Gregory Hays Quote on the Meditations: The Private Journal

Quote

"The Meditations is not a treatise but a private journal: a man talking to himself, practicing the discipline in the only way that remains — the writing that is the record of the daily work of the mind." — Gregory Hays, Introduction to the Meditations (2002)

Author

Gregory Hays is an American classicist, a professor at the University of Virginia, and the translator of the Meditations for the Modern Library (2002), one of the most widely read translations of the work.

Source

The quotation is from Gregory Hays's introduction to his translation of the Meditations (New York: Modern Library, 2002).

Context

The account belongs to the modern recovery of the Meditations as the record of the practice. The work was never intended for publication: it is the private journal of Marcus Aurelius, the emperor who wrote his daily notes to himself — the reminders, the examinations, the corrections — as the practice of the Stoic discipline. Hays's account has shaped the modern reading: the Meditations is not the exposition of the doctrine but the record of the practice, and the reading of it is the witnessing of the daily work of the mind.

Meaning

The quotation states the modern account of the Meditations with complete clarity. "The Meditations is not a treatise but a private journal" — the genre: the work is not the systematic exposition of the doctrine but the private record of the practice — a man talking to himself. "A man talking to himself" — the voice: the voice of the journal is the voice of the self-address — the emperor reminding himself of the disciplines. "Practicing the discipline in the only way that remains" — the practice: the writing is the practice — the externalization of the self-examination that the Stoics made the daily discipline. "The writing that is the record of the daily work of the mind" — the record: the journal is the record of the daily work — the proof that the philosophy is practiced, not merely professed. The quotation is the key to reading the Meditations, and it grounds the modern practice of the Stoic journal in the Stoic wisdom tradition.

Related Wisdom

The quotation belongs to the modern reading of the Meditations and the practice of the Stoic journal. Its account of the work as the private journal connects to the practice of Marcus Aurelius and to the wider wisdom tradition's teaching on the self-examination.