Wednesday, January 16, 2013

Words of Wisdom from Marcus Aurelius: 2.1

Lately, I have been reading Marcus Aurelius' Meditations. I would prefer to read it in the original language, though despite being a Roman Emperor, he wrote it all in Greek. Latin, I might be able to handle, but my Greek is not quite that advanced yet.

Thank goodness for translations though. I'm reading through a relatively new Penguin translation, which are usually decent translations.

Rather than talking more about wisdom, I will post some of the best quotes here and there and share the wisdom with all.


Bust of Marcus Aurelius from Met Museum
*Image not mine*



From Book 2.1:

''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?''