Tag: marcus aurelius
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Your Occasional Stoic — Crime of Pleasure, Crimes of Passion
In comparing crimes together, as, according to the common idea, they may be compared, Theophrastus makes the true philosophical distinction — that those committed from motives of pleasure are more heinous than those which are due to passion. For he who is a prey to passion is clearly turned away from reason by some spasm…
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Your Occasional Stoic –No One Can Stop You
Remember always what the nature of the Universe is, what your own nature is, and how these are related. Remember what part your qualities are of the qualities of the whole, and that no one can prevent you from speaking and acting always in accordance with your nature. Meditations 2:9 The first part here is…
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Your Occasional Stoic — Those Who Do Not Observe Well the Stirrings of Their Own Souls
Seldom are any found unhappy from not observing what is in the minds of others. But those who do not observe well the stirrings of their own souls must of necessity be unhappy. Meditations 2:8 Worry less about others and more about yourself.
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Your Occasional Stoic — Go On, Go On!
Go on, go on, my soul, to affront and dishonor yourself! The time that remains to honor yourself will not be long. Short is the life of every man; and yours is almost spent; spent, not honoring yourself, but seeking the happiness in the souls of other men. Meditations 2:6 Maybe the best, most succinct…
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Your Occasional Stoic — Unaffected dignity and Kindness
Hourly and earnestly strive, as a Roman and a man, to do what falls to your hand with perfect unaffected dignity, with kindliness, freedom and justice, and free your soul from every other imagination. This you will accomplish if you perform each action as if it were your last, without willfulness, or any passionate aversion…
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Your Occasional Stoic — Those In The Arena Are All That Matter, Those In The Stands Are None Of Our Concern.
Do not waste what remains of life in consideration about others, when it does not help the common good. Be sure you are neglecting other work if you busy yourself with what such a one is doing and why, with what he is saying, thinking, or scheming. Such things do nothing but divert you from…
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Your Occasional Stoic — Everything Dies Baby That’s A Fact
Hippocrates, who had healed many diseases, himself fell sick, and died. The Chaldeans foretold the fatal hours of multitudes, and afterwards fate carried them away. Alexander, Pompey, and Gaius Caesar, who so often razed whole cities, and cut off in battle so many myriads of horse and foot, at last departed from this life themselves.…
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Your Occasional Stoic — Contemplate The Fierce Jaws Of Beasts With No Less Delight Than The Works Of Sculptors Or Painters
Observe what grace and charm appear even in the accidents that accompany Nature’s work. Some parts of a loaf crack and burst in the baking; and this cracking, though in a manner contrary to the design of the baker, looks well and invites the appetite. Figs, too, gape when at their ripest, and in ripe…
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Your Occasional Stoic — Have a Sense of Urgency … Because Understanding and Intelligence Often Leave Us Before We Die
Man must consider, not only that each day part of his life is spent, and that less and less remains to him, but also that, even if he were to live longer, it is very uncertain whether his intelligence will suffice as it has for the understanding his affairs, and for grasping that knowledge which…
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Your Occasional Stoic — The Duration of Man’s Life Is But An Instant
The duration of man’s life is but an instant; his substance is fleeting, his senses dull; the structure of his body corruptible; the soul but a vortex. We cannot reckon with fortune, or lay our account with fame. To put is shortly, the life of the body is but a river, and the life of…
Milo and the Calf 