The Cynic's Breviary
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The Cynic's Breviary
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Narrated by:
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Alice Greendale
About this listen
Nicolas de Chamfort (1741-1794) was a great French writer in the pessimistic tradition. He wrote comedies, political essays, literary criticism, portraits, letters, and poetry. His aphorisms are iconoclastic, colorful, and picturesque.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Riggenbach's Essays, Not Emerson's
- By Jake Behm on 12-01-15
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The Roman Way
- By: Edith Hamilton
- Narrated by: Nadia May
- Length: 6 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 199
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 150
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 150
Edith Hamilton shows us Rome through the eyes of the Romans. Plautus and Terence, Cicero and Caesar, Catullus, Horace, Virgil, and Augustus come to life in their ambitions, their work, their loves and hates. In them we see reflected a picture of Roman life very different from that fixed in our minds through schoolroom days, and far livelier.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Not so bad
- By steve on 04-25-11
By: Edith Hamilton
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The Conquest of Happiness
- By: Bertrand Russell
- Narrated by: Chris Lutkin
- Length: 6 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 137
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 118
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 117
This metaphysical self-help classic instills happiness within and urges individuals to pursue a content life without sin, boredom, or contempt. Written decades ago with post-war depression in mind, this text has transcended time and continues to give applicable advice for modern-day individuals.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Narrator was horrible
- By Mar on 09-09-20
By: Bertrand Russell
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Utopia
- By: Sir Thomas More
- Narrated by: James Adams
- Length: 4 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 1,107
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 946
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Story4 out of 5 stars 945
Utopia is the name given by Sir Thomas More to an imaginary island in this political work written in 1516. Book I of Utopia, a dialogue, presents a perceptive analysis of contemporary social, economic, and moral ills in England. Book II is a narrative describing a country run according to the ideals of the English humanists, where poverty, crime, injustice, and other ills do not exist.
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3 out of 5 stars
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More's unobtainable vision of the ideal society
- By Darwin8u on 06-12-13
By: Sir Thomas More
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The Memorable Thoughts of Socrates
- By: Xenophon, Edward Bysshe - translator
- Narrated by: Nicholas Tecosky
- Length: 6 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 73
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 60
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 62
Xenophon was a Greek who admired and studied with Socrates. He marched with the Spartans and later was exiled from Athens. He wrote about the history of his times, the sayings of Socrates and about life in Greece. Edward Bysshe translated Xenophone's work in 1702. This translation has continued to have an excellent reputation. In this work Xenophon discusses the views of life taught by Socrates.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Philosopher, Soldier, Historian and Mercenary
- By Darwin8u on 12-04-12
By: Xenophon, and others
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Lectures & Fragments
- By: Musonius Rufus
- Narrated by: Robin Homer
- Length: 2 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 39
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 34
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Story5 out of 5 stars 34
Gaius Musonius Rufus was a Roman Stoic philosopher of the first century AD. He has been referred to as the Roman Socrates and is also remembered for being the teacher of Epictetus. He taught philosophy in Rome during the reign of Nero and so was sent into exile in 65 AD, returning to Rome only under Galba. Twenty-one of his lectures survive together with a few fragmentary notes from others, all of which are contained in this narration.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Amazing timeless wisdom
- By Rosy on 08-16-22
By: Musonius Rufus
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Symposium
- By: Plato
- Narrated by: full cast
- Length: 2 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 441
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 351
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 350
The Greek word sumposion means a drinking party (a fact shamefully ignored by the organizers of modern symposia), and the party described in Plato's Symposium is one supposedly given in the year 416 BC by the playwright Agathon to celebrate his victory in the dramatic festival of the Lenaea. He has already given one party, the previous evening; this second party is for a select group of friends, and host and guests alike are feeling a little frail.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Greek Philosophy over a Good Wine
- By Cathy on 02-16-06
By: Plato
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The Life of Samuel Johnson
- By: James Boswell
- Narrated by: David Timson
- Length: 51 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 143
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 130
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 125
Charming, vibrant, witty and edifying, The Life of Samuel Johnson is a work of great obsession and boundless reverence. The literary critic Samuel Johnson was 54 when he first encountered Boswell; the friendship that developed spawned one of the greatest biographies in the history of world literature. The book is full of humorous anecdote and rich characterization, and paints a vivid picture of 18th-century London, peopled by prominent personalities of the time.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Wonderful!
- By Tad Davis on 02-02-18
By: James Boswell
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The Story of Philosophy
- The Lives and Opinions of the Greater Philosophers
- By: Will Durant
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 19 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,848
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,495
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,479
Durant lucidly describes the philosophical systems of such world-famous “monarchs of the mind” as Plato, Aristotle, Francis Bacon, Spinoza, Kant, Voltaire, and Nietzsche. Along with their ideas, he offers their flesh-and-blood biographies, placing their thoughts within their own time and place and elucidating their influence on our modern intellectual heritage. This book is packed with wisdom and wit.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Fantastic and insightful book
- By ESK on 01-25-13
By: Will Durant
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The Spiritual Teachings of Seneca
- Ancient Philosophy for Modern Wisdom
- By: Mark Forstater, Victoria Radin
- Narrated by: David Troughton, Louisa Millwood Haig
- Length: 1 hr and 36 mins
- Abridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 95
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 71
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Story4 out of 5 stars 69
Seneca was dedicated to Stoicism, and in his essays and letters he explained the stoic position on many fundamental issues: pleasure and the problem of desire, happiness, and contentment; anger, fear, living in the present, how to think for yourself, anxiety and tranquillity, goodness, freedom, trusting the universe; courage, opportunity, cruelty and how to deal with it, friendship, love and trust, death and how to live, learning , chance and fate, time, aspirations, wisdom - and more.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Odd presentation style
- By Mark on 08-03-08
By: Mark Forstater, and others
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The Confessions
- By: Jean-Jacques Rousseau
- Narrated by: Frederick Davidson
- Length: 30 hrs
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 57
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 49
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Story4 out of 5 stars 47
Dr. Johnson may have been correct in saying that “Rousseau was a very bad man,” but none can argue that his ideas are among the most influential in all of world history. It was Rousseau, the father of the romantic movement, who was responsible for introducing at least two modern day thoughts that pervade academia. The Confessions is Rousseau’s landmark autobiography. Both brilliant and flawed, it is nonetheless beautifully written and remains one of the most moving human documents in all of literature.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Extraordinary in its ordinariness...
- By Varni-Maree on 08-28-12
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Meditations of Marcus Aurelius
- By: Marcus Aurelius
- Narrated by: Alan Munro
- Length: 5 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 2,168
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Performance3.5 out of 5 stars 1,849
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Story4 out of 5 stars 1,820
Meditations is former U.S. President Bill Clinton's favorite book. This audio consists of a series of personal writings by Marcus Aurelius, Roman Emperor 161-180 AD, setting forth his ideas on Stoic philosophy.
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4 out of 5 stars
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The reading made it impossible to focus on content
- By Mark Grebner on 09-02-12
By: Marcus Aurelius
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The Consolations of Philosophy
- By: Alain de Botton
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 6 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 671
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 499
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 497
Alain de Botton has performed a stunning feat: He has transformed arcane philosophy into something accessible and entertaining, useful and kind. Drawing on the work of six of the world's most brilliant thinkers, de Botton has arranged a panoply of wisdom to guide us through our most common problems.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Cheering, empathic, helpful
- By Austin on 11-11-09
By: Alain de Botton