Words of Wisdom: Marcus Aurelius's lessons, in his own words
Marcus Aurelius ran the Roman Empire from 161 to 180 AD, much of it at war. Along the way he wrote private notes to himself, in Greek, on how to behave. Nearly two thousand years later they are still in print. Here are eight of his lessons, in his own words, and how to use them now.
The Greek title of the book we call the Meditations, Ta eis heauton, means "things unto himself". Some of it was written on campaign: the first book closes with the line "Among the Quadi at the Granua", probably a river that flows into the Danube, and the second with "This in Carnuntum", a Roman town on the Danube about 30 miles east of Vienna. Every quote below is from George Long's Victorian translation, which is in the public domain, and was checked against the full text. At the end are four lines he gets credit for online that are not his.
1. Expect difficult people, every day
Begin the morning by saying to thyself, I shall meet with the busybody, the ungrateful, arrogant, deceitful, envious, unsocial.
Book II, section 1. The most powerful man alive started his day by assuming it would be full of irritating people. That isn't cynicism. It's preparation. If you expect the rude email and the late colleague, they lose the power to wreck your morning. He goes on to say they behave that way out of ignorance, and that he can't be harmed by them or hate them.
2. Stop acting as if you have forever
Do not act as if thou wert going to live ten thousand years. Death hangs over thee. While thou livest, while it is in thy power, be good.
Book IV, section 17. The call you've been putting off, the apology, the thank-you note: there is no infinite later. The Stoics kept death in view, not to be gloomy, but to get things done.
3. Mind your own work
How much trouble he avoids who does not look to see what his neighbor says or does or thinks, but only to what he does himself, that it may be just and pure.
Book IV, section 18. Written centuries before anyone could check a rival's bonus, house or feed, it reads like advice for now. Comparison costs time and peace and produces nothing. Judge your own work by your own standard.
4. The best retreat is in your own head
Men seek retreats for themselves, houses in the country, sea-shores, and mountains; … it is in thy power whenever thou shalt choose to retire into thyself.
Book IV, section 3. An emperor who could have had any villa he wanted said the villa wasn't the point. The same section ends: "The universe is transformation: life is opinion." Ten quiet minutes with your own thoughts will do more than the next holiday you can't stop planning.
5. Don't become what annoys you
The best way of avenging thyself is not to become like [the wrong-doer].
Book VI, section 6 (the brackets are Long's). When someone treats you badly, the temptation is to answer in kind. Then there are two people behaving badly. Refusing to sink is the revenge, and it's the only one that costs you nothing.
6. Be glad to be proved wrong
If any man is able to convince me and show me that I do not think or act right, I will gladly change; for I seek the truth, by which no man was ever injured.
Book VI, section 21. He adds: "But he is injured who abides in his error and ignorance." This is the line to remember in a meeting where someone has just found the flaw in your plan. They've done you a favour. The only loss is in defending a mistake.
7. Want what you already have
Think not so much of what thou hast not as of what thou hast: but of the things which thou hast select the best, and then reflect how eagerly they would have been sought, if thou hadst them not.
Book VII, section 27. Picture your house, your health or your marriage gone, and notice how badly you'd want them back. He also warns against loving them so much that losing them would break you. Gratitude, yes; dependence, no.
8. Stop talking about it
No longer talk at all about the kind of man that a good man ought to be, but be such.
Book X, section 16. The shortest lesson here and the hardest. Reading about virtue, including reading this, is not the same as having it. Pick one thing on this list and do it today.
Things Marcus Aurelius never said
"You have power over your mind – not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength." A favourite of quote accounts, and not in any known translation of the Meditations. Wikiquote traces it to a 2006 self-help book and suggests it may be a loose paraphrase of Book IV, section 3.
"Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth." Not in the Meditations, though he does write repeatedly that everything is opinion.
"When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive – to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love." This comes from the American writer Elbert Hubbard, in his magazine The Fra. The real Marcus Aurelius morning advice is lesson 1 above, and it is a lot less cheerful.
"The object in life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane." Wikiquote's earliest source is a 1946 English translation of essays by Leo Tolstoy that credits it to Marcus Aurelius. Nothing like it appears in the Meditations.
Read the original
The Meditations is short enough to read in a weekend and best taken a few sections at a time. George Long's translation is free on Project Gutenberg.
Read Thoughts of Marcus Aurelius, translated by George Long, on Project Gutenberg
Words of Wisdom runs every Monday.
Portrait: marble bust of Marcus Aurelius, Musée Saint-Raymond, Toulouse. Photo: Didier Descouens, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Quotes from George Long's translation (Project Gutenberg ebook 15877), with misattributions checked against Wikiquote's sourced Misattributed section.
