:: COMPARE ::
The short answer
Nihilism concludes that nothing means anything. Stoicism concludes close to the opposite: meaning is real and lives in your own character and choices — the one place fortune cannot reach.
Side by side
| Aspect | Stoicism | Nihilism |
|---|---|---|
| Meaning | Real, and self-made | There is none |
| Virtue | The whole point | Pointless |
| Facing hardship | Meet it with reason | Why bother |
| The aim | Eudaimonia — flourishing | None |
What each one means
In ordinary English, uncomplaining endurance of hardship without showing what it costs. In philosophy, a school founded in Athens and carried on in Rome by Seneca, Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius: virtue is the only real good, we should live in agreement with nature and reason, and peace comes from telling what is in our control from what is not.
Full definition of Stoicism →Nihilism is the position that some whole domain we take seriously — morality, knowledge, or meaning — has no real foundation at all.
Full definition of Nihilism →