Thoughts of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus
1558
Thoughts of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus
Emperor of Rome Marcus Aurelius
1558
Translated by George Long
The most powerful man in the ancient world sat alone in his tent at night, writing to himself about how to die well. That is the extraordinary circumstance of the Meditations: the emperor of Rome, ruler of millions, waging war on the northern frontier, taking pen to papyrus to work out, in real time, how to remain decent amid the corruptions of absolute power. He never intended these pages for publication. They are addressed to no one but the man writing them, which is precisely what makes them so startling in their honesty. This is not philosophy as academic exercise. Marcus tears apart his own anger, catalogues his failures, returns endlessly to the same hard questions: What do I actually control? How should I face death? What does it mean to serve rather than be served? The prose has the rough quality of someone thinking aloud, not performing wisdom. Two thousand years later, these questions have not changed. If anything, in an age of distraction and entitlement, they have become more urgent. The Meditations endures because it offers no comfort, only discipline. It asks everything of you.
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“You have power over your mind - not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.””
— Emperor of Rome Marcus Aurelius
“Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars, and see yourself running with them.””
— Emperor of Rome Marcus Aurelius
“The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts.””
— Emperor of Rome Marcus Aurelius
“Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.””
— Emperor of Rome Marcus Aurelius
“Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one.””
— Emperor of Rome Marcus Aurelius
“If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.””
— Emperor of Rome Marcus Aurelius
“When you arise in the morning think of what a privilege it is to be alive, to think, to enjoy, to love ...””
— Emperor of Rome Marcus Aurelius
“The best revenge is to be unlike him who performed the injury.””
— Emperor of Rome Marcus Aurelius
“The soul becomes dyed with the colour of its thoughts.””
— Emperor of Rome Marcus Aurelius
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Aurelius, Emperor of Rome Marcus. Thoughts of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus. Lex, lex-books.com/book/thoughts-of-marcus-aurelius-antoninus-c963c016-3981-4410-87c3-fbc370f3ab05.Aurelius, E. O. R. M. (1558). Thoughts of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus. Lex. https://lex-books.com/book/thoughts-of-marcus-aurelius-antoninus-c963c016-3981-4410-87c3-fbc370f3ab05Aurelius, Emperor of Rome Marcus. Thoughts of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus. Lex. https://lex-books.com/book/thoughts-of-marcus-aurelius-antoninus-c963c016-3981-4410-87c3-fbc370f3ab05.
