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Meditations  By  cover art

Meditations

By: Marcus Aurelius
Narrated by: James Ellis
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Publisher's summary

Written in Greek, without any intention of publication, by the only Roman emperor who was also a philosopher, the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius (AD 121-180) offer a remarkable series of challenging spiritual reflections and exercises developed as the emperor struggled to understand himself and make sense of the universe.

Ranging from doubt and despair to conviction and exaltation, they cover such diverse topics as the nature of moral virtue, human rationality, divine providence, and Marcus' own emotions.

But while the Meditations were composed to provide personal consolation and encouragement, in developing his beliefs Marcus Aurelius also created one of the greatest of all works of philosophy: a timeless collection of extended meditations and short aphorisms that has been consulted and admired by statesmen, thinkers and readers through the centuries.

©2019 Marcus Aurelius (P)2019 Page2Page

What listeners say about Meditations

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  • Overall
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    3 out of 5 stars

Terrible narration

The book might be great but the narrator (James Ellis) seems not to understand the words he is saying. The translation itself is very old fashioned (“thou knowest”) and it is very disjointed across different texts which makes it hard to follow anyway but the narrator places emphasis in the wrong places, pauses in the wrong places and even mispronounces words. Terrible narration.

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5 people found this helpful

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enjoyed it.

it was good. will need another listen, really enjoyed the narrator. four more words .

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4 people found this helpful

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    3 out of 5 stars
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Good book

I follow and read a lot about stoicism, therefore Meditation’s is a must read. It is a good book, but to reflexive and poetic. A book with timeliness lessons, but with the writing and examples of it’s time. A quick reading that, because of its historical relevance, should be read.

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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Stoicism without a stoic

The writings of Marcus Aurelius have inspired many for over a millennia. Unfortunately, that inspiring aspect was not portrayed by this narrator. The words are there, but the voice is grating. It was hard to listen to and I was unable to get past the first few chapters because of it.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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A Flawed Edition

While Marcus Aurelius's "Meditations" is a wonderful philosophical work, this audiobook edition contains several errors, mispronuncuations, and mistakes that detract from it. The narrator does not even attempt to pronounce words rendered in Greek, and he even struggles with some common English words. Occasionally, when he makes a mistake, he repeats a sentence or a fraction of a sentence, rather than editing the audio. He also occasionally misnumbers the passages of the work.

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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Hate the narrator. Should be someone with gravitas

Narrator doesn't have voice suited to Marcus Aurelius, awful narrator. Wish I could unhear this it's so bad. I'd rather read this book instead of hear it.

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Boring

I found this book to be very boring. It is not what I had expected. I wanted a book on meditations to help me relax.

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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Poor Narration

The narrator speaks in a flat monotone and mispronounces many words. The Amazon Classics Edition is much better. I have not finished it and may switch to a Kindle format.

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  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
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Not what I like

Did not like the way it was read or the voice. Plenty of other options

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Bad Translation

This is a poor reading of a very poor translation. Why do reviews have a minimum word limit?

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