The Money Mustache Community
Mustachian Community => Mustachian Book Club => Topic started by: arebelspy on January 23, 2013, 08:58:55 AM
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This thread is for discussion of Meditations by Marcus Aurelius; the MMM Book Club's February 2013 book.
In addition to almost every public library in the nation, Meditations can be found free online in both HTML Form (http://classics.mit.edu/Antoninus/meditations.html), to read online in your browser and eBook form (http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2680), to download and read on your eBook reader of choice.
I figured this would be a fun, easy one, because it has so many quotable lines. This text file (http://classics.mit.edu/Antoninus/meditations.mb.txt) of the whole book may be useful for searching through (control+f) to easily copy/paste your favorite quotes over to here.
Feel free to share your favorite quotes from Meditations!
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I came over to unlock this thread, clicked on the links, and got sucked into reading different snippets for a half hour!
I was having fun doing searches for things like "truth," "virtue," "justice," etc. and reading the corresponding thoughts.
Here's two quotes I enjoyed while reading:
Adorn thyself with simplicity and modesty and with indifference towards the things which lie between virtue and vice. Love mankind.
If any man is able to convince me and show me that I do not think or act right, I will gladly change; for I seek the truth by which no man was ever injured. But he is injured who abides in his error and ignorance.
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No snippets, but I was struck by the construct of "learn." He always focused on who he learned something from (grandfather, father, mother, Governor,Diognetus, Rusticus, Appollonius...), connecting the informal daily life learning from family with intellectual learning--always personalizing and individualizing the sources of knowledge. This seems so different from the construct of formal learning in the U.S. at least where we focus on accrued content/concepts divorced from individuals (though we still use it to discuss things we learned from our family). To be sure, scholars attribute sources, thus focusing on the source of individual contributions.
Also I notice he never expresses any theory of HOW he learned these things, just who from.
Haven't thought much about what I think the implications of this pattern are, just noting it...
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Meditations is an awfully serene thread...
(Sorry, I couldn't help myself.) How's everyone finding it? Is it worth adding to my list of books to tackle when I again have reading time?
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Personally, I thought it was a difficult read, with the language and sentence structure.
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This is a quote I like quite a bit often attributed to Meditations. It's paraphrased and shortened from a longer part, but is often quoted thusly:
Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones.
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Huh, I've never heard that... it's sort of the anti-Pascal's wager.
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Yea, that's pretty much how I think about religion and life.
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Huh, I've never heard that... it's sort of the anti-Pascal's wager.
Yes, it is quite akin to the Athiest's Wager (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheist's_Wager)
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This thread is for discussion of Meditations by Marcus Aurelius; the MMM Book Club's February 2013 book.
In addition to almost every public library in the nation, Meditations can be found free online in both HTML Form (http://classics.mit.edu/Antoninus/meditations.html), to read online in your browser and eBook form (http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2680), to download and read on your eBook reader of choice.
I figured this would be a fun, easy one, because it has so many quotable lines. This text file (http://classics.mit.edu/Antoninus/meditations.mb.txt) of the whole book may be useful for searching through (control+f) to easily copy/paste your favorite quotes over to here.
Feel free to share your favorite quotes from Meditations!
I have fallen asleep numerous times reading Meditations, but I find myself going back to Epictetus' Enchiridion time and again.
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I have fallen asleep numerous times reading Meditations, but I find myself going back to Epictetus' Enchiridion time and again.
That is a great one. Definitely much easier reading.
Link for those interested: http://classics.mit.edu/Epictetus/epicench.html