The Meditations by Marcus Aurelius remains one of the great works of spiritual and ethical reflection, as well as one of the key works of Stoicism.
It is perhaps the only document of its kind ever made, the private thoughts of the world’s most powerful man. Today Marcus Aurelius is considered as the quintessential Stoic.
The Meditations can be best seen as “spiritual exercises” written as reflections against the stress and confusion of everyday life, a sort of self-help book. He had clearly no expectation that anyone but himself would ever read his Meditations. It seems unlikely that he gave the work a title at all.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ⌛ Timestamps (0:00) Introduction (3:35) Stoicism (4:52) Meditations (5:48) Perceptions of Good and Bad (6:15) Constant Change (6:43) Mortality (7:28) Living according to Nature (7:58) Stoicism and Epicureanism (8:16) Rationality (8:42) The Power of Our Mind (9:25) Pain and Weakness