Marcus Aurelius

Marcus Aurelius Antoniunus Augustus – better know today as simply Marcus Aurelius was born in 121 and died in 190. He was Roman Emperor from 161 until he died. Not only was he an emperor but is also generally acknowledged today as one of the great stoic philosophers. He is chiefly known today for The Meditations – written between 170 and 180.

Transience, integrity, the long view, personal responsibility, and acceptance: these are some threads that run through The Meditations. It is definitely a world in which whining did not belong. There is a repeated mention of “The Logos” – the word – the way things are. The wise person goes with that flow and doesn’t piss and moan about it. It helps, in Marcus Aurelius’ view to be now and to see things in the amplitude of time and space. That, at first blush, does seem a contradiction – be in this small gap between the tick and the tock, and at the same time, from outside time and space, see yourself in the fullness of time and in the speck of space that we truly inhabit. There is certain nobility to the acceptance of what has been served up; within the knowledge of the strengths of the mind, the enduring nature we all have, and the flux that will transform us.

Here are a few of his choice quotations:

“Forget everything else. Keep hold of this alone and remember it: Each of us lives only now, this brief instant. The rest has been lived already or is impossible to see. The span we live is small – small as the corner of the earth in which we live.”

“Never regard something as doing you good if it makes you betray a trust, or loose your sense of shame, or makes you show hatred, suspicion, ill-will, or hypocrisy, or a desire for things best done behind closed doors. If you can privilege your own mind, your guiding spirit and your reverence for its powers, that should keep you clear of dramatics, wailing and gnashing of teeth. You won’t need solitude or a cast of thousands either. Above all you’ll be free of desire.”

“Ignoring what goes on in other people’s souls – no one ever came to grief that way. But if you can’t keep track of what your own soul’s doing, how can you not be unhappy?"

“Dig deep; the water – goodness, is down there; and as long as you keep digging it will keep bubbling up.”

“To watch the courses of the stars as if you revolved with them. To keep constantly in mind of how the elements alter into one another. Thoughts like this wash off the mud of life below.”