Stoic WisdomHow to read the Meditations
How to read the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius: a few sections at a time, with a notebook, using the topic pages and the daily reading, and how to avoid misquotation.
The Meditations is not a book to read straight through in one sitting. It repeats itself and shifts topic without warning, because it is a diary. These habits make it easier.
- Read one or two sections a day and think about whether they apply to anything in the day. The daily reading on the home page picks one.
- Write down a line that stays with you.
- Use the topics. If you are angry or anxious, the topic pages gather the passages on that.
- Mind the translation. The English here is from 1862 and uses "thou"; other translations are easier but still under copyright. The old words mean what they seem to mean.
- Check quotations. Many lines attributed to Marcus Aurelius online are not in the book. The text on this site is a complete one, so you can search it.
The text is George Long's English translation of 1862, in the public domain, and its old-fashioned English ("thou", "thy") is unchanged. The notes beside it are our own wording. Marcus Aurelius wrote these for himself; they are a diary, not a book of rules.