“The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.”
Marcus Aurelius · Meditations 5.20, in Gregory Hays's translation (2002)
Paraphrase or translation
The Greek passage is secure. Hays's English is a forceful modern rendering, not a word-for-word crib. George Long (1862) is closer to: the mind converts a hindrance into an aid, and an obstacle on the road helps us on the road.
The mainstream reading is that a block to an external result need not block the rational aim, because the obstacle becomes material for the virtue the moment requires. A competing reading, the popular one, hears stubborn optimism: the original outcome will arrive by magic if you reframe hard enough. The Greek is Meditations 5.20. Gregory Hays's 2002 English is a forceful modern rendering; George Long stays closer to the mind converting a hindrance into an aid.
Open the card“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 cannot tell good from evil.”
Marcus Aurelius · Meditations 2.1
Paraphrase or translation
The Greek is secure private writing. This English follows Hays closely and is a little freer than Long. The next sentences say he still has to work with them, because they share in reason.
The mainstream reading is that the morning list of other people's faults is a preparation against surprise, not a licence for contempt, because the next sentences insist he must still work with them as kin in reason. A competing reading stops at the list and hears a superior man bracing for a world of fools. The note opens Book 2 of the Meditations, private Greek to himself. Hays's English is a little freer than Long's, and the kinship lines are part of the same paragraph.
Open the card“Waste no more time arguing about what a good person should be. Be one.”
Marcus Aurelius · Meditations 10.16
Paraphrase or translation
Fair modern compression of a short Greek rebuke to himself. Long's older English is stiffer: 'No longer talk at all about the kind of man that a good man ought to be, but be such.'
The mainstream reading is a rebuke to himself: defining the good person has become a way of postponing being one. A competing reading hears an attack on study as such, whereas he is scolding study that replaces the deed, in notes written by a man who already knew the arguments. The line is Meditations 10.16. Long's older English is stiffer and closer to the Greek; the familiar modern form is a fair compression of that rebuke.
Open the card“People seek retreats for themselves, in the country, by the sea, in the hills. But this is altogether unphilosophical, when you can at any moment retreat into yourself.”
Marcus Aurelius · Meditations 4.3
Paraphrase or translation
Close to the sense of 4.3 in standard translations. He goes on to say the retreat must be to a soul that is ordered; otherwise the inner room is just as noisy.
The mainstream reading is that a change of scenery will not quiet you if you bring a disordered mind, and that a retreat into yourself is available at any moment. A competing reading stops before his caveat: the inner room helps only if the soul you enter is ordered, otherwise it is just as noisy as the seaside. The passage is Meditations 4.3. The same chapter contains the line that the universe is change and life is opinion.
Open the card“The universe is transformation; life is opinion.”
Marcus Aurelius · Meditations 4.3, in the tradition of George Long's translation
Paraphrase or translation
Long's memorable English of a Greek sentence near the end of 4.3 (ho kosmos alloiōsis, ho bios hypolēpsis). Other translators say 'the world is change; life is judgement' or similar. The thought is his; the punch is the translator's.
The mainstream reading packs two claims into a short line: everything outside is in flux, and the quality of a life is the quality of the judgements it assents to. A competing reading takes 'life is opinion' as if the world were only a private story, which drops the first half, the claim about a transforming universe. The Greek is near the end of Meditations 4.3, and George Long's 1862 English gives the punch, while other translators say life is judgement. The cadence is the translator's, and eight words are not the whole system.
Open the card“The soul is dyed by the colour of its thoughts.”
Marcus Aurelius · Meditations 5.16
Paraphrase or translation
The dyeing image is Meditations 5.16. George Long's 1862 English says the soul is dyed by the thoughts. Gregory Hays's Meditations (2002) is freer: the soul takes on the colour of your thoughts. This short line keeps the dye and drops the sentences that follow.
The mainstream reading is that repeated thoughts stain character, so the mind becomes the colour of what it habitually entertains. A competing reading treats the line as a claim that you can think your way into any identity, which ignores the rest of the note, about dyeing yourself on purpose with Stoic theses. It sits in Meditations 5.16, private Greek, not a published psychology. Long's verb is the one this English keeps, and hays's cadence is a different, later choice.
Open the card“The best revenge is not to become like the person who injured you.”
Marcus Aurelius · Meditations 6.6
Paraphrase or translation
A modern English of Meditations 6.6, nearer George Long's 'not to become like the wrong-doer' than Gregory Hays's shorter 2002 cadence. The Greek note is his; the word 'revenge' is the translators' sharpening.
The mainstream reading is that retaliation which copies the injurer's vice is a defeat, so the real reply is to stay unlike them. A competing reading hears a ban on every firm response, whereas the note is about not catching the moral disease, not about skipping justice or boundaries. It is Meditations 6.6, one of the short rebukes to himself. Hays's version is punchier and less explicit about becoming like the person.
Open the card“Do every act of your life as though it were your last.”
Marcus Aurelius · Meditations 2.5
Paraphrase or translation
The closing clause of Meditations 2.5. Gregory Hays (2002) has 'do everything as if it were the last thing you were doing in your life', after a longer instruction about seriousness, justice, and freedom from show. George Long is the older English.
The mainstream reading is an exercise in attention: do the act in front of you as if there will not be a later hour in which to repair the carelessness. A competing reading hears a morbid rush, or a productivity command, whereas the paragraph specifies how the last act should be done, justly and without drama. The note is Meditations 2.5, written on campaign. Death is the horizon that makes the manner of the act non-postponable.
Open the card“Do not act as if you were going to live ten thousand years.”
Marcus Aurelius · Meditations 4.17
Paraphrase or translation
Very close to Gregory Hays, Meditations (2002), who writes 'Don't act as if you were going to live ten thousand years.' George Long and A. S. L. Farquharson are the older, stiffer English of the same note.
The mainstream reading is a check on deferral: you will not have a mythical stretch of years, so the good you mean to do cannot wait for that horizon. A competing reading hears anxiety about mortality for its own sake, whereas the note is practical, aimed at the use of the present. It is Meditations 4.17. The 'ten thousand years' is a deliberate absurdity, not an estimate, and beside it sits the dye of habit and the nearness of death elsewhere in Book 4.
Open the card“Be like the headland against which the waves continually break.”
Marcus Aurelius · Meditations 4.49
Paraphrase or translation
Meditations 4.49. George Long has a promontory against which the waves continually break. Gregory Hays (2002) has a rocky headland and waves that constantly break. This English sits between them. The Greek goes on: the headland stands until, around it, the sea falls quiet.
The mainstream reading is an image of steadiness: the cliff does not become the waves, and the person need not become the fury breaking on them. A competing reading hears numbness, a rock with no duties to the drowning, whereas the note is about not taking on other people's chaos as your own substance. It is Meditations 4.49. The sequel says the waves fall still around the headland, not that the headland strikes back.
Open the card