Meditations by Marcus Aurelius is one of the greatest philosophical works of all time. A collection of personal reflections written by Marcus Aurelius during his reign as one of Rome's greatest emperors, Meditations delves into topics that are as relevant today as they were more than two thousand years ago. Aurelius expresses his insights on the nature of virtue, the impermanence of existence, and the importance of mindfulness. He offers a Stoic's...

"The falseness of an opinion is not for us any objection to it: it is here, perhaps, that our new language sounds most strangely. The question is, how far an opinion is life-furthering, life-preserving, species-preserving, perhaps species-rearing, and we are fundamentally inclined to maintain that the falsest opinions (to which the synthetic judgments a priori belong), are the most indispensable to us, that without a recognition of logical fictions,...

The once banned and burned treatise on the nature of education from the eighteenth-century philosopher and author of The Social Contract. Considered by Jean-Jacques Rousseau himself to be the "best and most important" of all his writings, Émile set off a firestorm when it was first published in 1762. It was banned in Paris and burned in Geneva, but later served as the inspiration for a new national system of education during the French Revolution. In...

Ancient Greek historian and soldier Xenophon was a friend, admirer, and avid follower of the philosopher Socrates, perhaps the single most influential thinker of the period. As the two spent a great deal of time together, often deep in dialogue, Xenophon became one of the chief chroniclers of Socrates' philosophical views. This volume collects a number of Socrates' opinions on a variety of topics, as well as Xenophon's explanations and analysis.

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