Meditations: A New Translation (Modern Library)

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It should be audible in your voice, visible in your eyes, like a lover who looks into your face and takes in the whole story at a glance. Marcus Aurelius Antoninus to Himself: an English translation with introductory study on stoicism and the last of the Stoics, by G. By writing the topic of that paragraph, I can now refer back to what Marcus Aurelius wrote about forging ahead. The Meditations refers often to the need to act "unselfishly," yet much of its advice seems to center on seeking tranquillity within oneself and ignoring the outside world.

This was not meant for publication and doesn’t seem like a straightforward diary, but it has been in modern times considered a self-help book. Actually the Vatican is quite generous about allowing scholarly access (they’ve been very helpful with my current project). Marcus' insights and advice - on everything from living in the world to coping with adversity and interacting with others - have made the Meditations required listening for statesmen and philosophers alike, while generations of ordinary listeners have responded to the straightforward intimacy of his style. Do modern theories about the nature of the universe make Marcus's outlook more appealing than it might have seemed a century ago?Ancient sources, in particular the gossipy Historia Augusta, tend to paint him as a self-indulgent degenerate—almost another Nero. His ability to get along with everyone: sharing his company was the highest of compliments, and the opportunity an honor for those around him. The long dead Roman emperor’s thoughts and fancies are still so relevant to your everyday ups and downs.

I think different translations reflect different aspects of the original, like looking at a sculpture from various angles (you can’t see all sides at the same time).This may be unfair; it is certainly not the picture of him we get from Marcus’s own reminiscences in the Meditations. Stoicism is not without its faults, but it absolutely has tenants and perspectives that have enriched my everyday lived experience. This was rhetoric, the key to an active political career under the empire, as it had been under the Republic. Ancient philosophical ideas are not difficult or complicated in themselves, they are just written in (what can appear to the layman as) convoluted language.