Meaning

At first glance this sounds like cynicism, but it is the opposite. Marcus Aurelius is recommending a deliberate mental preparation: if you begin the day expecting people to behave badly, you will not be surprised or destabilized when they do. The quote continues beyond this line to explain that such behavior is rooted in ignorance and that those people cannot truly harm you unless you allow it. The opening is a reality check, not a condemnation of humanity, designed to protect the reader's equanimity.

Context

Book 2 of Meditations opens with this striking exercise, and it reflects a broader Stoic practice of negative visualization, mentally rehearsing difficulties before they arrive so that you meet them with readiness rather than shock. Marcus Aurelius was writing during his active years as emperor, when he dealt daily with courtiers, rivals, and subordinates whose conduct was sometimes self-serving or dishonest. The reflection has a personal urgency to it, the note of a man genuinely trying to prepare himself for a difficult day rather than constructing an abstract philosophical argument.

About the author

Marcus Aurelius reigned as Roman emperor in the second century and is remembered both as a capable ruler under pressure and as a serious student of Stoic philosophy. Meditations was his private journal, written in Greek, and it was never edited for publication. Its rawness is part of its enduring appeal. He returned again and again to the challenge of dealing with difficult people without losing his own inner stability, making passages like this one feel unusually honest and immediately applicable.