Book Five
5:10
Book Subtitle: The classic from Marcus Aurelius.
Book Description: The personal notes of Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius.
This book has influenced many throughout history from students to statesmen. It's an inside look at a brilliant and thoughtful man working on living well.
The emperor and philosopher's thoughts are crucial to understand for any Stoic seeking to do their best in a complex world.
Chapter Subtitle: In he morning when you rise unwillingly, let this thought be present- I am rising to the work of a human being.
10. Things are in such a kind of envelopment that they have seemed to philosophers, not a few nor those common philosophers, altogether unintelligible; nay even to the Stoics themselves they seem difficult to understand.
And all our assent is changeable; for where is the man who never changes?
Carry your thoughts then to the objects themselves, and consider how short-lived they are and worthless, and that they may be in the possession of a filthy wretch or a whore or a robber.
Then turn to the morals of those who live with you and it is hardly possible to endure even the most agreeable of them, to say nothing of a man being hardly able to endure himself.
In such darkness then and dirt and in so constant a flux both of substance and of time, and of motion and of things moved, what there is worth being highly prized or even an object of serious pursuit, I cannot imagine.
But on the contrary it is a man's duty to comfort himself, and to wait for the natural dissolution and not to be vexed at the delay, but to rest in these principles only: the one, that nothing will happen to me which is not conformable to the nature of the universe; and the other, that it is in my power never to act contrary to my god and daemon: for there is no man who will compel me to this.
Book: Meditations
Subtitle: The classic from Marcus Aurelius.
Author: Marcus Aurelius
Chapter: Book Five
Chapter Subtitle: In he morning when you rise unwillingly, let this thought be present- I am rising to the work of a human being.
Location: Chapter 5, Section 10
Content:
10. Things are in such a kind of envelopment that they have seemed to philosophers, not a few nor those common philosophers, altogether unintelligible; nay even to the Stoics themselves they seem difficult to understand.
And all our assent is changeable; for where is the man who never changes?
Carry your thoughts then to the objects themselves, and consider how short-lived they are and worthless, and that they may be in the possession of a filthy wretch or a whore or a robber.
Then turn to the morals of those who live with you and it is hardly possible to endure even the most agreeable of them, to say nothing of a man being hardly able to endure himself.
In such darkness then and dirt and in so constant a flux both of substance and of time, and of motion and of things moved, what there is worth being highly prized or even an object of serious pursuit, I cannot imagine.
But on the contrary it is a man's duty to comfort himself, and to wait for the natural dissolution and not to be vexed at the delay, but to rest in these principles only: the one, that nothing will happen to me which is not conformable to the nature of the universe; and the other, that it is in my power never to act contrary to my god and daemon: for there is no man who will compel me to this.