George Long
1862 · defaultTake away thy opinion, and then there is taken away the complaint, "I have been harmed." Take away the complaint, "I have been harmed," and the harm is taken away.
The same words of Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus in every English translation on the site, side by side.
Take away thy opinion, and then there is taken away the complaint, "I have been harmed." Take away the complaint, "I have been harmed," and the harm is taken away.
Efface the opinion, I am harmed, and at once the feeling of being harmed disappears; efface the feeling, and the harm disappears at once.
Every translation here is complete and free to read in full on this site. They differ in age and in voice. The measurements below are taken from the whole of each translation.
| Translation | Words | Words per sentence | “Thou” and “thy” per 1,000 words | In a sentence |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| George Long1862 | 45,588 | 29.3 | 25.1 | Victorian English, with “thou” and “thy” throughout. Square brackets mark words Long added to complete the sense. The translation this site uses by default. |
| C. R. Haines1916 | 43,599 | 24.4 (shortest) | 23.8 | The Loeb Classical Library edition, printed facing the Greek. Still uses “thou”, but in shorter sentences, and often more vivid. |
Shorter sentences and fewer old forms usually make for an easier read; the older, more literal versions are better for checking what the original says. A good way to use them is to read in one and, when a sentence stops you, look at it here in the others.