Meditations

The Emperor of Rome was also a philosopher — and not just a philosopher in the dilettantish sense. Marcus Aurelius practised Stoicism daily, wrestled with it in the most demanding circumstances imaginable, and wrote about it in private notebooks that he never intended for publication. Those notebooks survive as Meditations — one of the most useful and honest books in the history of human thought.

Aurelius returns again and again to a small number of core ideas: the distinction between what is within our power and what is not; the impermanence of everything, including our own lives and reputations; the necessity of acting justly and for the common good regardless of whether it is noticed or rewarded; the importance of returning to the present moment. These ideas are not new — they are Stoic philosophy — but what is new is the complete seriousness with which a man of absolute worldly power tried to actually live by them.

Two thousand years old and still in continuous print. Still, by many accounts, the most practically useful self-improvement book ever written. Maxwell Staniforth’s translation is the most accessible available. Published by Penguin Classics.