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. Everything you’re striving for is attainable right now, but you keep getting in your own way. You just need to forget about the past and trust God with the future. In the present, practice reverence (acceptance of what nature gives) and justice (speaking the truth and acting as you should). And when it comes to death, what you’re really afraid of is not dying, but never having lived properly.
In this last section of the Meditations, Marcus takes a somewhat more introspective turn, perhaps anticipating how soon he’ll die.
Themes
2. If you learn to see your soul the way God sees it—stripped bare of everything earthly—will you desire things like earthly possessions and fame?
Marcus’s exhortations to himself suggest that philosophy isn’t something he feels he’s achieved once and for all—it requires ongoing work, trial and error, and readjustment of perspective.
Themes
4. We love ourselves more than we love other people, and yet we care more about their opinions than our own.
Marcus touches on some of the ironies and common failings of humanity. People love themselves best, yet they constantly run after others’ approval instead of doing the really worthwhile thing and attending to their own minds.
Themes
5. If we protest the deaths of the most godlike people, then we imply that the gods are unfair. But the gods don’t do anything that isn’t right or natural, so we know it must be fair.
It’s Marcus’s view that the gods do nothing unjust. Therefore nobody’s death is unjust, even the best people’s. Protesting death pointlessly resists the gods’ will.
Themes
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14. If there’s a God, then try to be worthy of God’s help. And if the world is nothing but randomness, then be grateful you have a mind that’ll guide you through the storm; it can’t be swept away, even if the rest of you is.
Perhaps Marcus, too, still had doubts about the gods, but he found his mind a worthwhile guide through life. He practices philosophy—even by writing Meditations—in order to train his mind for any “storms.”
Themes
16. You can’t expect a bad person not to harm others—it’s like expecting “babies not to cry, horses not to neigh.” It’s inevitable. If it makes you angry, then you need to work on that.
Some people’s bad behavior comes as inevitably as a baby’s or an animal’s cries. Since it can’t be helped, a person should manage their own reactions instead.
Themes
20. Don’t undertake anything without a purpose, or for any reason besides the common good.
People should stay focused on purposeful action that’s geared toward the collective good, instead of being aimless.
Themes
23. There’s no disgrace in death. It arrives on time, a part of nature’s schedule in renewing all things. When we follow God’s path, we become godlike.
Living according to nature is living in accordance with the gods. That includes accepting death when it comes, which is an honorable part of nature as a whole.
Themes
26. A person’s mind is from God. In fact, everything and everyone comes from that same source. So life is about how a person chooses to see things—and living in the present, because it’s all we have.
Because everything comes from God, a person can maintain a wider perspective about their life and everything the encounter—it’s all linked to a pervasive divine power.
Themes
27. Most of the things we want are trivial. It’s more “philosophical” to practice virtue and obey God without being showy about it. False humility is intolerable.
Most of the time, however, people get caught up in little things, or else they practice philosophy in a superficial way, for others’ approval.
Themes
28. If somebody asks how you can be sure there are gods, tell them to just look around. Besides, the soul is invisible, too.
It’s not uncommon to doubt the gods’ existence, but Marcus thinks the world’s existence is sufficient proof. And why should someone doubt the gods more than their own soul?
Themes
36. Marcus has lived as a citizen in a “great city.” Being sent away from it by Nature (not exiled by a corrupt judge) isn’t so bad. The length of life, and the timing of its dissolution, aren’t his to determine. He’s been shown grace, and he can leave life behind gracefully.
In Marcus’s final meditation, he reflects on his life as a whole. He has been blessed to live in Rome and in the world. In light of this privilege, he can’t complain about having to leave it behind. He will try to die as he lived—according to nature.
Themes
