With that in mind, the thing that prevents this from being a 5/5 is that, as a book, it is rather repetitive. While Meditations does have more popular one-liners, Letters from a Stoic maintains a degree of originality and has more relatable applications and examples of applying Stoicism towards everyday human experiences that’s just missing from Mediations. I could find no listing on Goodreads that I'm confident is a fair reflection of what I actually read. With the way the introduction was written, who knows what was lost to history and what the translator had the liberty of changing.

Lee looked up from the page, and he answered the book as he would answer one of his ancient relatives. In the Introduction to his 1964 translation of Meditations, the Anglican priest Maxwell Staniforth discussed the profound impact of Stoicism on Christianity.Marcus often describes the world as being in a process of constant change, yet he sees an underlying unity and direction in the way it works. We get occasional glimpses of Marcus’s day-to-day duties from the evidence of imperial decisions preserved in letters, inscriptions and the legal codes.

Meditations: A New Translation (2003) by Gregory Hays is published by Modern Library, a division of Random House.

Miraculously, these writings survive–and contained within them is a profound prescription for wisdom, justice, discipline and courage. For anyone who struggles to reconcile the demands of leadership with a concern for personal integrity and spiritual well-being, the Meditations remains as relevant now as it was two thousand years ago. Most of Aurelius' words are built upon centuries of other stoic philosophers, and there are themes related to Stoicism that need a precursor.

That when I became interested in philosophy I didn't fall into the hands of charlatans, and didn't get bogged down in writing treatises, or become absorbed by logic-chopping, or preoccupied with physics. What is there to say, that hasn't already been said, about words written for oneself almost two millennia in the past? I started a journal, noting the pages that resonated with me so that I could refer back to them later. It's important to read this with a contextual understanding of consistency and never giving up attitude. And indeed, if we seek Plato’s philosopher-king in the flesh we could hardly do better than Marcus, the ruler of the Roman Empire for almost two decades and author of the immortal Meditations.I picked up both Meditations: A New Translation by Marcus Aurelius and translated by Gregory Hays and On the Shortness of Life by Seneca. Don’t read the introduction…as a new reader I find it difficult to keep reading or to simply pick up a book when I find it boring or a waste of my time. Using Marcus as an example of greater Stoic philosophy, he found the Stoic ethical philosophy to contain an element of " sour grapes.

I took my time reading Aurelius' Meditations as, going into it I knew the man conveys meaningful concepts in very little space. p 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. Meditations is really good because even though you know Marcus was writing to himself sometimes it feels like he is writing directly to you.Marcus’s insights and advice—on everything from living in the world to coping with adversity and interacting with others—have made the Meditations required reading for statesmen and philosophers alike, while generations of ordinary readers have responded to the straightforward intimacy of his style. It was through him that I encountered Thrasea, Helvidius, Cato, Dion and Brutus, and conceived of a society of equal laws, governed by equality of status and of speech, and of rulers who respect the liberty of their subjects above all else. Some of it was written while he was positioned at Aquincum on campaign in Pannonia, because internal notes reveal that the first book was written when he was campaigning against the Quadi on the river Granova (modern-day Hron in Slovakia) and the second book was written at Carnuntum. This premium edition of the classic book was designed in the US and made in the UK to stand the test of time and to be passed down from generation to generation. Meditations is simply a 1,800 year old journal written by the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius, broken into 12 books or notebooks.