Stoicism

His reign, though marked by justice and moderation at home, was troubled by constant warfare on the frontiers of the empire, and Aurelius spent much of his later years in the uncongenial task of commanding armies that no longer proved irresistible against the barbarian hordes.

Amaralius was educated by the orator Fronto, but turned aside from rhetoric to study of the Stoic philosophy, of which he was the last distinguished representative.

The meditations, which he wrote in Greek, are among the most noteworthy expressions of this system, and exhibit it favorably on its practical side.

His own precepts he carried out with singular consistency, and both in his public and his private life he was in the highest degree conscientious.

But thou wouldst have something else which is not according to nature.

It may be objected, why, what is more agreeable than this which I am doing? But is not this the very reason why pleasure deceives us? And consider if magnanimity, freedom, simplicity, equanimity, piety, are not more agreeable.

For what is more agreeable than wisdom itself, when thou thinkest of the security and the happy course of all things which depend on the faculty of understanding and knowledge? 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 thy 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.

Nine.

You desire to live according to Nature? Oh, you noble Stoics, what fraud of words! Imagine to yourselves a being like Nature, boundlessly extravagant, boundlessly indifferent, without purpose or consideration, without pity or justice, at once fruitful and barren and uncertain: imagine to yourselves indifference as a power—how could you live in accordance with such indifference? To live—is not that just endeavoring to be otherwise than this Nature? Is not living valuing, preferring, being unjust, being limited, endeavoring to be different? And granted that your imperative, living according to nature, means actually the same thing as living according to life, how could you do differently? Why should you make a principle out of what you yourselves are and must be? In reality, however, it is quite otherwise with you.

While you pretend to read with rapture the canon of your law in nature, you want something quite the contrary, you extraordinary stage players and self-deluders.

In your pride you wish to dictate your morals and ideals to nature, to nature herself, and to incorporate them therein.

And to crown all, some unfathomable superciliousness gives you the bedlamite hope that because you are able to tyrannize over yourselves, Stoicism is self-tyranny, nature will also allow herself to be tyrannized over.

Is not the Stoic a part of nature? But this is an old and everlasting story.

What happened in old times with the Stoics still happens today, as soon as ever a philosophy begins to believe in itself.

It always creates the world in its own image.

He was accustomed to citizenship of a republic, and political responsibility was something which he took for granted.

With the loss of Greek freedom comes the rise of Stoicism, which is like Christianity and unlike Plato in having an individualistic conception of the good life.

We, who belong to great democracies, should find a more appropriate morality in free Athens than in despotic imperial Rome.

In India, where the political circumstances are very similar to those of Judea in the time of Christ, we find Gandhi preaching a very similar morality to Christ's, and being punished for it by the Christianized successors of Pontius Pilate.

24.

A True Story About How Stoicism Saved a Prisoner of War.

7 tips for Y-O-U-R-O-W-N Life Stockdale had no reason to think that the day's mission was to be anything unique.

25.

I spent the last nine months building a side project, here's how it went he thought I'd try to my hand at this entrepreneurship thing.

Here's how it went, the lessons I learned, and the progress I've made so far, 128.

When Buddhism's non-attachment overlaps Stoicism's dichotomy OF control practicing non-attachment is not giving up on aspirations or desires but realizing that it would be wise to drop the attachment to our thoughts on the outcome.

129.

INTRODUCTION Marcus Annius Verus was born in Rome in A.D. 121, and assumed the name of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, by which he is known to history on his adoption by the emperor T. Aurelius Antoninus.

He succeeded to the imperial throne in 161, and ruled till his death in 180. his reign though marked by justice and moderation at home was troubled by constant warfare on the frontiers of the empire and aurelius spent much of his later years in the uncongenial task of commanding armies that no longer proved irresistible against the barbarian hordes Amaralius was educated by the orator Fronto, but turned aside from rhetoric to study of the Stoic philosophy, of which he was the last distinguished representative.

The meditations, which he wrote in Greek, are among the most noteworthy expressions of this system, and exhibit it favorably on its practical side.

His own precepts he carried out with singular consistency, and both in his public and his private life he was in the highest degree conscientious.

It may be objected, why, what is more agreeable than this which I am doing? But is not this the very reason why pleasure deceives us? And consider if magnanimity, freedom, simplicity, equanimity, piety, are not more agreeable.

For what is more agreeable than wisdom itself? when thou thinkest of the security and the happy course of all things which depend on the faculty of understanding and knowledge.

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 thy 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.

And I read countless wisdom teachers and philosophers over the years.

I've read nihilists like Albert Camus.

I've read Stoics like Marcus Aurelius.

In fact, I've read all the Stoics.

And when I mean all, I mean all.

And I read Buddhist teachers and Hindu gurus and Jewish Merkaba mystics, all in the pursuit of wisdom.

Call upon him to aid thee, like a comrade that stands beside thee in the fight.

77 Who, then, is a Stoic? In the sense that we call a statue of Phidias, which is modeled after that master's art? Show me a man in this sense, modeled after the doctrines that are ever upon his lips.

Show me a man that is sick and happy, an exile and happy, an evil rapport and happy.

Show me him, I ask again.

So help me heaven, I long to see one Stoic.

Nay, if you cannot show me one fully modeled, let me at least see one in whom the process is at work, one who's bent in that direction.

Do me that favor.

A.D. 56-7.

Being now in my nineteenth year, I began to govern my life by the rules of the Pharisees, a sect which is akin to that which the Greeks call the Stoic school.

Vita 2 in brackets 8-12.

Selection 2.

That the wisest of the Greeks learnt to adopt these conceptions of God from principles with which Moses supplied them, I am not now concerned to urge.

But they have borne abundant witness to the excellence of these doctrines and to their consonance with the nature and majesty of God.

In fact, Pythagoras and Exagoras, Plato, the Stoics who succeeded him, and indeed nearly all the philosophers appear to have held similar views concerning the nature of God.

These, however, addressed their philosophy to the few and did not venture to divulge the true doctrine, literal, the truth of the doctrine, to the masses who were prepossessed by other opinions.

As we begin to wrap up, is there a book that you might recommend for our audience?

There's a lot of books that I could recommend for your audience, but I think probably the one, I'm a big fan of Stoic philosophy.

I think it's the most accessible, useful philosophy that there's been.

I've read lots of philosophy.