A master of Stoicism

Marcus Aurelius was a remarkable Roman Emperor, a true philosopher, who could take vis-à-vis its distances dempereur position or the clamor of weapons and meditate on life and fate lultime (also hers) of all fatal .

Philosophy
In an astonishing paragraph Marcus summarizes his outlook on life and what it has to more valuable in life: The time of man's life, a moment; sensations, indistinct; lassemblage whole body, easy decomposition; his fate, hardly conjecturable; his fame, a wave opinion; to put it in a word, all that is his body is running water; all that is his soul, dream and smoke. His life is a war, living in a foreign land; his posthumous fame, an oversight. Quest, which can guide us? A single thing philosophy.

Human being
Marcus navait not a high opinion of the vast majority of human present case: What beings vulgar that these little men playing political act and imagine philosophers! They are full of snot.
And dune singular way: It seeks only retreats in the country, on the beaches, in the mountains But all this is of common opinion, as you can, by the hour you want, you withdraw into yourself.

The ultimate fate
For the emperor, things that, in life, are the most prized are just empty, rot, insignificance, pugs that bite. All those who fell out jusquici suspected, hated, drilled lances, are elongated, reduced to ashes!
For all human beings, Fate navait he ordered that they not become First of them too, old and old, and that they then die? Soon you will be only ashes or skeleton, a name and not even a name; and the name is just one sound, an echo.

Marcus was also initiated into the Mysteries dEleusis. But it was forbidden for participants to divulge the secrets of the Mysteries. So, with him not a word, nor the meaning or the content of initiations or festivities. All men are equal before the Mysteries: everyone could be initiated, men or women, emperors and slaves, except murderers (Burkert, Kerenyi, Méautis).

This remarkable book, written there nearly two thousand years, is an admirable and profound meditation by an exceptional human being whose posthumous fame is anything but an oversight.
Compelling reading for all men and all women of good will.