Lines on the Slate
A space for reflective writing on character, culture, and the things we can — and cannot — control.
About
This is a place for notes written not in stone, but on slate — with the understanding that everything worth saying may need to be rewritten.
Lines on the Slate is a collection of quiet essays on what it means to live thoughtfully in a noisy age. The perspective is informed by Stoicism, but not bound to it; philosophical, but not academic; ethical, but not doctrinaire.
Here you’ll find reflections on modern life, politics, literature, ageing, autonomy, and the fragile art of self-governance. Some posts are timely; others timeless. All are attempts to think clearly, speak calmly, and endure with a bit of grace.
The name refers to the ancient slate tablet — a surface for temporary lines, student thoughts, moral exercises. A place to write, erase, revise, begin again. It mirrors the Stoic idea that philosophy is not proclamation, but practice — a daily effort to align word with deed, and thought with reason.
Author
This publication is written by Miklós Cseszneky (native form: Cseszneky Miklós), a Hungarian philosopher and writer with an academic background in law, political science, history, linguistics, psychology, and education. He writes across genres — essays, fiction, poetry, and commentary — in multiple languages.
His work explores ethical clarity, attention, cultural and literary memory, the formation of identity, and the disciplines of the interior life — including non-dogmatic spiritual awareness, with occasional debts to Stoic thought and other classical forms of ethical inquiry. He is also engaged in historically informed, non-partisan political reflection — sceptical of ideological certainty, wary of utopian movements, and grounded in ethical realism, rationality, and humanism.
He is the founder of the Order of Marcus Aurelius, a charitable fraternal organisation inspired by Stoic principles and chivalric ideals, and of the Count Miklós Cseszneky Scholarship for Stoic Studies, which supports disadvantaged students learning philosophy, virtue, and self-governance. He is also a Fellow of the College of Stoic Philosophers. In addition, he is the current head of the House of Cseszneky, a Hungarian-Croatian noble family with historical roots in Central Europe — a heritage that informs his interest in history and cultural preservation.
His other projects:
The Civic Temper — social, cultural and political commentary.
How Not to Be a Sage — satirical notes on Stoic failure in modern life.
Limaroj — selected essays, commentary, and poems in Esperanto.
A curated selection of his work — including books, Medium excerpts, French poetry, and social channels — is available at: https://solo.to/csesznekymiklos.
Schedule
New essays are published about every fortnight — or as close to that as life and thoughtfulness allow.
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