Marcus Aurelius vs Friedrich Nietzsche on Self-Mastery
Marcus Aurelius and Friedrich Nietzsche on self-Mastery, side by side — 12 passages against 4, and what the disagreement is actually about.
Marcus Aurelius and Friedrich Nietzsche both have a great deal to say about self-Mastery — 12 passages and 4 respectively in thinkr's library — and they do not say the same thing. Setting them side by side is more useful than reading either alone, because the disagreement shows you what each position is actually giving up.
Marcus Aurelius on self-Mastery
Roman emperor and Stoic philosopher. His Meditations — private notes in Greek, never meant for publication — are the most beloved Stoic text in the modern world.
“You have power over your mind — not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.”
“Self-control and resistance to distractions. Optimism in adversity—especially illness. (Hays translation)”
“Whatever this is that I am, it is flesh and a little spirit and an intelligence. (Hays translation)”
“What is divine is full of Providence. Even chance is not divorced from nature, from the inweaving and enfolding of things governed by Providence. Everything proceeds from it. (Hays translation)”
“Though thou be destined to live three thousand years and as many myriads besides, yet remember that no man loseth other life than that which he liveth, nor liveth other than that which he loseth.”
“As for life, it is a battle and a sojourning in a strange land; but the fame that comes after is oblivion.”
“A man should be upright, not kept upright.”
“Choose what's best.—Best is what benefits me. (Hays translation)”
“Nothing earthly succeeds by ignoring heaven, nothing heavenly by ignoring the earth. (Hays translation)”
“Disturbance comes only from within—from our own perceptions. (Hays translation)”
“Nothing can come out of nothing, any more than a thing can go back to nothing.”
“That which makes the man no worse than he was makes his life no worse: it has no power to harm, without or within.”
Friedrich Nietzsche on self-Mastery
German philosopher who challenged received morality and proclaimed the death of God. Asked what it would take to affirm life unconditionally — eternal recurrence.
“Is Wagner a human being at all? Is he not rather a disease? He contaminates everything he touches - he has made music sick.”
“A man as he ought to be: that sounds to us as insipid as a tree as it ought to be.”
“No more fiction for us: we calculate; but that we may calculate, we had to make fiction first.”
“Morality is: the mediocre are worth more than the exceptions ... I abhore Christianity with a deadly hatred.”
Where they part
Rome, 121–180 CE and Germany, 1844–1900 are not the same world, and the difference is not only historical. Marcus Aurelius treats self-Mastery as something to be you have power over your mind… — a matter of practice. Friedrich Nietzsche approaches it from another side entirely. Neither is refuting the other; they are answering slightly different questions, and noticing which question you are actually asking is most of the work.