We conducted a textual analysis of the Meditations by Marcus Aurelius. In this paper, we present Aurelius’s worldview about nature and how it shaped his actions in the world. From our analysis of the text, we derived three themes: divine nature and its governance, the nature of the world, and human nature. Divine nature and its governance captures relations between nature and the gods, nature and Providence, and nature and the logos. The nature of the world has six sub-themes: nature and order, nature and interconnectedness, nature and change, nature and cycles, nature and higher goals, and nature and indifference. Finally, human nature captures five themes: human nature as a collective, obstructions to human nature, social duty as human nature, human nature and intellectual powers, and human nature and death. We draw lessons for managers and C-Suite executives from the book.
