Meditations

By: Marcus Aurelius

Narrated by: James Ellis

Written in Greek, without any intention of publication, by the only Roman emperor who was also a philosopher, the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius (AD 121-180) offer a remarkable series of challenging spiritual reflections and exercises developed as the emperor struggled to understand himself and make sense of the universe.

Ranging from doubt and despair to conviction and exaltation, they cover such diverse topics as the nature of moral virtue, human rationality, divine providence, and Marcus' own emotions.

But while the Meditations were composed to provide personal consolation and encouragement, in developing his beliefs Marcus Aurelius also created one of the greatest of all works of philosophy: a timeless collection of extended meditations and short aphorisms that has been consulted and admired by statesmen, thinkers and readers through the centuries.

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Terrible narration

The book might be great but the narrator (James Ellis) seems not to understand the words he is saying. The translation itself is very old fashioned (“thou knowest”) and it is very disjointed across different texts which makes it hard to follow anyway but the narrator places emphasis in the wrong places, pauses in the wrong places and even mispronounces words. Terrible narration.

enjoyed it.

it was good. will need another listen, really enjoyed the narrator. four more words .

Good book

I follow and read a lot about stoicism, therefore Meditation’s is a must read. It is a good book, but to reflexive and poetic. A book with timeliness lessons, but with the writing and examples of it’s time. A quick reading that, because of its historical relevance, should be read.

Stoicism without a stoic

The writings of Marcus Aurelius have inspired many for over a millennia. Unfortunately, that inspiring aspect was not portrayed by this narrator. The words are there, but the voice is grating. It was hard to listen to and I was unable to get past the first few chapters because of it.

A Flawed Edition

While Marcus Aurelius's "Meditations" is a wonderful philosophical work, this audiobook edition contains several errors, mispronuncuations, and mistakes that detract from it. The narrator does not even attempt to pronounce words rendered in Greek, and he even struggles with some common English words. Occasionally, when he makes a mistake, he repeats a sentence or a fraction of a sentence, rather than editing the audio. He also occasionally misnumbers the passages of the work.