Mastery Collection: Meditations, The Art of War, and Self Reliance

Written by Marcus Aurelius, Sun Tzu and Ralph Waldo Emerson

Narrated by John York

Meditations, The Art of War, and Self Reliance are three famous books that will help you achieve mastery in life. 

Meditations is a series of personal writings by Marcus Aurelius, Roman Emperor from 161 to 180 AD, recording his private notes to himself and ideas on Stoic philosophy. Marcus Aurelius wrote the 12 books of the Meditations as a source for his own guidance and self-improvement. 

The Art of War is an ancient Chinese military treatise written by strategist Sun Tzu. Each chapter is devoted to a distinct aspect of warfare and how that applies to military strategy and tactics. The Art of War remains the most influential strategy text in East Asian warfare. It has a profound influence on both Eastern and Western military thinking, business tactics, legal strategy and beyond. 

Self Reliance is an essay written in 1841 by American transcendentalist philosopher and essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson. It contains the most thorough statement of one of Emerson's recurrent themes: the need for each individual to avoid conformity and false consistency, and follow their own instincts and ideas. It is the source of one of Emerson's most famous quotations: "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines." This essay is an analysis into the nature of the “aboriginal self on which a universal reliance may be grounded.”

• Language: English
• Publisher: Flaneur Media
• Release date: Nov 13, 2018
• ISBN: 9798868668043

Marcus Aurelius

Marcus Aurelius ruled the Roman Empire from 161 to 180 AD. Born to an upper-class Roman family in 121, Aurelius was adopted by his uncle, the emperor Antoninus Pius, in 138. Aurelius studied Greek and Latin literature, philosophy, and law, and was especially influenced by the Stoic thinker Epictetus. After Pius’s death, Aurelius succeeded the throne alongside his adoptive brother, Lucius Verus. His reign was marked by plague, numerous military conflicts, and the deaths of friends and family—including Lucius Verus in 169. Despite these struggles, the Empire flourished under Marcus’s rule as the last emperor of the Pax Romana, an era from 27 to 180 of relative peace and prosperity for the Roman Empire. Aurelius wrote his Meditations as spiritual exercises never intended for publication, and died at fifty-eight while on campaign against the Germanic tribes.