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In Meditations, philosophy doesn’t refer to an abstract course of academic study, but to a person’s way of life. This was the more common understanding of philosophy in the ancient world, and it was especially true of the popularized Stoicism that Marcus Aurelius followed. Marcus often refers to philosophy as a set of practical guidelines by which a person directs their daily life, especially in light of life’s brevity, instability, and inevitable mystery. A set of mental tools kept near at hand, philosophy helps a person keep their mind steady and unshaken despite pain, upheaval, mistreatment by others, and inevitable death. Meditations itself is a collection of Marcus’s philosophical exercises, jotted down amidst the rigors of daily life as emperor.
Philosophy Quotes in Meditations
The Meditations quotes below are all either spoken by Philosophy or refer to Philosophy. For each quote, you can also see the other terms and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Book 2
Quotes
The body and its parts are a river, the soul a dream and mist, life is warfare and a journey far from home, lasting reputation is oblivion.
Then what can guide us?
Only philosophy. Which means making sure that the power within stays safe and free from assault […] And making sure that it accepts what happens and what it is dealt as coming from the same place it came from. And above all, that it accepts death in a cheerful spirit, as nothing but the dissolution of the elements from which each living thing is composed. If it doesn't hurt the individual elements to change continually into one another, why are people afraid of all of them changing and separating? It's a natural thing. And nothing natural is evil.
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Book 3
Quotes
13. Doctors keep their scalpels and other instruments handy, for emergencies. Keep your philosophy ready too—ready to understand heaven and earth. In everything you do, even the smallest thing, remember the chain that links them. Nothing earthly succeeds by ignoring heaven, nothing heavenly by ignoring the earth.
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Book 6
Quotes
12. If you had a stepmother and a real mother, you would pay your respects to your stepmother, yes…but it's your real mother you'd go home to.
The court... and philosophy: Keep returning to it, to rest in its embrace. It's all that makes the court—and you—endurable.
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Book 9
Quotes
29. The design of the world is like a flood, sweeping all before it. The foolishness of them—little men busy with affairs of state, with philosophy—[…]
Do what nature demands. Get a move on—if you have it in you—and don't worry whether anyone will give you credit for it. And don't go expecting Plato's Republic; be satisfied with even the smallest progress, and treat the outcome of it all as unimportant.
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Get the entire Meditations LitChart as a printable PDF.
Philosophy Term Timeline in Meditations
The timeline below shows where the term Philosophy appears in Meditations. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Book 1: Debts and Lessons
...taught him not to get caught up in sports rivalries. Diognetus taught him to practice philosophy and to adopt an austere lifestyle. Rusticus taught him to train his character and to...
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...gives thanks to the gods for his loving wife, and that in his pursuit of philosophy, he hasn’t gotten bogged down in either quackery or obscure scholarship.
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Book 2: On the River Gran, Among the Quadi
17. Life is brief, changeable, and hard to understand. In light of this, only philosophy can guide a person. Philosophy lets a person keep “the power within” safe—above pleasure or...
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Book 3: In Carnuntum
...keeps his surgical tools nearby (in case of emergency), so too should people keep their philosophy handy. The earthly can’t succeed without the heavenly, and vice versa.
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Book 5
...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.”
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Book 6
12. Pursuing both the court and philosophy is like having both a stepmother and a mother. The first deserves honor, but the...
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30. Marcus tells himself to “be the person philosophy has tried to make you.” Antoninus should be his model: he was steady, reverent, modest,...
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Book 8
1. Be humble, because you haven’t attained philosophy yet. Don’t worry about your reputation, but strive to live undistractedly as nature demands. That’s...
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