An anthology of 40 texts and interviews written over 20 years by French philosopher Gilles Deleuze, of which the early texts belong to literary criticism. Philosophy clearly dominates the rest of the book with a surprise admission by Deleuze that Sartre was his master.

Meditations (literally "thoughts/writings addressed to himself") is a series of personal writings by Marcus Aurelius, Roman Emperor 161-180 CE, setting forth his ideas on Stoic philosophy.A central theme to "Meditations" is to analyze your judgement of self and others and developing a cosmic perspective. As he said "You have the power to strip away many superfluous troubles located wholly in your judgement, and to possess a large room for yourself embracing in thought the whole cosmos, to consider everlasting time, to think of the rapid change in the parts of each thing, of how short it is from birth until dissolution, and how the void before birth and that after dissolution are equally infinite". He advocates finding one's place in the universe and sees that everything came from nature, and so everything shall return to it in due time. It seems at some points in his work that we are all part of a greater construct thus taking a collectivist approach rather than having an individualist perspective. Another strong theme is of maintaining focus and to be without distraction all the while maintaining strong ethical principles such as "Being a good man".His Stoic ideas often involve avoiding indulgence in sensory affections, a skill which will free a man from the pains and pleasures of the material world. He claims that the only way a man can be harmed by others is to allow his reaction to overpower him. An order or logos permeates existence. Rationality and clear-mindedness allow one to live in harmony with the logos. This allows one to rise above faulty perceptions of "good" and "bad".

The Thoughts of Marcus Aurelius is an excellent example of ancient Rome's stoicism. The book pays tribute to all the people who influenced the personality of the Roman emperor and describes how he managed to take the best of their qualities to shape his temper and deduce life lessons.

One of the most influential schools of classical philosophy, stoicism emerged in the third century BCE and later grew in popularity through the work of proponents such as Seneca and Epictetus. This informative introductory volume provides an overview and brief history of the stoicism movement.

Meditations: Thoughts to Myself THIS EDITION: This text contains an untitled collection of works known as "Meditations", originally written in Greek by the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus. Aurelius was a key figure in a line of Stoic philosophers. The English text has been translated from the French, and contains commentaries to help explain some obscure parts of the text, and to provide context. (A Dual-Language Book Project) 2Language Books