Stoic quotes app for iPhone, no subscription

The short answer. Kandou is a quotes app for iPhone with a curated Stoic Wisdom collection: 40 quotes from Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, and Epictetus, taken from public-domain translations, each with its author. It comes with Kandou Pro, a one-time $5.99 USD purchase (the free app’s 25-quote Starter set already includes nine Stoic lines). You can add a Stoic collection to your daily rotation with one tap, put it on a Home Screen widget, and keep your own passages from Meditations beside it. Unlike most Stoic apps, there is no subscription, no AI Marcus, and no feed.

Stoic quotes, and the apps that sell them

Stoicism is having a long moment, and the App Store has noticed: Stoic quote apps with daily notifications, journaling prompts, AI conversations with “Marcus Aurelius,” and subscriptions that run $19.99 a year and up. Some are good. Most are heavy for what the practice asks, which is a line to think about and the discipline to think about it.

The Stoics themselves would have found the feed model funny. Marcus Aurelius wrote Meditations for himself, one entry at a time. The point of a Stoic quote is to sit with it, not to swipe to the next one.

What is in Kandou’s Stoic Wisdom collection

Forty quotes, chosen by hand from public-domain editions:

Marcus Aurelius, from Meditations in George Long’s translation.
Seneca, from the letters and essays in Aubrey Stewart’s translation.
Epictetus, from the Enchiridion and Discourses in George Long’s translation.

Each quote carries its author and lives in a Stoic Wisdom category with its own color, so the Home tab can be filtered to Stoic lines only. The collection is in English for now, and it is deliberately short: forty lines you will actually reread rather than four thousand you will scroll. The free Starter collection already includes nine Stoic lines, seven from Marcus Aurelius and two from Seneca, among them the Marcus Aurelius line on the App Store screenshots: “Very little indeed is necessary for living a happy life.” The library also has Emerson and Thoreau; the philosophy quotes guide lists every philosopher in it.

Because the translations are old, the phrasing is sometimes formal (“Thou” appears). That is the trade for accuracy: these are the words as translated, not paraphrases.

Setting up a daily Stoic line

In Kandou

Open the Library tab. The Starter collection is already added. Tap Stoic Wisdom; with Pro, tap Add to my quotes to bring all 40 quotes into your collection under a Stoic Wisdom category. The collection then shows an ADDED badge next to its name. (Tapping a locked collection opens the Pro screen.)
Set the rotation in Settings: Home to Daily at a morning time, Widget to Daily as well. Personalized mode can add an evening line at, say, 9:00 p.m.
Filter the Home tab to Stoic Wisdom from the category grid when you want only Stoic lines in the rotation, or leave it unfiltered to mix them with your own quotes. The widget follows the same filter.
Add your own passages. Reading Meditations or Seneca’s letters, tap the plus button, paste the passage, set the source (“Meditations, Book 4” or “Letters to Lucilius, 1”), and file it under Stoic Wisdom or a category of your own.
Put the widget on the Home Screen (small free; medium, large, and on iOS 27 extra large with Pro), and save the line you want to live with this month as a Lock Screen wallpaper.

The Home Screen is where a Stoic line earns its place: you see it dozens of times a day without deciding to. Kandou’s widget comes in four sizes, and each suits a different kind of line:

Small (free): a short line, such as “Remember that all is opinion.” Text only, on the color of its category.
Medium (Pro): the line with its author, so Seneca and Epictetus get their names.
Large (Pro): a full passage from Meditations or the Enchiridion in large serif type. A long one shrinks to fit instead of being cut off.
Extra Large (Pro, iOS 27): one line as a poster that fills most of a Home Screen page.

To keep the widget Stoic only, tap Stoic Wisdom in the Home tab’s category grid; the widget follows that filter. With Pro, the Widget Appearance editor (Settings, Display: Widget, Appearance, Photo & Text) puts the line over your own photo, on a soft Band or as Subtitle text, which suits a landscape or a statue. The widget guide has the full setup.

How a daily quote fits a Stoic practice

A quote is not a practice, but it is a good hinge for one. Three ways people use Kandou for it:

The morning line. Daily rotation at wake-up time. Read the line once, decide what it asks of the day, and move on. Epictetus on what is and is not up to you is the classic.
The evening review. A second rotation time in the evening (Personalized mode) with a line that prompts the review Seneca describes: what did I do badly, what did I do well, what did I leave undone.
One line for a month. Rotation Off, a single Marcus Aurelius passage on the Lock Screen as a wallpaper, and your own notes about it saved as quotes with your name as the source.

What Kandou is not

Not a Stoicism course. No lessons, no journaling prompts, no AI philosopher. It keeps lines and shows them to you.
Not a large database. Forty curated Stoic quotes plus whatever you add. If you want every line the Stoics wrote, read the books; if you want a searchable corpus, other tools do that.
English only, iPhone only, with no account. Your collection stays on your iPhone and in your own iCloud.

Frequently asked questions

Is there a Stoic quotes app without a subscription?

Yes. Kandou is free on iPhone with no subscription or ads; its Stoic Wisdom collection comes with Kandou Pro, a one-time $5.99 USD purchase. The free app includes a 25-quote Starter set with nine Stoic lines.

What is the best free Stoicism app?

It depends on what you want from it. If you want Stoic lines to live with rather than a course, Kandou is free on iPhone: its Starter collection includes nine Stoic quotes (seven from Marcus Aurelius, two from Seneca), with a free small widget and room for 15 of your own quotes. The full 40-quote Stoic Wisdom collection comes with Kandou Pro, a one-time $5.99 USD purchase, not a subscription.

Which Stoics are in the Stoic Wisdom collection?

Marcus Aurelius (Meditations, George Long’s translation), Seneca (Aubrey Stewart’s translation), and Epictetus (George Long’s translation), 40 quotes in total, each with its author.

Can I add my own quotes from Meditations?

Yes. Add any passage with the plus button, set the source (for example “Meditations, Book 7”), and file it under the Stoic Wisdom category or one of your own. Your own quotes are unlimited with Pro and up to 15 in the free version.

Can I get a daily Stoic quote on my Home Screen?

Yes. Add the Kandou widget to your Home Screen, set the widget rotation to Daily, and tap Stoic Wisdom in the Home tab’s category grid; the widget follows that filter, so it shows only Stoic lines. The small widget is free; the medium, large, and extra-large (iOS 27) widgets come with Pro.

Are the Stoic quotes accurate?

They are taken from public-domain translations of the original works (Long and Stewart) rather than paraphrased, which is why some wording is old-fashioned. Every quote is attributed to its author.

A Stoic quotes app with a curated collection, your own notes, and no subscription