From Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations

Book 2.7

Are you distracted by outward cares? Then allow yourself a space of quiet, wherein you can add to your knowledge of the Good and learn to curb your restlessness. Guard also against another kind of error: the folly of those who weary their days in much business, but lack any aim on which their whole effort, nay, their whole thought, is focused.

Boy, did I need to see this one right now. It feels like my entire life is spent in restless, pointless endeavour.

From Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations

Book 2.5

Hour by hour resolve firmly, like a Roman and a man, to do what comes to hand with correct and natural dignity, and with humanity, independence, and justice. Allow your mind freedom from all other considerations. This you can do, if you will approach each action as though it were your last, dismissing the wayward thought, the emotional recoil from the commands of reason, the desire to create and impression, the admiration of self, the discontent with your lot. See how little a man needs to master, for his days to flow on in quietness and piety: he has but to observe these few counsels, and the gods will ask nothing more.

From Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations

Book 2.4

Think of your many years of procrastination, how the gods have repeatedly granted you further periods of grace, of which you have taken no advantage. It is time…to understand that your time has a limit set to it. Use it, then, to advance your enlightenment; or it will be gone, and never in your power again.

Begin each day by telling yourself: Today I shall be meeting with interference, insolence, disloyalty, ill-will, and selfishness–all of them due to the offenders’ ignorance of what is good or evil.

I truly enjoy this one. In other words: People are insensitive idiots. But they don’t know any better.

What can I say–I admire diplomatic speech but I’ve never excelled at it myself.

The qualities I admired in my father were his lenience, his firm refusal to be diverted from any decision he had deliberately reached, his complete indifference to meretricious honours…

In other words–to be completely himself. This isn’t something I’ve ever had a particularly difficult time doing, but I admire it in others, as it seems rare.

He was aware the social life must have its claims: his friends were under no obligation to join him at his table or attend his progresses, and when they were detained by other engagements it made no difference to him.

This is a quality of which the world needs more. I’ve lost more than one person I thought was a friend because I didn’t attend a party. Nevermind that social gatherings give me anxiety attacks–if you don’t show up it means you don’t like the host/ess. Well, I can’t say I care very much for you if that’s how you approach the situation.

…all men recognized in him a mature and finished personality, that was impervious to flattery and entirely capable of ruling both himself and others.

This harks back to the first quote, but adds that if a person is truly himself he will have no problem remaining true to himself–only those unsure of themselves, both in private and public spheres, need worry what others think.

Book One

10. It was the critic Alexander who put me on my guard against unnecessary fault-finding. People should not be sharply corrected for bad grammar, provincialisms or mispronunciation; it is better to suggest the proper expression by tactfully introducing it oneself in, say, one’s reply to a question or one’s acquiescence in their sentiments, or into a friendly discussion of the topic itself (not of the diction), or by some other suitable form of reminder.

This is something I need to work on, as I’m a great stickler about language and its correct usage. In The Waste Books Lichtenberg says:

Rousseau was right to call accent the soul of speech and we often regard people as stupid and when we look into it we find it is merely the simple sound of their manner of speaking.

But language is free to everyone and the rules are not that terribly difficult so why should a person choose to sound less intelligent to a majority of the population unless out of sheer bloody-mindedness?

As I said, I need to work on this one, though as I’ve grown older I’ve become less pedantic (outwardly, anyway), but that’s to be expected because, in looking for identity, the young are often more passionate about their opinions than the older, whose thoughts are tempered by confidence in oneself and one’s place in the world.

Book One

#6 Thanks to Diognetus, I learnt not to be absorbed in trivial pursuits; to be sceptical of wizards and wonder-workers with their tales of spells, exorcisms and the like; to eschew cockfighting and other such distractions…

The meaning of this part of the quote is that if one should wish to be one’s best self, it is in their interest to ignore anything that would take one from their studies. It also reminds me of the Eleanor Roosevelt quote:

‘Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people.’

In other words, the greater the mind, the grander the topics up for discussion. It’s as if the topics of interest are proportional to the size of the mind of the person interested by them.

Book One

4. To my great-grandfather I owe the advice to dispense with the education of the schools and have good masters at home instead–and to realise that no expence should  be grudged for this purpose.

The best part of this project is that I can have history’s best teachers in my house for free. I do like the word ‘master’ rather than ‘tutor’, as they are masters of their particular subjects.

Marcus Aurelius (121-180 C.E.) was of the Stoic school of philosophy. Stoicism is similar to Existentialism (and Buddhism) in that it is a way of life, rather than just an intellectual exercise, as well as focusing not on what people say, but how they act. Each person is to be the ideal of who they wish to be and those who most embody the picture of their belief system is elevated within the bounds of their philosophy. The highest level of Stoicism is a sage and are people of “moral and intellectual perfection” [Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy] , which is also the chief goal of Existentialism.

Another similarity is that one is to exercise their own will to overcome useless emotions. This is also in line with Buddhism, where one is to rid oneself of earthly emotions and attachments in order to more fully connect with everything and everyone.In all three people exist for themselves alone and strive to be their best, most perfect self.

And that’s something I can definitely get behind.