Marcus Aurelius' Meditations, Book 1

Marcus Aurelius opens Meditations with one of the most remarkable exercises in gratitude in all of ancient literature. In Book 1, the emperor-philosopher thanks the people who shaped him: his family, his tutors, and the mentors who taught him steadiness, justice, humility, and self-control. Rather than listing his own virtues, he traces each good habit to someone who modeled it first.

In doing so, Marcus quietly defines what it means to form a good man. Character is not an accident of birth, nor a sudden revelation, but the patient inheritance of example. One learns honesty from the honest, restraint from the restrained, piety from the pious, and a kind of calm strength from those who bear misfortune well. Book 1 is Marcus’s acknowledgment that every moral achievement rests on the shoulders of others — and his reminder that we, too, are called to pass such examples on.