"Meditations" by Marcus Aurelius, "To Have or to Be?" and "Sane Society" by Erich Fromm, "Origins of Totalitarianism" by Hannah Arendt, and before that several

"Meditations" by Marcus Aurelius, "To Have or to Be?" and "Sane Society" by Erich Fromm, "Origins of Totalitarianism" by Hannah Arendt, and before that several books by Sebastian Haffner about the Nazis, who also had a very keen eye for the things that truly mattered, as unflattering as they are.