Wordsworth Classics of World Literature, 1997

This book was originally Marcus Aurelius's journal of philosophical notes to himself, and it definitely shows. Marcus was obviously a talented writer, and parts of it are very interesting, but he makes his points in a more or less random order, and it tends to get really repetitive. The repetition was probably great for Marcus, because it shows which ideas he really felt the need to constantly remind himself of, but on the other hand it's not that helpful for the rest of us. ( )

Wisdom worth memorizing. ( )

http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/1340839...

It is rather a remarkable book. It's not totally clear that Marcus Aurelius wanted it to be published, or if this was basically his commonplace book (or books) for Deep Thoughts which his admirers circulated after his death. It's a bit jumbled thematically, so I'm inclined to the latter - I think he was a good enough stylist that he'd have organised it a bit better if he was interested in publishing it, and also I don't think he particularly was interested in publishing it. So we basically have the secret thoughts of the ruler of the Roman Empire at its height, which is really quite something. (Gibbon tells us, in footnote 47 to chapter III, that he actually gave public philosophy lectures, as Emperor, in Rome, Greece and Asia; presumably we have here some of the raw materials for those lectures.)

Marcus Aurelius was a believer in the Stoic philosophy: that one should accept one's lot in life, not worry too much about what other people think or about death, and just get on with doing as much good as you can given your personal circumstances. Of course, if your lot in life happens to make you the Roman Emperor, you possibly have fewer grounds to complain about it, or to worry about issues of personal status, than most people. But we all worry about death, including emperors. And Marcus Aurelius is not obsessed with his own celebrity or achievements; the first section of the book is a series of thank-yous to the influential people in his life for their wisdom and intelligence.

Sufficiently edited and bracketed with explanations, this could make a rather successful if somewhat unusual self-help book. It is not in the usual paradigm: rather than helping the reader look at their insecurities and work through and past them, Marcus Aurelius urges the reader (who in the first instance is himself) to put it all aside, reflect on the immense infinity of space and time, and just get on with it. In some circumstances that actually is the right advice. Though I wonder if even he was really convinced - was his recording of different material covering the same themes a matter of finding several different beautiful thoughts which appealed to him? Or was he trying to persuade himself by repetition?

Marcus Aurelius' biological legacy to the empire was his appalling son Commodus, whose reign Gibbon marks (in Chapter IV) as very much the crucial starting point of the decline of Rome. His intellectual legacy is rather more impressive, and certainly longer-lasting. I shall look out for a decent dead-trees edition of this; it is very much worth having on the shelves. ( )

In a comment on my entry on Seneca, Cynthia asked to hear more about the physical realities of the Penguin Great Ideas books whose attractiveness I had written about so lustily. As well she should have! I can't believe I forgot to include some shallow gushing about how pretty these books are in person. So here it is, a fitting counter-balance to the gloom and doom of Marcus Aurelius: these books are SO PRETTY. Really, they're even prettier than I anticipated, largely because the covers are matte-finished and the art is pressed into them, so each slim volume has a super-satisfying, tactile element to it that's absolutely irresistible. In addition, they're light and thin, and both their height and width is smaller than an average paperback, which gives them that undeniable "smaller is more appealing" aesthetic. The print is just the right size and spacing: the text isn't cramped, but there's enough substance on each page that you feel you're sinking your teeth into something. Finally, I love the texture of the pages: just right for absorbing my underlining ink in a satisfying way, and they exude that delicious, new-book smell. All in all, I'm even more excited about these than I was when I first posted. Hooray!

And now, to the Romans. I'm glad I read Seneca before Marcus Aurelius, because they inform each other in interesting ways (props to the people at Penguin who curated this collection!).* Written about two hundred years after "On the Shortness of Life," Aurelius's Meditations still exists in a recognizable ethos of Roman stoicism, but one I found significantly more pessimistic and restrictive than its precursor. Whereas Seneca celebrates the act of retiring into philosophy, devoting time to educating oneself and developing one's mind and spiritual well-being, Marcus Aurelius claims that the only rational way to spend one's time is in a life devoted to civic service. Seneca seems more "contemporary" (by which I might just mean that I agree with more of his points) in his attempts to balance public and private life; Marcus Aurelius defines humans as "rational, social beings," and holds us up to a constant standard of rationality and sociability. Understandably, given that yardstick, he's pretty disgusted with the actual behavior he sees around him, but he sees the shortcomings of the populace as just more evidence that we shouldn't fear death, but wait calmly for our time to come. It's people, and not Nature, which is problematic, he argues: since death is part of Nature's plan, there can be nothing to fear.

I found a lot to disagree with in the Meditations; overall, this phase of Roman stoicism isn't a philosophy that really speaks to me. I don't believe, for example, in many of Marcus Aurelius's core precepts, such as that the universe is organized logically, and that every event happens for the best of the world as a whole:

Universal Nature's impulse was to create an orderly world. It follows, then, that everything now happening must follow a logical sequence; if it were not so, the prime purpose towards which the impulses of the World-Reason are directed would be an irrational one. Remembrance of this will help you to face many things more calmly.

I can see how such beliefs would help a person to face many things more calmly, but I just don't feel they describe for my experience of the twenty-first century. I'm reminded of a character in Doris Lessing's The Golden Notebook (a book I hated, but this one passage rings true), who rejects her psychiatrist's claim that the patient's feelings about the threat of nuclear war are identical to those of a mythological Greek character dreamed up 3,000 years previous. Much in the Meditations struck me the same way: these may have seemed like plausible theories to an emperor in 170 AD, but I don't believe that nuclear warfare or the decimation of the earth's ecosystems is happening for any kind of abstract "best," or proceeding according to any overarching "logic." Marcus Aurelius counsels holding oneself to an uncompromisingly upright standard while more or less ignoring the misdeeds of one's neighbors. On one level, I this makes sense: he's essentially cautioning against becoming a busybody or a hypocrite; he's promoting tolerance. But what he doesn't acknowledge is the degree to which we are all profoundly interconnected: there are some actions on the part of others against which I feel morally obligated to fight. Marcus Aurelius's position that we all live and die alone, independent of one another, has been convincingly disproved as far as I'm concerned - nor would I want to live in a world where we are all such islands as he imagines.

Neither do I believe, as Marcus Aurelius suggests, that we ought to "Erase fancy; curb impulse; quench desire." Fancy, impulse and desire, along with pleasure (which he's equally down on) are sources of inspiration and motivation for great things. Sure, they can get out of hand; a person who ONLY thinks about his or her own pleasure is hardly a worthwhile member of society. But so much has been accomplished because of the pleasures of creativity, because of a visceral delight in music, or color, or the intricacies of electronic circuitry, or the mysteries of the human brain. Curiosity is not rational, nor is the urge toward personal expression. I believe humans are largely IRrational (although reason plays its part in our lives), and whether we like that or hate it, we're setting ourselves up for spectacular failure if we attempt to deny our less rational components. Likewise, Marcus Aurelius makes this argument about pleasure:

Repentance is remorse for the loss of some useful opportunity. Now, what is good is always helpful, and must be the concern of every good man; but an opportunity of pleasure is something no good man would ever repent of having let pass. It follows, therefore, that pleasure is neither good nor helpful.

I mean seriously, what tosh. Who HASN'T repented of having let some opportunity for pleasure pass by? Good grief, I'm still kicking myself over having missed that Liz Phair concert in 1995! Every time an out-of-town friend is in for a short time and I can't see her, I regret it. When I used to work on Saturdays, there were a whole parade of local events that I regretted having to miss. All of this is not because I'm some kind of degenerate, but because consuming art and maintaining healthy relationships are "useful opportunities," and they're also pleasurable. I would even maintain that a large part of their usefulness comes from the pleasure they give. Come to think of it, it's odd that Marcus Aurelius so readily claims that humans are social beings whose only rational option is to devote ourselves in service to the State, and yet refuses to acknowledge our interconnectedness, and the ways in which we nourish and help one another on a more intimate level. Either that, or he's refusing to acknowledge any other type of pleasure than unrestrained bacchanalian orgies. Either way, I think he's full of it.

But despite all the axes I could grind with Marcus Aurelius, there was a lot that impressed me in the Meditations as well. He writes eloquently about change - how we persistently fear it, but how it is really at the bottom of all life: inescapable, and ultimately positive, since Nature obviously set up the world to include so much of it. I was impressed at his postulation of conservation of energy:

I consist of a formal element and a material. Neither of these can ever pass away into nothing, any more than either of them came into being from nothing. Consequently every part of me will one day be re-fashioned, by a process of transition, into some other portion of the universe; which in its turn will again be changed into yet another part, and so onward to infinity.

And, despite its pessimism, I'm utterly in love with this passage on the fleetingness of everything we tend to value in the world:

In the life of a man, his time is but a moment, his being in incessant flux, his senses a dim rushlight, his body a prey of worms, his soul an unquiet eddy, his fortune dark, and his fame doubtful. In short, all that is of the body is as coursing waters, all that is of the soul as dreams and vapours; life a warfare, a brief sojourning in an alien land; and after repute, oblivion.

In fact, the flashes of breathtaking literary beauty were what saved the Meditations for me, even when I disagreed with most of its ideas. Sometimes these were no more than lines: "All things fade into the storied past," he claims at one point, and "the soul becomes dyed in the color of its thoughts." Such loveliness.

I disagreed with Marcus Aurelius, but I still enjoyed reading him, and I'm enjoying engaging critically with a chronological progression of thought. Next up in the Great Ideas series: a re-match between me and St. Augustine of Hippo.

*I realize that the first part of this essay sounds like I'm being paid by Penguin to shill for them. This is not the case. Although, given that I'm already a fan, I wouldn't say no to a free set of these books...Penguin? Are you listening?

Profound and ahead of his time. This is one of my favorite books on philosophy, and I wish I could live my life in accordance with its words. It is a classic treatise on stoicism but Marcus Aurelius also echoes (and at times predates) themes from other world religions and philosophies. Truly wise and a book I can read over and over, giving me fresh insights into life.

Lots of great quotes from this one.

On Accepting fate:
"…Yet living and dying, honor and dishonor, pain and pleasure, riches and poverty, and so forth are equally the lot of good men and bad. Things like these neither elevate nor degrade; and therefore they are no more good than they are evil."

"Put from you the belief that ‘I have been wronged’, and with it will go the feeling. Reject your sense of injury, and the injury itself disappears."

"Vex not thy spirit at the course of things; they heed not thy vexation."

"You may break your heart, but men will still go on as before."

"Nobody is surprised when a fig-tree brings forth figs. Similarly, we ought to be ashamed of our surprise when the world produces its normal crop of happenings."

"…Instead of praying to be granted or spared such-and-such a thing, why not rather pray to be delivered from dreading it, or lusting for it, or grieving over it?"

On Brotherhood:
"…Learn to say, This comes from God; or, This is one of Fate’s dispensations, a strand in the complex web, a conjunction of fortuities; or again, This is the work of a man who is of the same stock and breed and brotherhood as I am, but is ignorant of what Nature requires of him. I myself, however, can plead no such ignorance, and therefore in accordance with Nature’s law of brotherhood I am to deal amiably and fairly with him…"

"That men of a certain type should behave as they do is inevitable. To wish it otherwise were to wish the fig-tree would not yield its juice. In any case, remember that in a very little while both you and he will be dead, and your very names will quickly be forgotten."

"All of us are working together for the same end; some of us knowingly and purposely, other unconsciously…to one man falls this share of the task, to another that; indeed, no small part is performed by that very malcontent who does all he can to hinder and undo the course of events. The universe has need even of such as he."

On Change:
"Reflect often upon the rapidity with which all existing things, or things coming into existence, sweep past us and are carried away. The great river of Being flows on without a pause; its actions forever changing, its causes shifting endlessly, hardly a single thing standing still; while ever at hand looms infinity stretching behind and before – the abyss in which all things are lost to sight. In such conditions, surely a man were foolish to gasp and fume and fret, as though the time of his troubling could ever be of long continuance."

As a precursor to the saying "The more it changes, the more it stays the same":
"Universal Nature’s task is to shuffle, transpose, interchange, remove from one state and transfer to another. Everywhere there is change; and yet we need fear nothing unexpected, for all things are ruled by age-long wont, and even the manner of apportioning them does not vary."

On Death:
"In death, Alexander of Macedon’s end differed no whit from his stable-boy’s."

"Death: a release from impressions of sense, from twitchings of appetite, from excursions of thought, and from service to the flesh."

"…’But I have played no more than three of the five acts.’ Just so; in your drama of life, three acts are all the play. Its point of completeness is determined by him who formerly sanctioned your creation, and today sanctions your dissolution. Neither of those decisions lay within yourself. Pass on your way, then, with a smiling face, under the smile of him who bids you go."

On going with the flow, Marcus the Taoist:
"Ever run the short way; and the short way is the way of nature, with perfect soundness in each word and deed as the goal. Such an aim will give you freedom from anxiety and strife, and from all compromise and artifice."

On doing good deeds:
"There is the type of person who, if he renders you a service, has no hesitation in claiming the credit for it. Another, though not prepared to go as far as that, will nevertheless secretly regard you in his debt and be fully conscious of what he has done. But there is also a man who, one might almost say, has no consciousness at all of what he has done, like the vine which produces a cluster of grapes and then, having yielded its rightful fruit, looks no more for thanks than a horse that has run his race, a hound that has tracked his quarry, or a bee that has hived her honey. Like them, the man who has done one good action does not cry it aloud, but passes straight on to a second, as the vine passes on to the bearing of another summer’s grapes."

On Man's Inhumanity:
"When men are inhuman, take care not to feel towards them as they do towards other humans."

On Meaninglessness:
"…Imagine yourself suddenly carried up into the clouds and looking down on the whole panorama of human activities: how the scene would excite your contempt…reflect that no matter how often upborne in this way, you would still behold the same sights, in all their monotony and transience. Yet these are the things of which we make such a boast!"

On Oneness, Marcus the Buddhist:
"Always think of the universe as one living organism, with a single substance and a single soul; and observe how all things are submitted to the single perceptivity of this one whole, all are moved by its single impulse, and all play their part in the causation of every event that happens. Remark the intricacy of the skein, the complexity of the web."

On opinions, echoing the Zen saying, "Cease to cherish your opinions":
"Treat with respect the power you have to form an opinion. By it alone can the helmsman within you avoid forming opinions that are at variance with nature and with the constitution of a reasonable being."

On recurrence; Marcus the Existentialist:
"As the performances in the circus or in other places of entertainment tire one with their perpetual repetition of the same sights, the monotony of which makes the spectacle a weariness, so it is with the whole experience of life: on our upward and downward path all things prove to be ever the same – causes and effects alike. How long then … ?"

"Look back over the past, with its changing empires that rose and fell, and you can foresee the future too."

"Reflect often how all the life of today is a repetition of the past; and observe that it also presages what is to come…The performance is always the same; it is only the actors who change."

On Self-reliance:
"Dig within. There lies the wellspring of good: ever dig, and it will ever flow."

"Take me and cast me where you will; I shall still be possessor of the divinity within me, serene and content so long as it can feel and act as becomes its constitution."

On solitude:
"In one way humanity touches me very nearly, inasmuch as I am bound to do good to my fellow-creatures and bear with them. On the other hand, to the extent that individual men hamper my proper activities, humanity becomes a thing as indifferent to me as the sun, the wind, or the creatures of the wild. True, others may hinder the carrying out of certain actions; but they cannot obstruct my will, nor the disposition of my mind…"

On the transience of life:
"Mislead yourself no longer; you will never read these notebooks again now, nor the annals of bygone Romans and Greeks, nor that choice selection of writings you have put away for your old age. Press on, then, to the finish; cast away vain hopes…"

"The man whose heart is palpitating for fame after death does not reflect that out of all those who remember him every one will himself be soon dead also, and in course of time the next generation after that, until in the end, after flaring and sinking by turns, the final spark of memory is quenched."

"All things fade into the storied past, and in a little while are shrouded in oblivion. Even to men whose lives were a blaze of glory this comes to pass; as for the rest, the breath is hardly out of them before, in Homer’s words, they are ‘lost to sight alike and hearsay’. What after all, is immortal fame? An empty, hollow thing. To what then, must we aspire? This, and this alone: the just thought, the unselfish act, the tongue that utters no falsehood, the temper that greets each passing event as something predestined, expected, and emanating from the One source and origin."

"Observe, in short, how transient and trivial is all mortal life; yesterday a drop of semen, tomorrow a handful of spice or ashes. Spend, therefore, these fleeting moments on earth as Nature would have you spend them, and then go to your rest with good grace, as an olive falls in its season, with a blessing for the earth that bore it and a thanksgiving to the tree that gave it life."

On the true self:
"Come back now to your sober senses; recall your true self; awake from slumber, and recognize that they were only dreams that troubled you; and as you looked on them, so look now on what meets your waking eyes."

On valuing life and living in the now, Marcus as Alan Watts:
"...to be concerned solely with the life which you are now living, the life of the present moment, then until death comes you will be able to pas the rest of your days in freedom from all anxiety, and in kindliness and good favour with the deity within you."

"Take it that you have died today, and your life’s story is ended; and henceforward regard what further time may be given you as uncovenanted surplus, and live it out in harmony with nature."

On virtue:
"Whatever the world may say or do, my part is to keep myself good; just as a gold piece, or an emerald, or a purple robe insists perpetually, ‘Whatever the world may say or do, my part is to remain an emerald and keep my colour true’."

"A man may stand by a clear spring of sweet water and heap abusive words upon it, yet it still goes on welling up fresh and wholesome; he may even cast in mire and filth, but it will quickly dissolve them and wash them away, and show no stain."

"Waste no more time arguing what a good man should be. Be one."

Lastly, as many have made reference to the parallel to Thomas A Kempis and though I see the book as so much more than that, Marcus the Christian:
"Either the world is a mere hotch-potch of random cohesions and dispersions, or else it is a unity of order and providence. If the former, why wish to survive in such a purposeless and chaotic confusion; why care about anything, save the manner of the ultimate return to dust; why trouble my head at all; since, do what I will, dispersion must overtake me sooner or later? But if the contrary be true, then I do reverence, I stand firmly, and I put my trust in the directing Power." ( )

Trans. G.M.A. Grube

(review of Gregory Hays translation, 2003 Modern Library edition)

The Meditations are, as presented by Hays in his very helpful introduction, best understood as the private spiritual exercises of the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius. Hays' introduction lays out the various philosophic strains that shaped Marcus Aurelius' thinking, and fits the work into the broader cultural context of late Roman attitudes towards life, philosophy, and religion. The translation is fluid and incisive, making the thoughts come alive.

The Mediations will reward periodic rereading. The author spirals obsessively around a handful of philosophical themes: that everything we know, love, or hate is transient and will pass away; that freedom comes from accepting that most of the world - everything other than one's own choices about how to behave -- ultimately lies beyond one's control; that virtue is rooted in self-discipline. For most of us, there's a lot more to life than this, but as he works and reworks his themes, Marcus Aurelius reveals new angles or insights that give the Meditations a rich depth. Throughout, I kept wondering, with his focus on transience, self-discipline, and compassion towards others, what Marcus Aurelius would have made of Buddhism.

Underlying its wisdom, the Meditations carries two striking internal tensions. The first may simply reflect the gap between the author's intent - personal spiritual exercises -- and the book's acquired status as a work for the ages. Marcus Aurelius constantly suggests that anyone in his audience can follow his advice and be free. On the other hand, the author's position -- a patriarch among patriarchs -- is hardly universal. Only for a person with great privilege could the problem of suffering look so manageable through simple willpower. This tension subsides if Marcus Aurelius really wrote for himself alone.

The other major tension doesn't depend on the intended audience: Marcus Aurelius repeatedly orders the reader both to live in the present, and to be strategic - which necessarily implies thinking several steps ahead. That contradiction isn't unique to the Meditations; it's a challenge for all philosophic or religious systems that affirm transcendent values while also encouraging followers to engage and shape the world. While the tension is not resolved (can it ever be?), it gives the Meditations a realistic, pragmatic feel. ( )

The 200 or so pages of this book contain the thoughts of Marcus Aurelius, Roman Emperor and Stoic. Although being billed as his meditations, it is explained in the preface that he has also noted down the thoughts of other philosophers among his own, and these are not referenced, so will be up to you to spot them. They were originally written only for himself though, so he cannot be blamed for this.
On the whole I think that the bad press that Stoic philosophy gets is undeserved. The message this book gives is generally positive, and if everyone took notice of it then the world would be a more pleasant place. That isn't to say that it is all correct though, and what a lot of it comes down to is sticking one's head in the sand, and accepting the "order of the universe", or fate. This does do a good job of promoting the virtues of tolerance, and being content with your lot, though, and this is not a bad thing per se.
This edition is the one translated straight from an ancient greek manuscript, in the 17th Century, and so the language retains some of the antiquated style you would expect from a text originally written over 1800 years ago.
I would reccomend this book to those who think they may be interested in it, but it is probably more of one to dip into, than to read straight through. This is for a couple of reasons, one being that it can seem a bit repetitive, and the other bieng that you may find it hard to concentrate on, as some of the sentences are inarticulately long. ( )

Meditations of Marcus Aurelius (AD 121-180) is like meeting up with an old friend. If it is not that well-known you could hardly tell the private musings are that of a Roman emperor. To me it is an account of Stoicism as a viable option to the dross we find in much of popular religion these days.

The most interest and clearly stated expression of stoic philosophy, this collection of thoughts from the Roman emperor were written between 170 and 180 AD but have not lost any of their clarity. Basically a personal treatise on how to inhibit and control one's emotions, the book is thought provoking, though not necessarily a complete or consistent work of philosophy. Stoicism has been given a poor reputation through the ages, generally by works of art that laud the spontaneous and exuberant outbursts of emotion over the controlled and detached, with stoics portrayed as stuffy and out of touch with their humanity. Yet stoicism was not about disconnecting from emotions, but about not allowing them to override your judgment. How we feel about our existence and surroundings has much to do with how well we live our lives. If we can control our feelings, we can bear the suffering of life better while also taking joy in the small pleasures it has to offer.

(This review originally appeared on zombieunderground.net) ( )

Does ought befall you it is part of the Great Web.

The Stoic Emperor, succeeded to the imperial throne in 161 until his death in 180 AD. His rule was marked by justice and moderation, although the frontier was in constant defense against "barbarian hordes". Also, during this reign a severe pestilence struck Rome. The populace concluded that the anger of the gods had been incurred by their neglect in the hands of Christians, and Aurelius seems to have led his panicked people in their cruel prosecution.

The Meditations were written in Greek with a view to practical application of Stoic precepts.

The emperor's contribution to Stoic philosophy. Perhaps one of the most important little books int he Western tradition. ( )

This surprisingly readable new translation is essentially a collection of aphorisms from one of Rome's greatest emperor's. Also surprising is how thoughtful Aurelius could be. He repeatedly urges forgiveness of those who have wronged him, arguing that they were either uneducated or compelled by life-experience. At the same time, Aurelius embraces free will and bold action. ( )

This is one of the most splendid things that I have ever read. I cannot recommend it highly enough. It is full of ideas by which to live, many of which are also highly suitable for printing out and pinning to your office wall. Another reviewer has already quoted my favourite meditation, `Begin each day ...' so I won't repeat it here. Donning my Old Fart's hat I have to say that the world would be an infinitely better place if more people had read this. ( )

An important, but oft neglected, work of Graeco-Roman philosophy. Marcus Aurelius was insightful, if not extremely downhearted, and represents some of the finest philosophical thinking of his time. ( )

"Begin each day by telling yourself: Today I shall be meeting with interference, ingratitude, insolence, disloyalty, ill-will, and selfishness ---all of them due to the offenders' ignorance of what is good or evil. But for my part I have long perceived the nature of good and its nobility, the nature of evil and its meanness, and also the nature of the culprit himself, who is my brother (not in the physical sense, but as a fellow-creature similarly endowed with reason and a share of the divine); therefore none of those things can injure me, for nobody can implicate me in what is degrading. Neither can I be angry with my brother or fall foul of him; for he and I were born to work together, like a man's two hands, feet or eyelids, or like the upper and lower rows of his teeth. To obstruct each other is against Nature's law -- and what is irritation or aversion but a form of obstruction? " ( )

The philosophy of a stoic emperor of Rome. (The old geezer in Gladiator)

Fascinating. Well worth looking into if you want your thinking stirred.

Most religions in the eras of the Greeks and Romans offered less in the way of moral guidelines than they offered in bad examples. The gods were worse than human. Morality and values were left to the exploration and exposition of philosophers. The dominant philosophy in Rome prior to Christianity was stoicism, inherited from the Greeks and practiced thoroughly by Marcus Aurelius, the "last good emperor", who had a bit role early in the movie "The Gladiator." These meditations were written by him, largely while in his headquarters in military campaigns, and were reportedly U.S. Grant's favorite reading in his tent during the Civil War. The state of philosophy and values were remarkably refined before the advent of Christianity and devoid of the politics and conflicts that came with the Judeo/Christian religion. Marcus Aurelius does an admirable job of advocating the values that guided his life. An eye-opening exposure to realms of thought not normally found when one explores the origins of modern religion. ( )

These ruminations really are the definition of "timeless classics" - the thoughts of this great Roman general are, in the whole, still relevant today. Occassionally there are references to people or ideas that may not be clear to anyone but scholars of the era, but most copies will have notes to explain the more obscure ideas. ( )

Stoicism is a important thread in Western philosophy and Christianity, but as its own belief system it amounts to a denial of reality. One can imagine a Marcus Aurelius reading an Oswald Spengler at dusk.