I had no idea that James Stockdale was an amateur stoic philosopher.

RIP.

I too have gotten a lot of guidance and comfort from Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus, thoug more from the former than from the latter. The Meditations is a wonderful resource for enduring the crap life throws at us from time to time. Over at Liberty and Power, Tom Palmer elaborates:

I like the conjunction of Epictetus and Marcus for two reasons. First, of course, is the fact that two of the greatest Stoics were A) a former slave, and B) the Emperor. Second, I like the style, as the meditations were evidently written for him alone, and not for public education. They’re about a man working diligently to achieve self control, not just telling others that they ought to do so.

Warhawks take note: Aurelius was not merely the last emperor of the Pax Romana era. He also fought alongside his soldiers.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 7th, 2005 at 12:08 pm by Radley Balko and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.