Total Page : 180
Publisher : Dodo Press
Publication Date : 2006 08 12
>> Philosophy its best
I will keep it short
Amazon shipped the order rather quickly the book came nice and new the reading itself is irreplaceable Would definitely recommend for others
>> Not so common sense
Everywhere at each moment you have the option
to accept this event with humility
to treat this person as he should be treated
to approach this thought with care so that nothing irrational creeps in
With these words Marcus Aurelius succinctly captures the philosophy he shaped his worldview around Practical philosophy such as this often gets tagged with the phrase common sense but to me this does a great injustice to both the underlying philosophy and to the clearly intense struggle to live life by such a code The ideals that Marcus articulates are perhaps commonly understood but rarely translated into practice because human nature tends toward the opposite response to act selfishly to taint our judgment with thoughts of what if and why me and to rail against that or those we believe have caused us insult or harm To live as a Stoic to accept external events as outside of our control to treat others with justice and fairness and work toward the common good and to be able to separate objective fact from subjective evaluation is incredibly difficult The fact that Marcus felt the need to write these notes down and often repeat the same themes over and over again to himself gives proof to their difficulty
Marcus can seem a bit cold and a bit pessimistic at times but I don t think this need be the case It is actually a rather liberating message both specific and demanding of its adherents Want true happiness Be unselfish in your actions Don t deny your emotions or speculations but do keep them distinct from objective fact The things that are done and said to you are only bad if you let them be Improve what you can control accept what you can t If you need help putting things in perspective Marcus reminds us that all is transient this too shall pass More sobering than uplifting the message is different than your typical modern self help book Yet it is these differences and the insights they produce that make it a stimulating and rewarding read especially in these turbulent days at the beginning of the 21st century Due to its excellent introduction and general ease of reading I particularly enjoyed this Hays translation but encourage potential readers to compare several versions to see which fits their needs best
>> Hardly ground breaking but essential nonetheless
If you expect this book to be anything but common sense and practical idioms you are mistaken The genius is this common sense and practical knowledge is tested and elaborated on by the most powerful man on earth at that time and one of the most respected of his empire a good judge of ethics and morals Marcus Aurelius neither intended this to be a radical new treatise or even published for that matter instead these are the reiterations of a student of Stoicism reinforcing his willpower in face of his self acknowledged weaknesses and in that regard an intriguing intimate look into one of the few philospher kings of Plato s dreaming
His philosophy sometimes rambling often redundant and idiosyncratic repetition of the theme of afterlife is nothing new to anyone who has studied Stoicism For those unfamiliar it reads easily and has a non academic feel without sinking to a dear diary sappiness These are real life politics and wars he is describing and he s the one responsible for pulling the empire through it The brief maxims and longer diatribes are not profession in nature or necessarily inspiring but are timeless all the same and like the Ecclesiastes and the Upanishads a practical code to follow A book I will likely come back to again and again
