Just looking for top quotes? You can find them here: 40 Marcus Aurelius Quotes, 7 Deep Questions, & More from Meditations
Believe it or not, it took me awhile to warm up to Meditations by Marcus Aurelius. Why?
If you decide to read the book in full, you’ll notice it includes a lot of repetition and doesn’t flow in any logical order. It wasn’t until I took the time to organize all my notes/quotes into themes that I fully appreciated the ancient wisdom of Marcus Aurelius.
In fact, I was genuinely and pleasantly surprised to see how much of the book is dedicated to topics like: fate, destiny, nature, God, oneness, interconnectedness, soul, and our common humanity.
The first thing you may want to know is which translation to read. After some quick research, it looks like Gregory Hays (Amazon) and George Long (free online) are two popular translations. Hays is more modern, and seems to be a favorite of Ryan Holiday, author of Stillness is the Key (book summary).
Quick Housekeeping:
- All quotes are from Marcus Aurelius translated by Gregory Hays unless otherwise stated.
- I’ve added emphasis to quotes in bold throughout this post.
- For quick access if you buy the book, I’ve shown the book number and chapter/verse number at the end of each quote (for instance, 6.10 means Book 6, Chapter/Verse 10).
Post Contents: Click a link here to jump to a section below
Short Overview of “Meditations” & Marcus Aurelius:
25 Top Themes for How to Live a Good Life:
- Destiny & Fate
- Nature
- God(s) & Heaven
- Logos
- Soul
- Oneness & Interconnectedness
- Parts of a Whole
- Common Humanity & Working Together
- Compassion for Others
- How to Live the Good Life
- Purpose
- Spiritual Growth
- Character & Virtue
- Training the Mind & Thoughts
- Perception & Judgment
- Choosing Your Attitude & Response
- Individual Responsibility & Action
- Fear, Anxiety, & Anger
- Fulfillment & Happiness
- Simplicity & Essentialism
- Paradox: The Obstacle is the Way
- Paradox: Change vs Familiarity
- History
- Present Moment
- Time & Death
Short Overview of Meditations & Marcus Aurelius by Gregory Hays
Intro to the Book & Marcus Aurelius (by Gregory Hays)
“The questions that the Meditations tries to answer are primarily metaphysical and ethical ones: Why are we here? How should we live our lives? How can we ensure that we do what is right? How can we protect ourselves against the stresses and pressures of daily life? How should we deal with pain and misfortune? How can we live with the knowledge that someday we will no longer exist?”
- “The composition of the Meditations is normally dated to the 170s—Marcus’s last decade. That this was a dark and stressful period for him can hardly be doubted.”
- “The title (Meditations) is one that Marcus himself would surely have rejected. He never thought of himself as a philosopher. He would have claimed to be, at best, a diligent student and a very imperfect practitioner of a philosophy developed by others.”
- “How are we to categorize the Meditations? It is not a diary, at least in the conventional sense. The entries contain little or nothing related to Marcus’s day-to-day life.”
- “Perhaps the best description of the entries is that suggested by the French scholar Pierre Hadot. They are ‘spiritual exercises’ composed to provide a momentary stay against the stress and confusion of everyday life: a self-help book in the most literal sense…the individual entries were composed not as a record of Marcus’s thoughts or to enlighten others, but for his own use, as a means of practicing and reinforcing his own philosophical convictions.”
Intro to Philosophy & Stoicism (by Gregory Hays)
“Early and middle Stoicism was a holistic system. It aimed to embrace all knowledge, and its focus was speculative and theoretical. Roman Stoicism, by contrast, was a practical discipline—not an abstract system of thought, but an attitude to life.”
- “Philosophy also had a more practical dimension. It was not merely a subject to write or argue about, but one that was expected to provide a ‘design for living’—a set of rules to live one’s life by. This was a need not met by ancient religion, which privileged ritual over doctrine and provided little in the way of moral and ethical guidelines. Nor did anyone expect it to. That was what philosophy was for.”
Intro to Logos (by Gregory Hays)
“According to this theory, man is like a dog tied to a moving wagon. If the dog refuses to run along with the wagon he will be dragged by it, yet the choice remains his: to run or be dragged. In the same way, humans are responsible for their choices and actions, even though these have been anticipated by the logos and form part of its plan. Even actions which appear to be—and indeed are—immoral or unjust advance the overall design, which taken as a whole is harmonious and good. They, too, are governed by the logos.”
- “Of the doctrines central to the Stoic worldview, perhaps the most important is the unwavering conviction that the world is organized in a rational and coherent way. More specifically, it is controlled and directed by an all pervading force that the Stoics designated by the term logos. The term (from which English ‘logic’ and the suffix ‘-logy’ derive) has a semantic range so broad as to be almost untranslatable. At a basic level it designates rational, connected thought— whether envisioned as a characteristic (rationality, the ability to reason) or as the product of that characteristic (an intelligible utterance or a connected discourse). Logos operates both in individuals and in the universe as a whole. In individuals it is the faculty of reason. On a cosmic level it is the rational principle that governs the organization of the universe. In this sense it is synonymous with ‘nature,’ ‘Providence,’ or ‘God.’“
- “All events are determined by the logos, and follow in an unbreakable chain of cause and effect. Stoicism is thus from the outset a deterministic system that appears to leave no room for human free will or moral responsibility. In reality the Stoics were reluctant to accept such an arrangement, and attempted to get around the difficulty by defining free will as a voluntary accommodation to what is in any case inevitable.”
- “As human beings we are part of nature, and our duty is to accommodate ourselves to its demands and requirements—’to live as nature requires,’ as Marcus often puts it. To do this we must make proper use of the logos we have been allotted, and perform as best we can the functions assigned us in the master plan of the larger, cosmic logos, of which it is a part.”
- “All human beings have a share of the logos, and all have roles to play in the vast design that is the world. But this is not to say that all humans are equal or that the roles they are assigned are interchangeable.”
25 Top Themes for How to Live a Good Life according to “Meditations” by Marcus Aurelius (Book Summary)
1. Destiny & Fate
“Whatever happens to you has been waiting to happen since the beginning of time. The twining strands of fate wove both of them together: your own existence and the things that happen to you.” (10.5)
- “What happens to each of us is ordered. It furthers our destiny.” (5.8)
- “Everything’s destiny is to change, to be transformed, to perish. So that new things can be born.” (12.21)
- “To love only what happens, what was destined. No greater harmony.” (7.57)
- “The things ordained for you—teach yourself to be at one with those.” (6.39)
- “For there is a single harmony. Just as the world forms a single body comprising all bodies, so fate forms a single purpose, comprising all purposes.” (5.8)
- “He does only what is his to do, and considers constantly what the world has in store for him—doing his best, and trusting that all is for the best. For we carry our fate with us —and it carries us.” (3.4)
2. Nature
“The fraction of infinity, of that vast abyss of time, allotted to each of us. Absorbed in an instant into eternity. The fraction of all substance, and all spirit. The fraction of the whole earth you crawl about on. Keep all that in mind, and don’t treat anything as important except doing what your nature demands, and accepting what Nature sends you.” (12.32)
- “It was for the best. So Nature had no choice but to do it.” (4.9)
- “Each of us needs what nature gives us, when nature gives it.” (10.20)
- “Think how much is going on inside you every second—in your soul, in your body. Why should it astonish you that so much more—everything that happens in that all-embracing unity, the world—is happening at the same time?” (6.25)
- “Don’t pay attention to other people’s minds. Look straight ahead, where nature is leading you—nature in general, through the things that happen to you; and your own nature, through your own actions. Everything has to do what it was made for.” (7.55)
- “Some things nature is indifferent to; if it privileged one over the other it would hardly have created both. And if we want to follow nature, to be of one mind with it, we need to share its indifference. To privilege pleasure over pain—life over death, fame over anonymity—is clearly blasphemous. Nature certainly doesn’t.” (9.1)
- “The natural can never be inferior to the artificial; art imitates nature, not the reverse. In which case, that most highly developed and comprehensive nature—Nature itself—cannot fall short of artifice in its craftsmanship.” (11.10)
- “As long as you do what’s proper to your nature, and accept what the world’s nature has in store—as long as you work for others’ good, by any and all means—what is there that can harm you?” (11.13)
- “Whatever this is that I am, it is flesh and a little spirit and an intelligence.” (2.2)
- “No one can keep you from living as your nature requires. Nothing can happen to you that is not required by Nature.” (6.58)
- “The others obey their own lead, follow their own impulses. Don’t be distracted. Keep walking. Follow your own nature, and follow Nature—along the road they share.” (5.3)
- “Nature willed the creation of the world. Either all that exists follows logically or even those things to which the world’s intelligence most directs its will are completely random. A source of serenity in more situations than one.” (7.75)
3. God(s) & Heaven
“But they (the gods) do exist, they do care what happens to us, and everything a person needs to avoid real harm they have placed within him.” (2.11)
- “Doctors keep their scalpels and other instruments handy, for emergencies. Keep your philosophy ready too—ready to understand heaven and earth. In everything you do, even the smallest thing, remember the chain that links them. Nothing earthly succeeds by ignoring heaven, nothing heavenly by ignoring the earth.” (3.13)
- “Love the discipline you know, and let it support you. Entrust everything willingly to the gods, and then make your way through life—no one’s master and no one’s slave.” (4.31)
- “Take refuge in these two things: i. Nothing can happen to me that isn’t natural. ii. I can keep from doing anything that God and my own spirit don’t approve. No one can force me to.” (5.10)
- “God sees all our souls freed from their fleshly containers, stripped clean of their bark, cleansed of their grime. He grasps with his intelligence alone what was poured and channeled from himself into them. If you learn to do the same, you can avoid a great deal of distress. When you see through the flesh that covers you, will you be unsettled by clothing, mansions, celebrity—the painted sets, the costume cupboard?” (12.2)
- “The freedom to do only what God wants, and accept whatever God sends us.” (12.11)
4. Logos
“‘To live with the gods.’ And to do that is to show them that your soul accepts what it is given and does what the spirit requires—the spirit God gave each of us to lead and guide us, a fragment of himself. Which is our mind, our logos.” (5.27)
- “And not to think of philosophy as your instructor, but as the sponge and egg white that relieve ophthalmia—as a soothing ointment, a warm lotion. Not showing off your obedience to the logos, but resting in it. Remember: philosophy requires only what your nature already demands.” (5.9)
- “To a being with logos, an unnatural action is one that conflicts with the logos.” (7.11)
- “Wherever something can be done as the logos shared by gods and men dictates, there all is in order. Where there is profit because our effort is productive, because it advances in step with our nature, there we have nothing to fear.” (7.53)
- “To follow the logos in all things is to be relaxed and energetic, joyful and serious at once.” (10.12a)
- “You have functioned as a part of something; you will vanish into what produced you. Or be restored, rather. To the logos from which all things spring. By being changed.” (4.14)
5. Soul
“People try to get away from it all—to the country, to the beach, to the mountains. You always wish that you could too. Which is idiotic: you can get away from it anytime you like. By going within. Nowhere you can go is more peaceful—more free of interruptions—than your own soul.” (4.3)
- “What am I doing with my soul? Interrogate yourself, to find out what inhabits your so-called mind and what kind of soul you have now.” (5.11)
- “…all you have to do is to be attentive to the power inside you and worship it sincerely.” (2.13)
- “So keep this refuge in mind: the back roads of your self. Above all, no strain and no stress.” (4.3)
- “Things have no hold on the soul. They have no access to it, cannot move or direct it. It is moved and directed by itself alone. It takes the things before it and interprets them as it sees fit.” (5.19)
- “The soul as a sphere in equilibrium: Not grasping at things beyond it or retreating inward. Not fragmenting outward, not sinking back on itself, but ablaze with light and looking at the truth, without and within.” (11.12)
6. Oneness & Interconnectedness
“Keep reminding yourself of the way things are connected, of their relatedness. All things are implicated in one another and in sympathy with each other. This event is the consequence of some other one. Things push and pull on each other, and breathe together, and are one.” (6.38)
- “Everything is interwoven, and the web is holy; none of its parts are unconnected. They are composed harmoniously, and together they compose the world. One world, made up of all things. One divinity, present in them all. One substance and one law—the logos that all rational beings share. And one truth . . . If this is indeed the culmination of one process, beings who share the same birth, the same logos.” (7.9)
- “The world as a living being—one nature, one soul. Keep that in mind. And how everything feeds into that single experience, moves with a single motion. And how everything helps produce everything else. Spun and woven together.” (4.40)
- “The world’s intelligence is not selfish. It created lower things for the sake of higher ones, and attuned the higher ones to one another. Look how it subordinates, how it connects, how it assigns each thing what each deserves, and brings the better things into alignment.” (5.30)
- “Whatever happens to you is for the good of the world. That would be enough right there. But if you look closely you’ll generally notice something else as well: whatever happens to a single person is for the good of others.” (6.45)
- “What injures the hive injures the bee.” (6.54)
- “(Plato has it right.) If you want to talk about people, you need to look down on the earth from above. Herds, armies, farms; weddings, divorces, births, deaths; noisy courtrooms, desert places; all the foreign peoples; holidays, days of mourning, market days . . . all mixed together, a harmony of opposites.” (7.48)
7. Parts of a Whole
“What is rational in different beings is related, like the individual limbs of a single being, and meant to function as a unit. This will be clearer to you if you remind yourself: I am a single limb (melos) of a larger body—a rational one.” (7.13)
- “Whatever the nature of the whole does, and whatever serves to maintain it, is good for every part of nature.” (2.3)
- “So there are two reasons to embrace what happens. One is that it’s happening to you. It was prescribed for you, and it pertains to you. The thread was spun long ago, by the oldest cause of all. The other reason is that what happens to an individual is a cause of well-being in what directs the world—of its wellbeing, its fulfillment, of its very existence, even. Because the whole is damaged if you cut away anything—anything at all —from its continuity and its coherence. Not only its parts, but its purposes. And that’s what you’re doing when you complain: hacking and destroying.” (5.8)
- “But you have one advantage here: you can reattach yourself. A privilege God has granted to no other part of no other whole—to be separated, cut away, and reunited. But look how he’s singled us out. He’s allowed us not to be broken off in the first place, and when we are he’s allowed us to return, to graft ourselves back on, and take up our old position once again: part of a whole.” (8.34)
- “And that which is and that which is the case are closely linked, so that nature is synonymous with Truth—the source of all true things.” (9.1)
- “To watch the courses of the stars as if you revolved with them. To keep constantly in mind how the elements alter into one another. Thoughts like this wash off the mud of life below.” (7.47)
- “Whether it’s atoms or nature, the first thing to be said is this: I am a part of a world controlled by nature. Secondly: that I have a relationship with other, similar parts. And with that in mind I have no right, as a part, to complain about what is assigned me by the whole. Because what benefits the whole can’t harm the parts, and the whole does nothing that doesn’t benefit it. That’s a trait shared by all natures, but the nature of the world is defined by a second characteristic as well: no outside force can compel it to cause itself harm. So by keeping in mind the whole I form a part of, I’ll accept whatever happens. And because of my relationship to other parts, I will do nothing selfish, but aim instead to join them, to direct my every action toward what benefits us all and to avoid what doesn’t. If I do all that, then my life should go smoothly.” (10.6)
8. Common Humanity & Working Together
“We were born to work together like feet, hands, and eyes, like the two rows of teeth, upper and lower. To obstruct each other is unnatural.” (2.1)
- “If thought is something we share, then so is reason—what makes us reasoning beings. If so, then the reason that tells us what to do and what not to do is also shared. And if so, we share a common law. And thus, are fellow citizens. And fellow citizens of something. And in that case, our state must be the world. What other entity could all of humanity belong to? And from it—from this state that we share—come thought and reason and law.” (4.4)
- “But those who revere that other mind—the one we all share, as humans and as citizens—aren’t interested in other things. Their focus is on the state of their own minds—to avoid all selfishness and illogic, and to work with others to achieve that goal.” (6.14)
- “All of us are working on the same project. Some consciously, with understanding; some without knowing it.” (6.42)
- “When you have trouble getting out of bed in the morning, remember that your defining characteristic—what defines a human being—is to work with others.” (8.12)
- “Indifference to external events. And a commitment to justice in your own acts. Which means: thought and action resulting in the common good. What you were born to do.” (9.31)
- “Whereas humans were made to help others. And when we do help others or help them to do something—we’re doing what we were designed for. We perform our function.” (9.42)
- “Have I done something for the common good? Then I share in the benefits. To stay centered on that. Not to give up.” (11.4)
- “‘If you don’t have a consistent goal in life, you can’t live it in a consistent way.’ Unhelpful, unless you specify a goal. There is no common benchmark for all the things that people think are good—except for a few, the ones that affect us all. So the goal should be a common one—a civic one. If you direct all your energies toward that, your actions will be consistent. And so will you.” (11.21)
- “To undertake nothing: i. at random or without a purpose; ii. for any reason but the common good.” (12.20)
- “What links one human being to all humans: not blood, or birth, but mind.” (12.26)
9. Compassion for Others
“To feel affection for people even when they make mistakes is uniquely human. You can do it, if you simply recognize: that they’re human too, that they act out of ignorance, against their will, and that you’ll both be dead before long. And, above all, that they haven’t really hurt you. They haven’t diminished your ability to choose.” (7.22)
- “When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: The people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous, and surly. They are like this because they can’t tell good from evil. But I have seen the beauty of good, and the ugliness of evil, and have recognized that the wrongdoer has a nature related to my own—not of the same blood or birth, but the same mind, and possessing a share of the divine.” (2.1)
- “The gods live forever and yet they don’t seem annoyed at having to put up with human beings and their behavior throughout eternity. And not only put up with but actively care for them. And you—on the verge of death—you still refuse to care for them, although you’re one of them yourself.” (7.70)
10. How to Live the Good Life
“And then you might see what the life of the good man is like—someone content with what nature assigns him, and satisfied with being just and kind himself.” (4.25)
- “You can lead an untroubled life provided you can grow, can think and act systematically. Two characteristics shared by gods and men (and every rational creature): i. Not to let others hold you back. ii. To locate goodness in thinking and doing the right thing, and to limit your desires to that.” (5.34)
- “Salvation: to see each thing for what it is—its nature and its purpose. To do only what is right, say only what is true, without holding back. What else could it be but to live life fully—to pay out goodness like the rings of a chain, without the slightest gap.” (12.29)
- “Fight to be the person philosophy tried to make you. Revere the gods; watch over human beings. Our lives are short. The only rewards of our existence here are an unstained character and unselfish acts.” (6.30)
- “The only thing that isn’t worthless: to live this life out truthfully and rightly. And be patient with those who don’t.” (6.47)
- “To live a good life: We have the potential for it. If we can learn to be indifferent to what makes no difference. This is how we learn: by looking at each thing, both the parts and the whole. Keeping in mind that none of them can dictate how we perceive it. They don’t impose themselves on us. They hover before us, unmoving. It is we who generate the judgments— inscribing them on ourselves. And we don’t have to. We could leave the page blank—and if a mark slips through, erase it instantly.” (11.16)
- “Mastery of reading and writing requires a master. Still more so life.” (11.29)
- “Things are wrapped in such a veil of mystery that many good philosophers have found it impossible to make sense of them. Even the Stoics have trouble. Any assessment we make is subject to alteration—just as we are ourselves.” (5.10)
11. Purpose
“Everything is here for a purpose, from horses to vine shoots. What’s surprising about that? Even the sun will tell you, ‘I have a purpose,’ and the other gods as well. And why were you born? For pleasure? See if that answer will stand up to questioning.” (8.19)
- “People who labor all their lives but have no purpose to direct every thought and impulse toward are wasting their time—even when hard at work.” (2.7)
- “At dawn, when you have trouble getting out of bed, tell yourself: ‘I have to go to work—as a human being. What do I have to complain of, if I’m going to do what I was born for— the things I was brought into the world to do? Or is this what I was created for? To huddle under the blankets and stay warm?'” (5.1)
- “You don’t love yourself enough. Or you’d love your nature too, and what it demands of you. People who love what they do wear themselves down doing it, they even forget to wash or eat.” (5.1)
- “‘And your profession?’ ‘Goodness.’ (And how is that to be achieved, except by thought—about the world, about the nature of people?)” (11.5)
- “Dig deep; the water—goodness—is down there. And as long as you keep digging, it will keep bubbling up.” (7.59)
12. Spiritual Growth
“How they all change into one another—acquire the ability to see that. Apply it constantly; use it to train yourself. Nothing is as conducive to spiritual growth.” (10.11)
- “To the stand-bys above, add this one: always to define whatever it is we perceive—to trace its outline—so we can see what it really is: its substance. Stripped bare. As a whole. Unmodified. And to call it by its name—the thing itself and its components, to which it will eventually return. Nothing is so conducive to spiritual growth as this capacity for logical and accurate analysis of everything that happens to us. To look at it in such a way that we understand what need it fulfills, and in what kind of world. And its value to that world as a whole and to man in particular—as a citizen of that higher city, which all other cities are mere households.” (3.11)
- “An advanced level of development can produce a sympathy even in things that are quite distinct.” (9.9)
13. Character & Virtue
“Perfection of character: to live your last day, every day, without frenzy, or sloth, or pretense.” (7.69)
- “It can ruin your life only if it ruins your character. Otherwise it cannot harm you—inside or out.” (4.8)
- “The elements move upward, downward, in all directions. The motion of virtue is different—deeper. It moves at a steady pace on a road hard to discern, and always forward.” (6.17)
- “To do harm is to do yourself harm. To do an injustice is to do yourself an injustice—it degrades you.” (9.4)
- “Or are you determined to lie down with evil? Hasn’t experience even taught you that—to avoid it like the plague? Because it is a plague—a mental cancer—worse than anything caused by tainted air or an unhealthy climate. Diseases like that can only threaten your life; this one attacks your humanity.” (9.2)
- “Focus on what nature demands, as if you were governed by that alone. Then do that, and accept it, unless your nature as a living being would be degraded by it. Then focus on what that nature demands, and accept that too—unless your nature as a rational being would be degraded by it.” (10.2)
14. Training the Mind & Thoughts
“Keep in mind that when the mind detaches itself and realizes its own nature, it no longer has anything to do with ordinary life—the rough and the smooth, either one.” (4.3)
- “Stop allowing your mind to be a slave, to be jerked about by selfish impulses, to kick against fate and the present, and to mistrust the future.” (2.2)
- “Look into their minds, at what the wise do and what they don’t.” (4.38)
- “The things you think about determine the quality of your mind. Your soul takes on the color of your thoughts.” (5.16)
- “If anyone can refute me—show me I’m making a mistake or looking at things from the wrong perspective—I’ll gladly change. It’s the truth I’m after, and the truth never harmed anyone. What harms us is to persist in self-deceit and ignorance.” (6.21)
- “The mind in itself has no needs, except for those it creates itself. Is undisturbed, except for its own disturbances. Knows no obstructions, except those from within.” (7.16)
- “No one can obstruct the operations of the mind. Nothing can get at them not fire or steel, not tyrants, not abuse—nothing. As long as it’s ‘a sphere . . . in perfect stillness.’” (8.41)
- “The mind without passions is a fortress. No place is more secure. Once we take refuge there we are safe forever. Not to see this is ignorance. To see it and not seek safety means misery.” (8.48)
- “You can discard most of the junk that clutters your mind —things that exist only there—and clear out space for yourself: . . . by comprehending the scale of the world. . . by contemplating infinite time . . . by thinking of the speed with which things change— each part of every thing; the narrow space between our birth and death; the infinite time before; the equally unbounded time that follows.” (9.32)
15. Perception & Judgment
“That things have no hold on the soul. They stand there unmoving, outside it. Disturbance comes only from within—from our own perceptions.” (4.3)
- “Your ability to control your thoughts—treat it with respect. It’s all that protects your mind from false perceptions—false to your nature, and that of all rational beings. It’s what makes thoughtfulness possible, and affection for other people, and submission to the divine.” (3.9)
- “Perceptions like that—latching onto things and piercing through them, so we see what they really are. That’s what we need to do all the time—all through our lives when things lay claim to our trust—to lay them bare and see how pointless they are, to strip away the legend that encrusts them.” (6.13)
- “Stop perceiving the pain you imagine and you’ll remain completely unaffected.” (8.40)
- “It’s all in how you perceive it. You’re in control. You can dispense with misperception at will, like rounding the point. Serenity, total calm, safe anchorage.” (12.22)
- “Objective judgment, now, at this very moment. Unselfish action, now, at this very moment. Willing acceptance—now, at this very moment—of all external events. That’s all you need.” (9.6)
- “It’s the pursuit of these things, and your attempts to avoid them, that leave you in such turmoil. And yet they aren’t seeking you out; you are the one seeking them. Suspend judgment about them. And at once they will lie still, and you will be freed from fleeing and pursuing.” (11.11)
16. Choosing your Attitude & Response
“The mind is that which is roused and directed by itself. It makes of itself what it chooses. It makes what it chooses of its own experience.” (6.8)
- “Choose not to be harmed—and you won’t feel harmed. Don’t feel harmed and you haven’t been.” (4.7)
- “I can control my thoughts as necessary; then how can I be troubled? What is outside my mind means nothing to it. Absorb that lesson and your feet stand firm. You can return to life. Look at things as you did before. And life returns.” (7.2)
- “Let it happen, if it wants, to whatever it can happen to. And what’s affected can complain about it if it wants. It doesn’t hurt me unless I interpret its happening as harmful to me. I can choose not to.” (7.14)
- “Either pain affects the body (which is the body’s problem) or it affects the soul. But the soul can choose not to be affected, preserving its own serenity, its own tranquillity. All our decisions, urges, desires, aversions lie within. No evil can touch them.” (8.28)
- “External things are not the problem. It’s your assessment of them. Which you can erase right now.” (8.47)
- “That everything has to submit. But only rational beings can do so voluntarily.” (10.28)
- “‘No thefts of free will reported.'(—Epictetus.)” (11.36)
- “Your three components: body, breath, mind. Two are yours in trust; to the third alone you have clear title.” (12.3)
17. Individual Responsibility & Action
“For every action, ask: How does it affect me? Could I change my mind about it? But soon I’ll be dead, and the slate’s empty. So this is the only question: Is it the action of a responsible being, part of society, and subject to the same decrees as God?” (8.2)
- “That I was shown clearly and often what it would be like to live as nature requires. The gods did all they could— through their gifts, their help, their inspiration—to ensure that I could live as nature demands. And if I’ve failed, it’s no one’s fault but mine. Because I didn’t pay attention to what they told me—to what they taught me, practically, step by step.” (1.17)
- “I was once a fortunate man but at some point fortune abandoned me. But true good fortune is what you make for yourself. Good fortune: good character, good intentions, and good actions.” (5.37)
- “To move from one unselfish action to another with God in mind. Only there, delight and stillness.” (6.7)
- “Focus on what is said when you speak and on what results from each action. Know what the one aims at, and what the other means.” (7.4)
- “Remember that to change your mind and to accept correction are free acts too. The action is yours, based on your own will, your own decision—and your own mind.” (8.16)
- “Joy for humans lies in human actions. Human actions: kindness to others, contempt for the senses, the interrogation of appearances, observation of nature and of events in nature.” (8.26)
- “This is what you deserve. You could be good today. But instead you choose tomorrow.” (8.22a)
- “To stop talking about what the good man is like, and just be one.” (10.16)
18. Fear, Anxiety, & Anger
“If you’ve immersed yourself in the principles of truth, the briefest, most random reminder is enough to dispel all fear and pain.” (10.34)
- “My only fear is doing something contrary to human nature —the wrong thing, the wrong way, or at the wrong time.” (7.20)
- “The first step: Don’t be anxious. Nature controls it all. And before long you’ll be no one, nowhere.” (8.5)
- “Today I escaped from anxiety. Or no, I discarded it, because it was within me, in my own perceptions—not outside.” (9.13)
- “How much more damage anger and grief do than the things that cause them.” (11.18)
- “It never ceases to amaze me: we all love ourselves more than other people, but care more about their opinion than our own.” (12.4)
19. Fulfillment & Happiness
“Other people’s wills are as independent of mine as their breath and bodies. We may exist for the sake of one another, but our will rules its own domain. Otherwise the harm they do would cause harm to me. Which is not what God intended —for my happiness to rest with someone else.” (8.56)
- “If you do the job in a principled way, with diligence, energy and patience, if you keep yourself free of distractions, and keep the spirit inside you undamaged, as if you might have to give it back at any moment— If you can embrace this without fear or expectation—can find fulfillment in what you’re doing now, as Nature intended, and in superhuman truthfulness (every word, every utterance)—then your life will be happy. No one can prevent that.” (3.12)
- “Be satisfied with even the smallest progress, and treat the outcome of it all as unimportant.” (9.29)
20. Simplicity & Essentialism
“You see how few things you have to do to live a satisfying and reverent life? If you can manage this, that’s all even the gods can ask of you.” (2.5)
- “”If you seek tranquillity, do less.’ Or (more accurately) do what’s essential what the logos of a social being requires, and in the requisite way. Which brings a double satisfaction: to do less, better. Because most of what we say and do is not essential. If you can eliminate it, you’ll have more time, and more tranquillity. Ask yourself at every moment, ‘Is this necessary?’” (4.24)
- “Take the shortest route, the one that nature planned—to speak and act in the healthiest way. Do that, and be free of pain and stress, free of all calculation and pretension.” (4.51)
- “Only these two questions: Is what he’s doing now the right thing to be doing? Does he accept and welcome what he’s been assigned? He has stripped away all other occupations, all other tasks. He wants only to travel a straight path—to God, by way of law.” (10.11a)
- “Treat what you don’t have as nonexistent. Look at what you have, the things you value most, and think of how much you’d crave them if you didn’t have them. But be careful. Don’t feel such satisfaction that you start to overvalue them—that it would upset you to lose them.” (7.27)
21. Paradox: The Obstacle is the Way
“Just as nature takes every obstacle, every impediment, and works around it turns it to its purposes, incorporates it into itself—so, too, a rational being can turn each setback into raw material and use it to achieve its goal.” (8.35)
- “The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.” (5.20)
- “Our inward power, when it obeys nature, reacts to events by accommodating itself to what it faces—to what is possible. It needs no specific material. It pursues its own aims as circumstances allow; it turns obstacles into fuel.” (4.1)
- “So remember this principle when something threatens to cause you pain: the thing itself was no misfortune at all; to endure it and prevail is great good fortune.” (4.49)
- “You have to assemble your life yourself—action by action. And be satisfied if each one achieves its goal, as far as it can. No one can keep that from happening. —But there are external obstacles. . . . Not to behaving with justice, self-control, and good sense. —Well, but perhaps to some more concrete action. But if you accept the obstacle and work with what you’re given, an alternative will present itself—another piece of what you’re trying to assemble. Action by action.” (8.32)
- “Nothing that can happen is unusual or unnatural, and there’s no sense in complaining. Nature does not make us endure the unendurable.” (8.46)
- “Everything that happens is either endurable or not. If it’s endurable, then endure it. Stop complaining. If it’s unendurable . . . then stop complaining. Your destruction will mean its end as well. Just remember: you can endure anything your mind can make endurable, by treating it as in your interest to do so. In your interest, or in your nature.” (10.3)
22. Paradox: Change vs Familiarity
“Constant awareness that everything is born from change. The knowledge that there is nothing nature loves more than to alter what exists and make new things like it. All that exists is the seed of what will emerge from it. You think the only seeds are the ones that make plants or children? Go deeper.” (4.36)
- “Nature’s job: to shift things elsewhere, to transform them, to pick them up and move them here and there. Constant alteration. But not to worry: there’s nothing new here. Everything is familiar. Even the proportions are unchanged.” (8.6)
23. History
“Look at the past—empire succeeding empire—and from that, extrapolate the future: the same thing. No escape from the rhythm of events. Which is why observing life for forty years is as good as a thousand. Would you really see anything new?” (7.49)
- “To bear in mind constantly that all of this has happened before. And will happen again—the same plot from beginning to end, the identical staging. Produce them in your mind, as you know them from experience or from history…All just the same. Only the people different.” (10.27)
- “Everything has always been the same, and keeps recurring, and it makes no difference whether you see the same things recur in a hundred years or two hundred, or in an infinite period.” (2.14)
- “The world’s cycles never change—up and down, from age to age. Either the world’s intelligence wills each thing (if so, accept its will), or it exercised that will once—once and for all—and all else follows as a consequence (and if so, why worry?).” (9.28)
- “It surveys the world and the empty space around it, and the way it’s put together. It delves into the endlessness of time to extend its grasp and comprehension of the periodic births and rebirths that the world goes through. It knows that those who come after us will see nothing different, that those who came before us saw no more than we do, and that anyone with forty years behind him and eyes in his head has seen both past and future—both alike.” (11.1)
- “That whatever happens has always happened, and always will, and is happening at this very moment, everywhere. Just like this.” (12.26)
24. Present Moment
“The longest-lived and those who will die soonest lose the same thing. The present is all that they can give up, since that is all you have, and what you do not have, you cannot lose.” (2.14)
- “The present is the same for everyone; its loss is the same for everyone; and it should be clear that a brief instant is all that is lost. For you can’t lose either the past or the future; how could you lose what you don’t have?” (2.14)
- “Forget everything else. Keep hold of this alone and remember it: Each of us lives only now, this brief instant. The rest has been lived already, or is impossible to see.” (3.10)
- “If you’ve seen the present then you’ve seen everything— as it’s been since the beginning, as it will be forever. The same substance, the same form. All of it.” (6.37)
- “Give yourself a gift: the present moment.” (8.44)
- “To the world: Your harmony is mine. Whatever time you choose is the right time. Not late, not early.” (4.23)
- “Everything you’re trying to reach—by taking the long way round—you could have right now, this moment. If you’d only stop thwarting your own attempts. If you’d only let go of the past, entrust the future to Providence, and guide the present toward reverence and justice. Reverence: so you’ll accept what you’re allotted. Nature intended it for you, and you for it. Justice: so that you’ll speak the truth, frankly and without evasions, and act as you should—and as other people deserve.” (12.1)
25. Time & Death
“Remember how long you’ve been putting this off, how many extensions the gods gave you, and you didn’t use them. At some point you have to recognize what world it is that you belong to; what power rules it and from what source you spring; that there is a limit to the time assigned you, and if you don’t use it to free yourself it will be gone and will never return.” (2.4)
- “In short, know this: Human lives are brief and trivial. Yesterday a blob of semen; tomorrow embalming fluid, ash.” (4.48)
- “Keep in mind how fast things pass by and are gone— those that are now, and those to come. Existence flows past us like a river: the ‘what’ is in constant flux, the ‘why’ has a thousand variations. Nothing is stable, not even what’s right here. The infinity of past and future gapes before us—a chasm whose depths we cannot see.” (5.23)
- “Think of yourself as dead. You have lived your life. Now take what’s left and live it properly.” (7.56)
- “So this is how a thoughtful person should await death: not with indifference, not with impatience, not with disdain, but simply viewing it as one of the things that happen to us.” (9.3)
- “When we cease from activity, or follow a thought to its conclusion, it’s a kind of death. And it doesn’t harm us. Think about your life: childhood, boyhood, youth, old age. Every transformation a kind of dying. Was that so terrible?” (9.21)
- “To decompose is to be recomposed. That’s what nature does. Nature through whom all things happen as they should, and have happened forever in just the same way, and will continue to, one way or another, endlessly.” (9.35)
- “Nothing that benefits all things can be ugly or out of place. The end of life is not an evil—it doesn’t disgrace us. (Why should we be ashamed of an involuntary act that injures no one?). It’s a good thing—scheduled by the world, promoting it, promoted by it. This is how we become godlike—following God’s path, and reason’s goals.” (12.23)
- “You’ve lived as a citizen in a great city. Five years or a hundred—what’s the difference? The laws make no distinction. And to be sent away from it, not by a tyrant or a dishonest judge, but by Nature, who first invited you in—why is that so terrible? Like the impresario ringing down the curtain on an actor: ‘But I’ve only gotten through three acts . . . !’ Yes. This will be a drama in three acts, the length fixed by the power that directed your creation, and now directs your dissolution. Neither was yours to determine. So make your exit with grace—the same grace shown to you.” (12.36)
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