Surprisingly modern

In his insistence on staying in the moment, eschewing fame and riches, living an authentic life and practising moderation, Marcus Aurelius could easily be a modern-day lifestyle guru. Pretty decent to say he wrote all this 2,000 years ago in circumstances rather different from our own.
Well worth a listen.

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beautifully spoke just like an ancient Roman.

the book is a god lecture to listen to on varius principles and virtus brot by an emperor,a code of conduct in every day life.

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great inner building of your self.

great inner building of your self as i my self had,have; will be. thank you.

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Good book, dull delivery.

Interesting book for those interested in ancient philosophy or profound "common sense" knowledge. Marcus Aurelius gives a stirring series of reccomend actions on living the good life through rational means.

The performance however was boring to say the least. It felt like the reader was merely droning off passages rather than having any enthusiasm for the project.

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5 people found this helpful

A most important read

This is the most important book ive read on Morality, other good people to read are Sam Harris, Jordan Peterson and Steven Pinker overall a must read.

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Alan Munro did a grate job

Fantastic book, perfect voice to Listen to. Timeless book for any age groups to made ever better to have it read for you.

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Nice baritone voice, but not as fluid.

I have 3 different audio editions of this book. My favourite by far and the gold standard for any other that I listen to is the Naxos edition narrated by Duncan Steen. If you are undecided then I encourage you to check that one out.

Alan Munro, the narrator of this edition, which is by 'trout lake media' has a nice baritone voice that is pleasant to listen to, but he stops at unnatural places, in order it seems to fully pronounce every word. This really isn't necessary except for non-native speakers I'd imagine. I would much prefer a more fluid sounding narration where some words are perhaps not as finely pronounced. Just like in normal speech.

It's not the worst audiobook I've listened to. Not by a long shot, and I love this work so much that I'm more than happy to own multiple recordings of it, but it's not my first choice.

In saying that, I do find that Alan's emphasis brings out different nuances than Steen's, which is nice.

I got all of my editions on special offer, so if Aurelius' work is a favourite of yours then I'd say wait until it's at a special price and scoop it up.

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Was Jesus really a greater thinker than Marcus

I had a long discussion on the page for Marcus Aurelius in Facebook that I founded a few years ago and still administer where a Christian apologist claimed that Marcus Aurelius was a ‘midget’ as a thinker compared to Jesus of the Christian fame.

There is one slight problem in this comparison. Marcus Aurelius did write a book or that is definitely his own words from the beginning to the end. In this respect, he beats Jesus 1-0.



Marcus Aurelius has demonstrably himself written down his ideas. On the other hand nobody knows who has come up with the ideas that are attributed to Jesus in the "New Testament" of the Christians. This strange book was after all written many decades and even century and a half after the death of this Jewish preacher and rebel.



A simple unpleasant fact (for Christians that is) is that Jesus has not written a single word that we would know to be his own work. We have just a book that this full of alleged quotes from him, but their real and source will probably never be known for sure.

The Greek-speaking writers of the New Testament could well have made up a majority or even all of these quotes and ideas by themselves. Nobody knows their sources. Bart D. Ehrman has written some good books about the issue.

Marcus Aurelius’ only book ‘Meditations' was translated into Latin from Greek. It was the preferred language of Roman intelligentsia of that day. Meditations was originally called in Greek "Τὰ εἰς ἑαυτόν" or "Ta eis heauton", literally "thoughts/writings addressed to himself".

Marcus Aurelius wrote the 12 books of the Meditations in Koine Greek that was used by the highly educated class of Romans. He wrote the book as a source for his own guidance and self-improvement.

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spoiled by the narration

The content was undermined by the narrator's odd inflections and slow faltering delivery. Quite disappointing.

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Book form may have been better

I found snippets of worthy statements, but they were far and few for me.

Being new to stoic philosophy, the content seemed dry most of the time, until I found a memorable quote here or there.

For me at least, this book would have been better if I had read it.

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