Marcus Aurelius
“Very little indeed is necessary for living a happy life.”
- Meditations, tr. George Long (1862)
Now in beta for iPhone
A few quiet minutes with the Stoics, every day.
Stoa gives you one passage from Marcus Aurelius, Seneca or Epictetus each day, then helps you put it into practice with a morning intention and an evening review.
Join the beta on TestFlight
Free · iOS 18 or later
No longer talk at all about the kind of man that a good man ought to be, but be such.
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 10.16 · tr. George Long
The practice
The Stoics wrote to themselves every morning and every night. Stoa keeps that habit simple.
Begin and end the day on purpose
Each morning, set an intention. Each evening, look back on the day the way Seneca did. A few prompts help you get started, and your streak keeps you coming back.
- MorningWhat is within my control today, and what is not?
- EveningWhat did I do well today? Where did I fall short?
Ninety-nine passages to return to
A new quote arrives every midnight, with an affirmation drawn from it. Browse the whole library by author, save your favorites, and share a passage with a friend.
Widgets
Today's quote on your Home Screen, and its affirmation on your Lock Screen.
Daily reminder
An optional notification with the day's affirmation, at a time you choose.
Reflections
Write freely about any quote. Each entry keeps the passage it was written about.
Light and dark
Warm parchment by day, a calm dark theme at night, or follow your iPhone.
Their words, not paraphrases
Many popular Stoic quotes are loose modern rewordings. Every passage in Stoa is taken word for word from a public-domain translation and checked against the source text, with the exact book and section cited.
Seneca
“Begin at once to live, and count each separate day as a separate life.”
- Moral Letters to Lucilius, tr. Richard M. Gummere (1917)
- Dialogues, tr. Aubrey Stewart (1889)
Epictetus
“First say to yourself Who you wish to be: then do accordingly what you are doing.”
- Discourses and Enchiridion, tr. George Long (1877)
Your journal stays yours
Stoa has no account and no server. What you write never leaves your iPhone unless you send it somewhere yourself.
- No data collectedNo analytics, no ads, no tracking. The app makes no network requests.
- Automatic backupsYour journal is backed up to Files as you write, with a snapshot for each of the last 14 days.
- A copy that outlives the appMirror backups to any folder you choose, such as iCloud Drive.
- Export anytimeSave your whole journal as a plain JSON file, and restore it on any iPhone.
Try Stoa before it launches
Install TestFlight from the App Store, then open the invite to get the beta. Your feedback shapes the first release.