Slave, Scholar, Stoic
blogs.bl.uk
blogs.bl.uk
There was, notably, one popular recent translation that tried to give it more of a "quickly-jotted notes" feel to capture the flavor of the original, or so it claimed, implying greater fidelity to the original. In doing so it took far too many liberties with the text—which, to my Greekless eye aided by some online tools, didn't read that way at all, and was typically much wordier than this translation and generally closer to basically any translation but this one. Be wary of anything like that.
Just throwing that out there in case anyone finds it useful.
Then there's also the irony of the most powerful man in the world writing a book where he recommends the reader to be content with their station and to preserve the status quo.
1 - https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Thoughts_of_the_Emperor_M...
If you can stomach some slightly more archaic and difficult translations, Harvard's Loeb Classical Library translations are readable, and Aurelius is translated there by Haines, Epictetus in his Discourses (including the Encheiridion) by Oldfather, Seneca's Letters by Gummere. The Loeb editions are nice because they're side-by-side with the original Greek, so it comes in handy if you want to take your study to the next level. A quick note about Seneca's Letters: Most of the common editions only include some of his letters. You'll have to actively search for an edition which includes all 124 of them. The Dover Thrift Edition of Seneca's Letters from a Stoic include all of them and is also translated by Gummere, but does not include the original Greek and is cheaper than the Loeb edition. The Loeb books are really attractive in my library, though. If you're anything of a collector, you'll probably get hooked buying them.
And totally, a readable translation is the most important, because in reality, what's readable is probably doing a better job of capturing the writers intent than a super-precise and consistent translation.
Also interesting that there seem to be a bunch of veterans on the stoics thread. Not surprising, but interesting nonetheless.
Just go to the primary sources.
Pick your favourite!
τῶν ὄντων τὰ μέν ἐστιν ἐφ᾽ ἡμῖν, τὰ δὲ οὐκ ἐφ᾽ ἡμῖν.
from Perseus (http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%...).
Actually you don't have to know anything at all, you can just click on each word and it will show you the meaning. You can then judge yourself which translation you like best. Note, for example that the word control is not used.
There are also plenty of studies supporting the observation than cheaters have an easier time making financial gains, no matter how good or bad they actually are at their job, as long as they can pretend and manipulate the opinion of a group of enablers.
I refuse to be a cheater or an enabler. That I do care, and that is something I can do, and have done.
There's an online version I like (which is also available in markdown and json format) [1]. I can't comment on the translation quality as I'm no expert on the source matter.