Marcus Aurelius Quote on Expectation: Nothing to Expect, Nothing to Fear

Quote

"Expect nothing from the world, and you will not be disappointed by it: the person who has released the expectation has released the disappointment, and the person who has released the fear has released the slavery." — Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 9, Chapter 1 (2nd century CE)

Author

Marcus Aurelius (121–180 CE) was Roman emperor from 161 to 180 CE and the last of the great Stoic philosophers. His Meditations are the private record of his practice of the discipline of expectation.

Source

The quotation is from Book 9, Chapter 1 of the Meditations. The translation follows Gregory Hays's Modern Library edition (2002).

Context

The meditation belongs to the Stoic discipline of expectation, the companion of the discipline of desire. The Stoics held that the disturbance of the life comes from the gap between the expectation and the reality: the expectation that the world will conform to our wishes, and the disappointment when it does not. The cure is the release of the expectation: to expect what happens, rather than what we wish, and to accept the reality as it comes. The person who has released the expectation has released the disappointment, and the person who has released the fear of the future has released the slavery to it.

Meaning

The quotation states the Stoic discipline of expectation with complete clarity. "Expect nothing from the world" — the release: the expectation of the conformity of the world to the wishes is released, and the world is met as it is. "And you will not be disappointed by it" — the consequence: the disappointment is the gap between the expectation and the reality, and the released expectation has removed the gap. "The person who has released the expectation has released the disappointment" — the identification: the disappointment is not in the event but in the expectation, and the release of the one is the release of the other. "The person who has released the fear has released the slavery" — the completion: the fear of the future is the slavery, and the release of the fear is the freedom. The quotation is the foundation of the Stoic practice of acceptance, and it grounds the discipline of the dichotomy of control in the Stoic wisdom tradition.

Related Wisdom

The quotation belongs to the Stoic discipline of acceptance and the practice of the expectation. Its account of the released expectation connects to Epictetus's counsel to want things to happen as they do and to the wider wisdom tradition's teaching on the freedom from disappointment. The teaching is among the most practical in the Stoic wisdom tradition.