![]() His most famous work, Meditations, wasn’t written to be a published book, though.Instead, it consists of writing that he used for his own self-improvement and guidance. You will no longer be a stranger in your own country, no longer meet the day's events as if bemused by the unexpected, no longer hang on this or that. Marcus Aurelius was the emperor of Rome from 161-181 A.D., and his writings are a major source for our contemporary understanding of Stoic philosophy. ![]() If, then, when you finally come close to your exit, you have left all else behind and value only your directing mind and the divinity within you, if your fear is not that you will cease to live, but that you never started a life in accordance with nature, then you will be a man worthy of the universe that gave you birth. ![]() You should let nothing stand in your way - not the iniquity of others, not what anyone else thinks or says, still less any sensation of this poor flesh that has accreted round you: the afflicted part must see to its own concern. To justice, so that you are open and direct in word and action, speaking the truth, observing law and proportion in all you do. To reverence, so that you come to love your given lot: it was Nature that brought it to you and you to it. That is, if you leave all the past behind, entrust the future to Providence,Īnd direct the present solely to reverence and justice. “All that you pray to reach at some point in the circuit of your life can be yours now - if you are generous to yourself. In short, give your petitions a turn in this direction, and see what comes.” Where another man prays ‘Grant that I may possess this woman,’ let your own prayer be, ‘Grant that I may not lust to possess her.’ Where he prays, ‘Grant me to be rid of such-and-such a one,’ you pray, ‘Take from me my desire to be rid of him.’ Where he begs, ‘Spare me the loss of my precious child,’ beg rather to be delivered from the terror of losing him. Besides, who told you the gods never lend their aid even towards things that do lie in our own power? Begin praying in this way, and you will see. You will say, perhaps, ‘But all that is something they have put in my own power.’ Then surely it were better to use your power and be a free man, than to hanker like a slave and a beggar for something that is not in your power. If they have not, why pray to them? If they have, then instead of praying to be granted or spared such-and-such a thing, why not rather pray to be delivered from dreading it, or lusting for it, or grieving over it? Clearly, if they can help a man at all, they can help him in this way. I use Querious multiple times a day everyday. Coming from Navicat your software is much easier to use. The gods either have power or they have not. Querious is an awesome piece of software, so much quicker than the previous software I used (Navicat).
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