The Socrates Express

Eric Weiner travels by train to sites where the great philosophers formulated their ideas and shares the life lessons of each that he discovers on his pilgrimages. Which philosophers does he explore? Marcus Aurelius, Socrates, Rousseau, Thoreau, Schopenhauer, Epicurus, Simone Weil, Gandhi, Confucius, Sei Shonagon, Nietzsche, Epictetus, Beauvoir, and Montaigne. What new things did I learn? Stoics aren't really stoic and Epicureans aren't really obsessed with pleasure. Nietzsche's thoughts were used by his sister for the furthering of the Nazi state, but he was not an anti-Semite. Rousseau was very pessimistic about the world. The Pillow Book is composed of lots of observations, some of which are lists.

I always enjoy the humor, the easy explanations of difficult thoughts of Eric Weiner books, but the parts he shares about his daughter were distracting for me. But reading this book makes me want to find out more about these thinkers, especially Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, Epictetus, and Epicurus.