As usual, the edition listed is a more recent one than the one that I just added the bk cover image to but they're both reissues of the same bk. The cover I added is from the Harvard Classics edition published by P. F. Collier & Son Corporation. This was probably the 1st philosophy bk I ever read. I remember reading it while I was a research volunteer for the University of Maryland hospital in downtown Baltimore. I might've been 21. My memories of it are more vividly associated w/ that circumstance than they are w/ its contents. I was the freak in the study who was composing a piece called "d composition" & reading classic philosophy. One of my roomies seemed to be fascinated by me. Somehow, from observing this intellectual behavior of mine, he concluded that I was some sort of hard-core orgy participant or something? He was a gigolo. After I was out of the hospital, he & I stayed in touch. I invited him to a party, he arrived w/ a friend in tow w/ a camera - both practically w/ their tongues lolling out. Their disappoinment at finding this a fairly tame painter's party was all too clear. Where's the orgy?

But back to the bk: Marcus Aurelius was the one who made the most impression on me. An emperor who was abstinent & tried to be fair? Or was the editor of the series trying to perpetuate ruling class myths that an elite university like Harvard was all too happy to use as a PR smokescreen for its own agenda? Hard to say in retrospect, but I doubt that I'll read Aurelius again to reform an opinion. I give it 4 stars anyway just b/c the whole experience of reading such a thing was important to me at that time in my life. ( )

This was, so far, one of my favorite reads in the Harvard Classics collection that I've amassed. The dialects of Plato were wonderfull, and the sayings of the ex-slave Epictetus were amazing for their sense of praticality and resignation in relation to our lives...even today. Marcus Aurelius' meditations were by far though, my favorite section of the compilation. His ability to delve into himself, the world and the universe around him all while ruling an Empire were amazing to me...especially when thinking about how aloof our world leaders seem today. ( )

As Hegel had it, the two great philosophers of stoicism were an emperor and a slave, respectively. ( )