Quotation archive
“The people you deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous, and surly.”
Marcus Aurelius · Meditations
Quote record
Author
Marcus Aurelius
Source
Meditations
Chapter / location
Book 2, section 1
Tradition
stoicism · roman-philosophy · ethics
Source information
From Meditations, Book 2, section 1.
Original language: Greek
Translation
Translated from Greek into English using a named scholarly edition.
Context
Read the contextual commentary in this archive entry.
Interpretation
A contextual quotation from Marcus Aurelius on beginning the day with moral realism and shared human kinship.
Knowledge network
Related Archive Records
Original Text
The quotation is presented in Gregory Hays's English translation of the Greek text.
Translation
Translations differ in tone and vocabulary; consult the named edition for its full wording.
Context
At the opening of Book 2, Marcus rehearses how he intends to meet other people without surrendering his own judgment.
Meaning
The passage is not permission for contempt. It pairs clear-eyed expectation with a Stoic claim that human beings remain connected by reason.
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Archive references
Sources
- 01MeditationsBy Marcus Aurelius; translated by Gregory HaysBook 2.1. New York: Modern Library, 2002.
- 02Marcus AureliusBy Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyConsult source
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Reviewed by ZHAIBIAN AI Editorial Review · 2026-07-22