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Book 4
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Meditations, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Philosophy, The Mind, and Living Well
Relationships and The City
Nature and the Gods
Mortality and Dying Well
Summary
Analysis
1. When it’s hard to get out of bed in the morning, tell yourself that you don’t have anything to complain about, because you’re doing the work you were born to do—being human. You weren’t made to huddle under the blankets, but to experience things as your nature demands. If you loved yourself enough, you’d do it.
5. If you lack one virtue, then practice what virtues you can—you have much to offer besides excuses.
Here, Marcus emphasizes that everyone has some virtues they can develop and put into practice.
Themes
6. When you do somebody a favor, don’t look at it as an opportunity to be repaid someday. Instead, be like a vine that produces grapes, a dog after a hunt, or a bee with its honey. A human being doesn’t make a fuss about helping another.
Doing good should be a natural expression of humanity, like a bee making honey, or any living thing fulfilling its natural purpose.
Themes
7. Pray simply and straightforwardly, or don’t pray at all.
From Marcus’s perspective, religious practice should be like any other aspect of a person’s life—stripped of complications.
Themes
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8. Whatever happens to us is destined and part of a single harmony. The world comprises all bodies; fate comprises all purposes. According to Marcus, we should accept purposes the way we accept a doctor’s prescription—knowing it won’t necessarily be pleasant, but it will be healing. So whatever happens, accept it not just for your own sake, but for the sake of the whole world’s well-being. The whole is damaged if any part of it is destroyed.
The world is a harmonious place. This affects the way people react to hardship. Even if something is painful, it should be looked upon as part of one’s improvement—and since a person is part of a greater whole, it’s part of the world’s well-being, too.
Themes
9. Don’t get discouraged when you fail. Celebrate having acted like a human and try again. Think of philosophy as a soothing ointment. Philosophy “requires only what your nature already demands.”
Trying to act philosophically is “human”—aligning with human nature—and therefore worth celebrating. Philosophy is really just a method of restoring and strengthening a person’s inherent nature.
Themes
10. The world is so mysterious that even the Stoics get confused. But rather than getting discouraged about life’s seeming meaninglessness, remember that nothing can happen that isn’t natural, and that you can refrain from doing anything that God and yourself don’t approve of.
This “natural” aspect of life should be a comfort; because nature is harmonious, there’s meaning in everything, even if it’s not immediately apparent.
Themes
13. Human beings are made up of “substance and what animates it.” Neither of these things began to exist or can stop existing. Each part of a person will transform into another part of the world, and another and another.
Because of nature’s harmonious design, human beings are embedded within nature’s constant transformations, an integral part of the whole.
Themes
16. The things a person thinks about determine the mind’s quality; the soul, in turn, is colored by one’s thoughts. So it’s good to think about things like these: a good life can be led anywhere; the good of a rational being is unselfishness—lower things are meant to benefit higher, and higher things are meant to benefit one another.
In Stoicism, a person is the product of their thoughts, so a person must take care to dwell on good things. Such things include detachment from external circumstances and the interconnection of all rational things.
Themes
19. Things cannot gain access to the soul. The soul directs itself by interpreting the things before it.
The soul’s job is to interpret the external world, which can’t otherwise enter the soul.
Themes
20. Our job in life is to put up with other people. But when people disrupt our tasks, becoming obstacles, we must adapt and work around them. In that way, the obstacle moves action forward—“What stands in the way becomes the way.”
Life is unavoidably social, but when other people become hard to deal with, such obstacles should become a new path, not a roadblock.
Themes
22. If something doesn’t harm the community, then it can’t harm its members.
Because life is a harmonious whole, the well-being of individuals and community is the same.
Themes
23. Things flow past us constantly, like a river—there’s nothing stable. So it’s ridiculous to feel either prideful or distraught. Irritations don’t last.
From Marcus’s perspective, the flowing stream of life should prevent people from becoming too attached or bothered by external things.
Themes
26. The mind rules the soul. It shouldn’t be disturbed by the flesh. Mind and body are linked, so of course sensations make their way into one’s mind. Don’t resist these natural sensations, but don’t let the mind judge them as “good” or “bad.”
Sensations are inevitable, but again, it’s up to the mind to deal with them; the philosophical mind doesn’t get overwhelmed by them.
Themes
27. Living with the gods means accepting what we’re given and doing what the spirit requires—our mind, or logos, a fragment of God.
When a person lives according to their God-given logos, they’re living a divine life.
Themes
29. A person can live in this world as if it’s the afterlife. If others won’t let them, then it’s okay to exit life now. Until then, a person is free. Nobody can stop them from doing what they want most—living as a rational being.
In theory, according to Marcus, suicide can be permissible, but only if a person is truly being prevented from acting according to their rational nature. In the vast majority of cases, a person should be able to act rationally no matter what’s happening in the world.
Themes
33. Soon, a human being is just dust. The things people want in life are trivial. Objects are unstable; senses are easily deceived. There’s nothing to do but wait for death. In the meantime, honor the gods, treat others as they deserve, and be stricter toward oneself than toward others.
In any case, life is short, and a person should do the best they can by making the most of their circumstances, treating oneself, one’s community, and the gods rationally.
Themes
37. Good fortune is what a person makes for oneself. It’s a matter of good character, intentions, and actions.
As Marcus sees it, there’s no objective condition called good luck. It’s all in how a person interprets and acts upon a given situation.
Themes
