Let's face it... I'm sure there are dozens of authors who have simplified and translated the text of Marcus Aurelius, or done a thorough analysis of his work to interpret it just the right way. This version has a bunch of older, more classical English with the "thou" usage and all. I had to really clear my head and be in quiet places to finish reading this short work. Some of the extra parts of the book were essentially mini-bios of Marcus Aurelius ... or more accurately, the influences on him and the times he was part of.

There's a lot of wisdom in this book, some repetition and all... but as long as you remember it's basically some journaling that was meant only for the man himself to reflect on, and not something he meant to send to a publisher of his day, then it gets easier to see how these things go. It's a lot of little snippets and some deeper musings next to each other. I did find a lot to highlight and some ideas to keep in mind or come back to later.

I'll probably get another, more modern English translation the next time I tackle this (but I always keep the original I read so I can see how much I got right or how far off my interpretation was). Keeping for further study, but not a "for the hell of it" read.