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rallemandi's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
informative
inspiring
slow-paced
4.25
spela's review against another edition
challenging
informative
reflective
relaxing
slow-paced
chairmanbernanke's review against another edition
3.0
Interesting thoughts from Marcus, but he was probably a better emperor than philosopher, and more a writer than a thinker.
little_man's review against another edition
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
One of the best philosophical books I’ve ever read, easy to understand and just very nice, reassuring and interesting to read.
emmabugge's review against another edition
I felt that it explained simple things that i have already thought about in a complicated way, which i think is unnecessary and boring.
raphaelsandingjr's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
4.25
michplunkett's review against another edition
4.0
I wanted to sit with this book for a little bit and let it stew in my head after I finished it. As a whole, I really enjoyed this book and appreciated the distilled concept of "do what is in alignment with your moral code and let the rest fall as it may." I think there is an unfortunate space for a less than introspective person to take that blurb and do some damage, but I'd hope those people are the minority of those who read the book.
As a generally nervous person that tends to focus more on outcomes than actions, I found this book really comforting. This book gave me some useful tools/viewpoints to make use of situations that would otherwise make my day more stressful than need be.
Side-note: I think the note toward the end about there not being a pedophilia-adjacent relationship between Marcus and Fronto was a little odd. They were clearly more than friends and given ancient Greek's history of grown men creepin' on young boys, it seems very optimistic to say that wasn't the case. I would have presumed they were just lovers had that not been mentioned. In a book full of what is supposed to be classic Stoic materials, it's odd that they decided to append correspondence that predominately consisted of love letters to it.
As a generally nervous person that tends to focus more on outcomes than actions, I found this book really comforting. This book gave me some useful tools/viewpoints to make use of situations that would otherwise make my day more stressful than need be.
Side-note: I think the note toward the end about there not being a pedophilia-adjacent relationship between Marcus and Fronto was a little odd. They were clearly more than friends and given ancient Greek's history of grown men creepin' on young boys, it seems very optimistic to say that wasn't the case. I would have presumed they were just lovers had that not been mentioned. In a book full of what is supposed to be classic Stoic materials, it's odd that they decided to append correspondence that predominately consisted of love letters to it.