Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
Meditations is a series of personal writings by Marcus Aurelius, Roman Emperor from 161 to 180 AD, recording his private notes to himself and ideas on Stoic philosophy. Marcus Aurelius wrote the 12 books of the Meditations in Koine Greek as a source for his own guidance and self-improvement. It is possible that large portions of the work were written at Sirmium, where he spent much time planning military campaigns from 170 to 180.
Stats for nerds
184recommend
289mentions
251people
2008–2026years
74% recommend24% neutral2% critical
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- I disagree about the filler. People who read self help books are there for the journey, to feel they too can take on the challenge. Otherwise that brief document about how to fix yourself becomes something without substance, that can't be attached to real changes that are needed.
The most effective self help books I can recommend are Easy Way to Stop Smoking, which needs all the preamble to get the message to your addicted brain, and Marcus Aurelius' Meditations. I'd posit that reading just one of his entries doesn't leave you with a lifetime commitment to stoicism.
- Capital in the 21 century, how to win and influence people, Sidhartha, meditations by Marcus Aurelius, the mars trilogy, the nurture revolution.
These are off the top of my head.
The Catholic Church thing - yea that was quite unexpected for me, and apparently accidental for the church too - the basic premise was - they banned cousin marriage, and heavily enforced it throughout all of society - kings to peasants - this drove people to move around and settle outside of their home towns, driving up individualism and just changing the way our brains work on a neurological level - we have always been a close nit kin social structure animals.
The e book explains it quite well with tons of historical data, neuroscience, comparisons with different countries, continents and social structures.
It got me to “understand” India on a much deeper level since I moved here from Europe, and not get pissed off at people for “not thinking things through”. But also appreciate how small and consistent things can drive profound changes. Also how did china/ussr speed run the Industrial Revolution so quickly - spoiler alert - they copied the same “ban cousin marriage” thing
- In the past I've been trying to adopt the stoic mindset, but always struggled. But I continued to read and learn about it.
Unrelatedly, I came across a recomendation for David Burns "Feeling Good" here on hackernews a couple of years ago.
Reading it with my interest in stoicism in mind, I honestly found it to be probably the best modern day handbook to actually adopting the stoic mindset - without ever mentioning it.
As far as I understand stoicism, it is all about seeing things as they are, and understanding that the only thing that we really control is our reaction / interpretation of events. And the CBT approach that is explained in Feeling Good/Feeling Great is exactly how you do this.
With this perspective Marcus Aurelius Meditations suddenly make a lot more sense. They are his therapy homework.
- Interesting. I have read quite a few translations of Meditations by Marcus Aurelius and also found a clear favorite. But I am actually not even sure which translation of Letters from a Stoic my current book is. I have just always liked the language in it.
- I can’t speak for the rich and powerful (as I’m neither), nor do I subscribe to stoicism necessarily.
But I do work in tech and enjoyed (and periodically re-read) Marcus Aurelius’ “Meditations”
I originally read it out of curiosity, not often you get to see a leader’s supposedly unedited, personal diary.
But I keep coming back because of the calming prose and (imo) useful lessons about dealing with a stressful world.
Eg Epictetus’ quote “don’t hand your mind over to every passerby”
and “don’t be upset by disrespect from people you don’t respect”
were good reminders on not getting mentally derailed from rudeness or slights by the minority of interactions throughout a day.
“we all come from nature” is a nice reminder on forgiveness
Perhaps the first two could be seen as elitist, but it was helpful to me in a customer-facing role in dealing with the 10% of rude clients.
Overall it reads like a secular proverbs, with that much more weight due to the size and non-publishing intent of the author.
- I have read Meditations by Marcus Aurelius. Your description of how bitter and resentful they are is utterly bizarre, and bears no relation to the book that I read.
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