Which translation to read first. Side by side comparisons of the standard English versions of Meditations and the Tao Te Ching, including the public domain ones.
Most people meet the Bhagavad Gita through one line about doing your duty without minding the outcome. Very few learn what that line is a reply to, and it changes the book completely. What the famous verse is actually answering Here is the passage everybody knows, in Edwin Arnold’s 1885 verse translation: Find full reward … Read more
The Dhammapada is four hundred and twenty-three verses, it exists in dozens of English versions, and several of them disagree with each other about what the very first line says. Not the tone of it. The claim it makes. Verse 1, in three translations This is the most quoted passage in the book, and the … Read more
For most first-time readers of Marcus Aurelius, Gregory Hays’s 2002 translation is the one to start with, because it reads like a person thinking rather than a Victorian sermon. If you want it free, George Long’s 1862 translation is in the public domain and complete online. Those two answers cover almost everybody. Why does the … Read more
If you want the Tao Te Ching to read, Ursula K. Le Guin’s version is the most alive in English. If you want the Tao Te Ching to study, James Legge’s 1891 translation is free, complete and close to the Chinese. The difference between those two goals is the whole decision, and most guides never … Read more