Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
Begin each day by telling yourself: Today I shall be meeting with interference, ingratitude, insolence, disloyalty, ill will, and selfishness– all of them due to the offender’s ignorance of what is good and evil. That people of a certain type should behave as they do is inevitable. To wish it otherwise were to wish the fig-tree would not yield its juice.The reflections of Marcus Aurelius (121-180) crystallize the philosophical wisdom of the Greco-Roman world. This little book was written as a diary to himself whilst emperor fighting a war out on the border of the Roman Empire, known as The Meditations today.
The Roman philosophers are not as well knows or as highly regarded as Greek philosophers such as Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus or Zeno the Stoic - and for a simple reason: the Roman thinkers were not primarily interested in abstract theory; rather, they were concerned with behavior, that is, understanding how to live in the everyday world and putting their understanding into practice. The goal was to live the life of an authentic philosopher, to be a person of high character and integrity, to develop inner strength and a quiet mind, and value such strength and quietude above all else.
Meditations’ recurring themes including the development of self-discipline to gain control over judgments and desires; overcoming a fear of death; the value of the ability to retreat into a rich, interior mental life (one’s inner citadel); recognize the world as a manifestation of the divine; live according to reason; avoid luxury and opulence.
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
“The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts…”
"La felicidad de tu vida depende de la calidad de sus pensamientos ..." “Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself in your way of thinking. |
“Nowhere can man find a quieter or more untroubled retreat than in his own soul.”
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| Marcus Aurelias "En ninguna parte el hombre puede encontrar un retiro más tranquilo o más sin problemas que en su propia alma." |
“Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.”
"Todo lo que escuchamos es una opinión, no un hecho. Todo lo que vemos es una perspectiva, no la verdad ".
“Never let the future disturb you. You will meet
it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you
against the present.”
"Nunca dejes que el futuro te perturbe. Usted se reunirá, si es necesario, con las mismas armas de la razón-que hoy se arma contra el presente. " |
“Stop thinking that you have been wronged, and
with it will go the feeling. Reject your sense of injury, and the injury
itself disappears.”
| "Deja de pensar que ha sido tratado injustamente, y con él irá el sentimiento. Rechazar su sentido de la lesión, y la propia lesión desaparece ". “If someone can prove me wrong and show me my mistake in any thought or action, I shall gladly change. I seek the truth, which never harmed anyone: the harm is to persist in one’s own self-deception and ignorance.” |
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