Marcus Aurelius

Octa Nonverba is a show that's raw and real, featuring hard-hitting interviews with people that live by the ethos of actions, not words.

Marcus Aurelius Anderson is a TEDx speaker, best-selling author, veteran, and leadership and mindset coach.

With this show, you get to join Marcus as he goes inside the minds and experiences of the world's most successful warriors, leaders, entrepreneurs, and experts.

With each episode, you're going to get the philosophies, concepts, tactics, and strategies these leaders use to turn adversity into victory.

Live an extraordinary life based on actions, not words.

Now, here's your host, Marcus Aurelius Anderson.

Octonon verba is a Latin phrase that means actions, not words.

If you want to know what somebody truly believes, don't listen to their words.

For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org.

The Meditations of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus by Marcus Aurelius Translated by George Crystal 1888-1944, Book I. I learned from my grandfather, Verus, to use good manners and to put restraint on anger.

In the famous memory of my father, I had a pattern of modesty and manliness.

of my mother i learned to be pious and generous to keep myself not only from evil deeds but even from evil thoughts and to live with a simplicity which is far from customary among the rich i owe it to my great-grandfather that i did not attend public lectures and discussions but had good

and

able teachers at home and i owe him also the knowledge that for things of this nature a man should count no expense too great my tutor taught me not to favor either green or blue at the chariot races nor in the contests of gladiators to be a supporter either of light or heavy armed he taught me also to endure labor NOT TO NEED MANY THINGS, TO SERVE MYSELF WITHOUT TROUBLING OTHERS, NOT TO INTERMEDDLE IN THE AFFAIRS OF OTHERS, AND NOT EASILY TO LISTEN TO SLANDERS AGAINST THEM.

no man could call him sophist buffoon or pedant he was a man of ripe experience a full man one who could not be flattered and one who could govern himself as well as others i further observed that he honored all who were true philosophers without upbraiding the rest and without being led astray by any his manners were easy his conversation delightful but not cloying he took regular but moderate care of his body neither as one over-fond of life or the adornment of his person nor as one who despised these things thus through his own care he seldom needed any medicines whether salves or potions it was his special merit to yield without envy to any who acquired any special faculty as either eloquence or learning in the law in ancient customs or the like and he aided such men strenuously so that every one of them might be regarded and esteemed for his special excellence he observed carefully the ancient customs of his forefathers and preserved without appearance of affectation the ways of his native land he was not fickle and capricious and loved not change of place or employment after his violent fits of headache he would return fresh and vigorous to his wonted affairs of secrets he had few and these seldom and such only as concerned public matters he displayed discretion and moderation in exhibiting shows for the entertainment of the people in his public works in his largesses and the like and in all those things he acted like one who regarded only what was right and becoming in the things themselves and not the reputation that might follow after he never bathed at unseasonable hours had no vanity in building was never solicitous either about his food or about the make or color of his clothes or about the beauty of his servants his dress came from warium his villa on the coast and was of lenuvian wool for the most part it is remembered how he used the tax-collector tusculum who asked his pardon and all his behavior was of a piece with that he was far from being inhuman or implacable or violent never doing anything with such keenness that one could say he was sweating about it in all things he reasoned distinctly as one at leisure calmly regularly resolutely and consistently a man might fairly apply to him which is recorded of socrates that he could both abstain from and enjoy these things, in want whereof many show themselves weak, and in the possession intemperate.

To be strong in abstinence, and temperate in enjoyment, to be sober in both, these are qualities of a man of perfect and invincible soul, as was shown in the sickness of Maximus.