Daily Meditations · Sunday, August 2, 2026
On the verdict of others
"I have often wondered how it is that every man loves himself more than all the rest of men, but yet sets less value on his own opinion of himself than on the opinion of others." — Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book XII
Marcus Aurelius wrote the Meditations for no reader but himself, in army camps on the northern frontier, with no expectation that a single line would survive him. The emperor who could have commanded any praise he wished kept returning to a stubborn puzzle: we guard our own good opinion less carefully than the applause of strangers. He was not scolding ambition. He was noticing how easily a person outsources the measure of his own worth to a crowd that barely knows him.
This week the judges of the Booker Prize named their longlist, thirteen books drawn from an entire year of published fiction. This year's longlist, announced Tuesday, includes 13 books, with two previous winners returning and a few debut authors among them. For every author on it, the work was already finished, already whole, long before any judge weighed in. The list changes how the books are seen. It cannot change what they are.
What in your life is complete and good already, whether or not anyone hands you a verdict on it?
Source: npr.org →
