Amazon has not done a good job sorting out the various editions and translations of Marcus Aurelius' Meditations. As a result, comments with many stars actually may be referring to an entirely different translation. Likewise, hardbound references don't match up with the paperback versions. I'd recommend that you find a copy somewhere and look at the text yourself before you order.

Meditations of Marcus Aurelius is really a manual for living. So much of what he teaches is very relevant for today. "If you don't have a consistent goal in life, you can't live in a consistent way."

The book is actually a lot of short to the point lessons for living a better life. "If you seek tranquillity, do less." "Which brings a double saftisfaction to do less, better." That is a philosophy that we all would do well to ponder and then employ.

Another of my favorite bits of wisdom, "Not to assume it's impossible because you find it hard. But to recognize that if it's humanly possible, you can do it too."

Marcus Aurelius spends a lot of time on death and how to approach it. Some of that is very good. However he also spends a lot of time thinking about man's right and priviledge of deciding if and when to end live voluntary.

There is an excellent though somewhat long introduction to the book. Hays also provides a list of persons referred to in the book. This is very helpful to at least know who Aurelius was talking about.

I only rate the book four stars because I found The Emperior's Handbook by David Hicks easier to read and understand. I recommend that everyone read at least one of the books by Marcus Aurelius. If you can only read one, pick The Emperor's Handbook.

this is the finest translation of marcus aurelius's meditations that i have read. previous translations i have read were loaded with so many thee's and thou's that the reading was tedious and slow. i found my self scanning the pages instead of reading until i would come across an obvious jem. this made me oblivious to the hidden jems that make up this excellent work. this book gives the emperor's words a modern flair that doesn't lose the original flavor. i highly recommend it.

As part of the Dover Thrift Editions, this is a very affordable look into Stoic philosophy and insight into one of the emperors of the Roman Empire.

As with most books from this collection, there is around 100 pages of text and no more. Rather than reading like a story, these are aphorisms, which are more or less grouped into similar subject matter, but if you want to get the most out of it, you should aim for reading, at most, a couple at a time to really reflect on what Aurelius is saying.

An example would be number 15 from Book VII, "Whatever any one does or says, I must be good, just as if the emerald (or the gold or the purple) were always saying "Whatever any one does or says, I must be emerald and keep my color." This is a very profound and pithy saying. To get the full effect, think about what this is saying and how it applies to us and our doings. Reading many of these in a row would just blur them together.

I would recommend this as a reference for helping to reflect on our lives.

This translation of Meditations by Maxwell Staniforth (this is not the Gregory Hays translation that a lot of people are reviewing) is the best I've read. It reads clearly and simply, with no useless ornamentation to the text. Indeed, what I like about the Great Ideas series that this is a part of is its lack of extras--forewords and introductions and the like which, though often helpful, are usually written by people other than the author and sometimes set the reader up to completely misinterpret what they are about to read. This copy of Marcus Aurelius is only Marcus Aurelius, with perhaps a dozen or so explanatory footnotes sprinkled throughout.
The book itself is well-known, content-wise. The titular meditations are bite-sized thoughts written down by Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius during his later years, as he reflected on his past while campaigning in the north. He was one of the greatest and most famous stoics who ever lived, and this book encapsulates his personal philosophy and manner of thought. His ideas are at once brilliant, challenging, and soothing, making this book good down-time reading and an excellent gift for a friend. I've read it several times, finding something new and moving every time.
This is a very good edition of Meditations to have. The text is completely intact--not a selection--and the translation is clear and precise, but never boring. Maxwell Staniforth has done us all a great service with this translation of the last good emperor's journals.
Highly recommended.