Meditations (180) (edit title/settings)

Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis edit see section history

People edit see section history

• Marcus Aurelius: a Roman Emperor and stoic philosopher.
• Zeno: Add a description of this character.
• Trajan
• Heraclitus
• Pompeius
• Augustus
• Casaubon
• Severus
• Epictetus
• Socrates
• Alexander of Macedon
• Rusticus
• L. Ceionius Commodus
• Philippus
• Adrianus
• Cato
• Annia Galeria Faustina
• Alexander
• Plato
• Caius Caesar
• Avidius Cassius
• Antoninus Pius

Quotes edit see section history

• “Constantly regard the universe as one living being, having one substance and one soul; and observe how all things have reference to one perception, the perception of this one living being; and how all things act with one movement; and how all things are the cooperating causes of all things which exist; observe too the continuous spinning of the threadand the contexture of the web.”

• “If it is not right, do not do it; if it is not true, do not say it.”

• “He who has a vehement desire for posthumous fame does not consider that every one of those who remember him will himself also die very soon; then again also they who have succeeded them, until the whole remembrance shall have been extinguished as it is transmitted through men who foolishly admire and perish. But suppose that those who willremember are even immortal, and that the remembrance will be immortal, what then is this to thee? And I say not what is it to the dead, but what is it to the living? What is praise except indeed so far as it has a certain utility? For thou now rejectest unseasonably the gift of nature, clinging to something else...”

• “Think continually how many physicians are dead after often contracting their eyebrows over the sick; and how many astrologers after predicting with great pretensions the deaths of others; and how many philosophers after endless discourses on death or immortality; how many heroes after killing thousands; and how many tyrants who have used theirpower over men's lives with terrible insolence as if they were immortal; and how many cities are entirely dead, so to speak, Helice and Pompeii and Herculaneum, and others innumerable. Add to the reckoning all whom thou hast known, one after another. One man after burying another has been laid out dead, and another buries him: and all this in ashort time. To conclude, always observe how ephemeral and worthless human things are, and what was yesterday a little mucus to-morrow will be a mummy or ashes.”

• “Pass then through this little space of time conformably to nature, and end thy journey in content, just as an olive falls off when it is ripe, blessing nature who produced it, and thanking the tree on which it grew.”

• “Time is a river, the resistless flow of all created things.”

• “Even while a thing is in the act of coming into existence, some part of it has already ceased to be.”

• “... the passing moment is all that a man can ever live or lose.”

• “What are the children of men, but as leaves that drop at the wind's breath?”

• “If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself but to your own estimate of it; and this you have the power to resolve at any moment.”

• Popular Highlights from Kindle Customers

• People who labor all their lives but have no purpose to direct every thought and impulse toward are wasting their time—even when hard at work.

  Highlighted by 23 Kindle customers

• The things you think about determine the quality of your mind. Your soul takes on the color of your thoughts.

  Highlighted by 13 Kindle customers

• The only thing that isn’t worthless: to live this life out truthfully and rightly. And be patient with those who don’t.

  Highlighted by 13 Kindle customers

• The present is all that they can give up, since that is all you have, and what you do not have, you cannot lose.

  Highlighted by 12 Kindle customers

• Choose not to be harmed—and you won’t feel harmed. Don’t feel harmed—and you haven’t been.

  Highlighted by 11 Kindle customers

• “If you seek tranquillity, do less.” Or (more accurately) do what’s essential—what the logos of a social being requires, and in the requisite way. Which brings a double satisfaction: to do less, better. Because most of what we say and do is not essential. If you can eliminate it, you’ll have more time, and more tranquillity. Ask yourself at every moment, “Is this necessary?”

  Highlighted by 10 Kindle customers

• Time is a river, a violent current of events, glimpsed once and already carried past us, and another follows and is gone.

  Highlighted by 9 Kindle customers

• Remember how long you’ve been putting this off, how many extensions the gods gave you, and you didn’t use them. At some point you have to recognize what world it is that you belong to; what power rules it and from what source you spring; that there is a limit to the time assigned you, and if you don’t use it to free yourself it will be gone and will never return.

  Highlighted by 9 Kindle customers

• It is, in other words, not objects and events but the interpretations we place on them that are the problem. Our duty is therefore to exercise stringent control over the faculty of perception, with the aim of protecting our mind from error.

  Highlighted by 8 Kindle customers

• Everyone gets one life. Yours is almost used up, and instead of treating yourself with respect, you have entrusted your own happiness to the souls of others.

  Highlighted by 7 Kindle customers

First Sentence edit see section history

Table of Contents edit see section history

Series & Lists edit see section history

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

1. Marcus Aurelius (Author)

Other Contributors:

1. George Long (Translator)
2. Gregory Hays (Translator)
3. R. B. Rutherford (Translator)
4. G. M. A. Grube (Translator)
5. A. S. L. Farquharson (Translator)
6. Andrew Fiala (Introduction)

First Edition edit see section history

Classification edit see section history

• Library of Congress: B580
• Dewey: 180

Subjects edit see section history

• Books › Nonfiction › Foreign Language Nonfiction › Latin
• Books › Literature & Fiction › History & Criticism › Criticism & Theory
• Books › Nonfiction › Philosophy › Greek & Roman
• Books › Nonfiction › Philosophy › Ethics & Morality
• Books › Nonfiction › Philosophy › Ancient
• Books › History › Ancient › Rome
• Books › Religion & Spirituality › Religious Studies › Theology
• Books › History › Europe › Greece

More Books Like This edit see section history