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Marcus Aurelius Quotes on Knowledge

Marcus Aurelius approached knowledge as a Stoic and an emperor, and the quotes gathered here, drawn from the Meditations, show that for him it is above all moral and practical. Marcus traces human wrongdoing to ignorance: those who behave with insolence or ingratitude do so through ignorance of real good and ill, a conviction that disposes him to patience rather than anger. Genuine learning, for Marcus, is the steady work of self-improvement; he resolves to give himself time to learn something new and good and to cease being whirled about by distraction. The knowledge he prizes is not erudition but the kind that issues in good deeds piled one upon another. Composed as private notes, these passages treat knowing rightly as inseparable from living rightly.

Quotes

  • “Self-control and resistance to distractions. Optimism in adversity—especially illness. (Hays translation)”

    I, 15

  • “He was a man who looked at what ought to be done, not to the reputation which is got by a man's acts.”

    I, 16

  • “Ἕωθεν προλέγειν ἑαυτῷ: συντεύξομαι περιέργῳ, ἀχαρίστῳ, ὑβριστῇ, δολερῷ, βασκάνῳ, ἀκοινωνήτῳ: πάντα ταῦτα συμβέβηκεν ἐκείνοις παρὰ τὴν ἄγνοιαν τῶν ἀγαθῶν καὶ κακῶν.”

    When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: The people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous, and surly. They are like this because they can't tell good from evil. (Hays translation) | Say to yourself in the early morning: I shall meet today inquisitive, ungrateful, violent, treacherous, envious, uncharitable men. All these things have come upon them thro

  • “Say to yourself in the early morning: I shall meet today inquisitive, ungrateful, violent, treacherous, envious, uncharitable men. All these things have come upon them through ignorance of real good and ill. II, 1”

    Ἕωθεν προλέγειν ἑαυτῷ: συντεύξομαι περιέργῳ, ἀχαρίστῳ, ὑβριστῇ, δολερῷ, βασκάνῳ, ἀκοινωνήτῳ: πάντα ταῦτα συμβέβηκεν ἐκείνοις παρὰ τὴν ἄγνοιαν τῶν ἀγαθῶν καὶ κακῶν.

  • “Live as on a mountain. ...Let men see, let them know a real man who lives according to nature. If they cannot endure him, let them kill him. For that is better than to live thus.”

    Meditations, Book X | X, 15

  • “Know the joy of life by piling good deed on good deed until no rift or cranny appears between them.”

    Meditations, Book XII | τί λοιπὸν ἢ ἀπολαύειν τοῦ ζῆν συνάπτοντα ἄλλο ἐπ ἄλλῳ ἀγαθόν, ὥστε μηδὲ τὸ βραχύτατον διάστημα ἀπολείπειν; XII, 29

  • “Give thyself time to learn something new and good, and cease to be whirled around.”

    Meditations, Book II | II, 7

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