"The wise man is consistent in both his thoughts and actions."
-- Donald Robertson, How to think like a Roman emperor
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Read postAll Is Well in the Great Mess
"That which I have said is only like the few leaves in my hand. And that which I have not said is like the dry leaves in this forest."
"Just keep in mind: the more we value things outside our control, the less control we have."
-- Epictetus
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"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not an act, but a habit."
-- Aristotle
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"Why should I fear death? If I am, death is not. If death is, I am not. Why should I fear that which can only exist when I do not?"
-- Epicurus
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Read postStoicism in a time of pandemic: how Marcus Aurelius can help
April 26, 2020•43 words
The Meditations, by a Roman emperor who died in a plague named after him, has much to say about how to face fear, pain, anxiety and loss.
A great article from Donald Robertson, published by The Guardian:
Stoicism in the Time of Pandemic
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Read postAbout Stoically Braving the Odds to Emerge Stronger
April 25, 2020•74 words
Want to build-up resilience and will power? The stoics offer a daily dose of subjecting yourselves to the worst-case scenarios to your troubles. It’s a simple methodology where you focus on yourself and your immediate surroundings once the terrible event has befallen you. According to the stoics, factoring every tragedy in one’s life trajectory is key to letting nothing disturb your internal peace.
Here’s the vision of a stoic on the journey through Covid-19.
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Everyday, think as you wake up, ‘today I am fortunate to have woken up, I am alive, I have a precious human life, I am not going to waste it. I am going to use all my energies to develop myself, to expand my heart out to others, to achieve enlightenment for the benefit of all beings, I am going to have kind thoughts towards others, I am not going to get angry or think badly about others, I am going to benefit others as much as I can.
-- Dalai Lama
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In everything that you do, pause and ask yourself if death is a dreadful thing because it deprives you of this.
-- Marcus Aurelius
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"True happiness is to enjoy the present, without anxious dependence upon the future, not to amuse ourselves with either hopes or fears but to rest satisfied with what we have, which is sufficient, for he that is so wants nothing. The greatest blessings of mankind are within us and within our reach. A wise man is content with his lot, whatever it may be, without wishing for what he has not"
-- Lucius Annaeus Seneca, De Vita Beata
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Read postStoics are speaking to locked-down readers
April 16, 2020•75 words
Sales of works by ancient Roman Marcus Aurelius have seen a sharp uptick in recent months.
According to Penguin Random House, print sales of Meditations are up 28% for the first quarter of 2020 vs 2019, while print sales of Letters from a Stoic are up 42% for the same period. In the last four weeks, its ebook sales rose by 356%"
The Guardian: ‘Dress rehearsal for catastrophe’: how Stoics are speaking to locked-down readers.
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Read postRalph Waldo Emerson - Self-Reliance
April 13, 2020•10,682 words
This text was first published in Emerson’s Essays collection in 1841. Emerson drew on his journals of 1832-40 for a number of ideas and passages he wrote here. Over the years, he delivered the text as speeches and lectures, so it evolved over time.
"Ne te quæsiveris extra."
"Man is his own star; and the soul that can
Render an honest and a perfect man,
Commands all light, all influence, all fate;
Nothing to him falls early or too late.
Our acts our angels are, or good or ill,
Our fatal shad...
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"External things are not the problem. It's your assessment of them. Which you can erase right now."
-- Marcus Aurelius
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"We’re tight-fisted with property and money, yet think too little of wasting time, the one thing about which we should all be the toughest misers."
-- Seneca
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"It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude."
-- R.W. Emerson, Self-Reliance
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"It is during our darkest moments that we must focus to see the light."
-- Aristotle
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"We are more often frightened than hurt; and we suffer more from imagination than from reality."
-- Seneca
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"A rock thrown in the air. It loses nothing by coming down, gained nothing by going up."
-- Marcus Aurelius
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"My life has been filled with terrible misfortunes; most of which never happened."
-- Michel de Montaigne
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Read postMarc Aurel: Selbstbetrachtungen (Reclam Hörbuch)
April 4, 2020•28 words
Die Selbstbetrachtungen von Marc Aurel sind als kostenloses Reclam Hörbuch auf YouTube verfügbar. Gelesen von Winfried Frey.
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“True happiness is to enjoy the present, without anxious dependence upon the future, not to amuse ourselves with either hopes or fears but to rest satisfied with what we have, which is sufficient, for he that is so wants nothing.”
-- Seneca
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Read postSenecas unvergängliche Lebensweisheit
April 2, 2020•37 words
Warum sind wir so geizig mit unserem Geld, gehen aber verschwenderisch mit unserer Lebenszeit um? In seinem Traktat „Das Leben ist kurz“ plädiert Seneca für einen verantwortungsvollen Umgang mit der Ressource Zeit.
Lesung mit Reinhard Glemnitz
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“The life we are given isn’t short but we make it so; we’re not ill provided but we are wasteful of life.”
-- Seneca
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“Think of yourself as dead. You have lived your life. Now, take what's left and live it properly. What doesn't transmit light creates its own darkness.”
-- Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
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"Today I escaped from anxiety. Or no, I discarded it, because it was within me, in my own perceptions -- not outside."
-- Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
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"Without going out-of-doors,
one may know all under heaven;
Without peering through windows,
one may know the Way of heaven.
The farther one goes,
The less one knows.
For this reason,
The sage
knows without journeying,
understands without looking,
accomplishes without acting."
-- Victor H. Mair (Lao Tzu - Tao Te Ching)
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"Remember that no one loses any other life than this which he is living, nor lives any other than this which he is losing."
-- Marcus Aurelius
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"You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete."
-- R. Buckminster Fuller
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“My life has been full of terrible misfortunes most of which never happened.”
-- Michel de Montaigne
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“Loss is nothing but change, and change is nature’s delight.”
-- Marcus Aurelius
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