The equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius in the Musei Capitolini in Rome. Most Roman bronze statues were destroyed for salvage after the collapse of the Roman Empire. This one was saved because people believed it was a statue of Constantine, the first Christian Roman emperor. Marcus is depicted unarmed and unarmoured and riding a captured horse (the saddle is Sarmatian), he believed himself to be a bringer of peace (all his wars were defensive). (source: Wikipedia)

Stoicism: Finding the courage to live a better life

“The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts” — Marcus Aurelius

The ancient philosophy of Stoicism is wildly popular at the moment. Long dead Stoic thinkers such as Marcus Aurelius and Seneca the Younger have become best selling authors. This is largely thanks to the self-help industry, which has rediscovered and repackaged Stoicism as a kind of self-help philosophy.

This repackaging is partly the reason why Stoicism is one of the most misunderstood and abused philosophical schools.

Stoicism is often sold to us as a philosophy for “action”, for busy people who don’t have the time to contemplate over philosophical puzzles about life. Selectively quoting Seneca the Younger, Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus out of context would give anybody the strong impression that that is the case.

In some ways “Stoicism”, as it is preached by many of its new adherents, is the new sophistry: a way of actually avoiding contemplation and hard thinking. A “philosophy for action”, as well as being a contradiction in terms, is one that takes things for granted, that rests on given assumptions.

A System of Thought