through you. As if you were not there. Offer no resistance.

There’s nobody to get hurt. In this way, you become invulnerable. The insult goes right through you. That person has no power to control how you feel.

You can, however, let that person know that their behavior is unacceptable, if you choose to. In specific situations, this might be needed. We need to teach children how to behave properly in this world. When a child or even a student disrupts the lecture by insulting the teacher or other students, then the teacher needs to reprimand the insulter to ensure the right lecture environment.

The reprimand is not an emotional reaction to the insult, but a rationally chosen action to help the insulter improve their behavior, and to ensure the right environment.

One more strategy is to keep in mind what Epictetus says: “What is insulting is not the person who abuses you or hits you, but the judgment about them that they are insulting.”

We can only be insulted if we let it happen. If we don’t care what others say, then we won’t feel insulted. After all, other people’s actions are not under our control, so they’re ultimately indifferent. So let’s not care too much about what others say to and about us. Why would they know? Hear out Marcus on this: “I’m constantly amazed by how easily we love ourselves above all others, yet we put more stock in the opinions of others than in our own estimation of self . . . How much credence we give to the opinions our peers have of us and how little to our very own!”

Take that to heart and don’t take other people’s opinions about you too seriously. Train yourself to endure their insults. You’ll get more effective at reacting in appropriate ways, you’ll get stronger, and you might even become invincible, says Epictetus: “Who then is invincible? The one who cannot be upset by anything outside their reasoned choice.”