Meditations: A New Translation

In many important ways, the reflections of Marcus Aurelius (121 AD-180 AD) crystallize the philosophical wisdom of the Greco-Roman world. This little book was written as a diary to himself while emperor fighting a war out on the boarder of the Roman Empire and today this book is known to us as The Meditations.The Roman philosophers are not as well known or as highly regarded as Greek philosophers such as Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus, or Zeno the Stoic - and for a simple reason: the Roman thinkers

When I was a freshman in college, I lived in a dorm. My roommate was on the football team. He would write inspiring things on poster board and hang them in our room often on the ceiling above his bed to motivate himself. He favored straightforward sentiments like "never give up."The Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius did not hang motivational posters for inspiration. Instead, he kept a journal in which he collected his thoughts about how to live well. MEDITATIONS is that book. Most people have heard

This basically consists of Marcus Aurelius repeating, "Get it together, Marcus" to himself over and over again over the course of 12 chapters. SPOILER ALERT:-The time during which you are alive is very very brief compared to the time during which you did not exist and will not exist. -People who wrong you only do so from ignorance, and if you can correct them without being a jerk about it, you should do so.-You are a little soul dragging around a corpse. -Whether or not things injure you lies in