HomeQuotesMarcus Aurelius
Stoic philosophy
To be like the rock that the waves keep crashing over. It stands unmoved and the raging of the sea falls still around it.
Meditations, Book IV, Section 49 (Gregory Hays trans.)
Translated by Gregory Hays · Stoic philosophy
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What this means, and why it matters to a father

Marcus Aurelius was Emperor of Rome — the most powerful man in the world by every external measure — and yet he spent his private journal asking himself how to remain unmoved when the world crashed against him. He wrote this passage from a military camp on the Danube frontier, surrounded by war, plague, and political betrayal.

There is more to this one. The full context — the events behind the words, what the author was living through, and how it applies to the specific situations of fatherhood — is in the app under Deeper Understanding.

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