MeditationsNATIONAL BESTSELLER • Timeless insights into what it takes to lead a meaningful life—still profoundly relevant nearly two thousand years later. Now featuring a brand-new foreword from Ryan Holiday, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Obstacle Is the Way! “Meditations offers a glimpse into [Marcus Aurelius’s] mind, his habits, and his approach to life. . . . I think any reader would find something useful to take away from it.”—James Clear, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Atomic Habits “It is unbelievable to see how the emperor’s words have stood the test of time. . . . Read a page or two anytime you feel like the world is too much.”—Arnold Schwarzenegger, The Wall Street Journal Your ability to control your thoughts—treat it with respect. It’s all that protects your mind from false perceptions—false to your nature, and that of all rational beings. A series of spiritual exercises filled with wisdom, practical guidance, and profound understanding of human behavior, Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations remains one of the greatest works of spiritual and ethical reflection ever written. With bite-size insights and advice on everything from living in the world to coping with adversity and interacting with others, Meditations has become required reading not only for statesmen and philosophers alike, but also for generations of readers who responded to the straightforward intimacy of his style. In Gregory Hays’s translation—the first in nearly four decades—Marcus’s thoughts speak with a new immediacy. In fresh and unencumbered English, Hays vividly conveys the spareness and compression of the original Greek text. Never before have Marcus’s insights been so directly and powerfully presented. With an Introduction that outlines Marcus’s life and career, the essentials of Stoic doctrine, the style and construction of the Meditations, and the work’s ongoing influence, this edition makes it possible to fully rediscover the thoughts of one of the most enlightened and intelligent leaders of any era. |
Contents
Foreword by Ryan Holiday | vii |
Introduction by Gregory Hays | xv |
Chronology | lxvii |
MEDITATIONS | 1 |
Debts and Lessons | 3 |
On the River Gran Among the Quadi | 15 |
In Carnuntum | 25 |
BOOK 6 | 67 |
BOOK 8 | 99 |
BOOK 9 | 115 |
BOOK 10 | 129 |
BOOK 11 | 145 |
BOOK 12 | 159 |
Notes | 171 |
| 181 | |
BOOK 7 | 83 |
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Common terms and phrases
accept actions ancient anger animals Antoninus arrogance atoms Avidius Cassius body Book breath Caieta century character Chrysippus complaining death Democritus deserve difference earth emperor endure entries Epictetus Epicurean Epicurus Euripides everything evil exist feel follow Fronto goal gods Greek Hadrian happens harm Hellenistic Helvidius Helvidius Priscus Heraclitus Historia Augusta human humility individual justice keep in mind kind later leave live logos look lose Marcomannic Wars Marcus Aurelius Marcus’s means Meditations Modern Library nature demands nature requires never obstacles ourselves pain perhaps person philosophical phrase Pierre Hadot Plato pleasure Pompey Quadi rational reason remember revere Roman ruler Rusticus seems self-control sense share slave Socrates someone soul Stoic Stoicism stop straightforward substance things thought Thrasea tion Trajan translation treat truth upper-class Verus Vespasian what's whole wrong Zeno