{"id":2821,"date":"2021-07-07T01:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-07-07T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/priscimon.com\/blog\/?p=2821"},"modified":"2022-07-24T20:51:38","modified_gmt":"2022-07-24T19:51:38","slug":"thoughts-of-marcus-antoninus-aurelius","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/priscimon.com\/blog\/2021\/07\/07\/thoughts-of-marcus-antoninus-aurelius\/","title":{"rendered":"Thoughts of Marcus Antoninus Aurelius"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>I recently finished reading <em>Thoughts of Marcus Antoninus Aurelius<\/em>, a collection of Emperor Antoninus&#8217;s thoughts about Stoic principles. The format of the book is notable in that each &#8216;thought&#8217; is written in short sentences, sometimes even in just one phrase but rarely more than a few paragraphs. I like the book because it shows a man at the head of a great Roman empire sharing in common with us such simple desires of being good, just, and content. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Marcus Aurelius writes a lot about the importance of wisdom, justice, and humility in living well. He is also fixated with the inevitability of death and the finitude of everything; glory, he says, is a futile pursuit as nothing is permanent and we are soon forgotten in the progress of time. Little did he know that his thoughts would endure for 2000 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Not Marcus Aurelius&#8217;s own words, but a commentary from the translator, nevertheless this passage is thought-provoking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>Many men think that they are seeking happiness when they are only seeking the gratification of some particular passion, the strongest that they have. The end of a man is, as already explained, to live comformably to nature, and he will thus obtain happiness, tranquility of mind, and contentment.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I recently finished reading Thoughts of Marcus Antoninus Aurelius, a collection of Emperor Antoninus&#8217;s thoughts about Stoic principles. The format of the book is notable in that each &#8216;thought&#8217; is written in short sentences, sometimes even in just one phrase but rarely more than a few paragraphs. I like the book because it shows a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2821","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1j9q5-Jv","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/priscimon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2821","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/priscimon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/priscimon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/priscimon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/priscimon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2821"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/priscimon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2821\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3091,"href":"https:\/\/priscimon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2821\/revisions\/3091"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/priscimon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2821"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/priscimon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2821"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/priscimon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2821"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}