By Marcus Aurelius
Translated by A. S. L. Farquharson

16. … What is recorded of Socrates would exactly fit him: he could equally be abstinent from or enjoy what many are too weak to abstain from and too self-indulgent in enjoying. To be strong, to endure, and in either case to be sober belong to the man of perfect and invincible spirit, like the spirit of Maximus in his illness.

(Aurelius 1992, 4)

1. Say to yourself in the early morning: I shall meet today inquisitive, ungrateful, violent, treacherous, envious, uncharitable men. All these things have come upon them through ignorance of real good and ill. But I, because I have seen that the nature of good is the right, and of ill the wrong, and that the nature of the man himself who does wrong is akin to my own (not of the same blood and seed, but partaking with me in mind, that is in a portion of divinity), I can neither be harmed by any of them, for no man will involve me in wrong, nor can I be angry with my kinsman or hate him; for we have come into the world to work together, like feet, like hands, like eyelids, like the rows of upper and lower teeth. To work against one another therefore is to oppose Nature, and to be vexed with another or to turn away from him is to tend to antagonism.

(Aurelius 1992, 7)

7. Do things from outside break in to distract you? Give yourself a time of quiet to learn some new good thing and cease to wander out of your course. But, when you have done that, be on your guard against a second kind of wandering. For those who are sick to death in life, with no mark on which they direct every impulse or in general every imagination, are triflers, not in words only but also in their deeds.

(Aurelius 1992, 8)

10. …as men commonly do compare, various faults, that errors of appetite are graver than errors of temper. For clearly one who loses his temper is turning away from Reason with a kind of pain and inward spasm; whereas he who offends through appetite is the victim of pleasure and is clearly more vicious in a way and more effeminate in his wrongdoing.

(Aurelius 1992, 8-9)

11. In the conviction that it is possible you may depart from life at once, act and speak and think in every case accordingly. But to leave the company of men is nothing to fear, if gods exist; for they would not involve you in ill. If, however, they do not exist or if they take no care for man’s affairs, why should I go on living in a world void of gods, or void of providence?

(Aurelius 1992, 9)

5. Do not act unwillingly nor selfishly not without self-examination, nor with divergent motives. Let no affectation veneer you’re thinking. Be neither a busy talker nor a busybody. Moreover, let the God within be the guardian of a real man, a man of ripe years, a statesman, a Roman, a magistrate, who has taken his post like one waiting for the Retreat to sound, ready to depart, needing no oath nor any man as witness. And see that you have gladness of face, no need of service from without nor the peace that other men bestow. You should stand upright, not be held upright.

(Aurelius 1992, 14)

47. Just as, if one of the gods told you, ‘Tomorrow you will be dead or in any case the day after tomorrow,’ you would no longer be making that day after important any more than tomorrow, unless you are an arrant coward (for the difference is a mere trifle), in the same way count it no great matter to live to a year that is an infinite distance off rather than till tomorrow.

(Aurelius 1992, 25)

51. Run always the short road, and Nature’s road is short. Therefore say and do everything in the soundest way, because a purpose like this delivers a man from troubles and warfare, from every care and superfluity.

(Aurelius 1992, 26)

1. At dawn of day, when you dislike being called, have this thought ready: ‘I am called to man’s labour; why then do I make a difficulty if I am going out to do what I was born to do and what I was brought into the world for? Is it for this that I am fashioned, to lie in bedclothes and keep myself warm?’ ‘But this is more pleasant.’ ‘Were you born then to please yourself, in fact for feeling, not for action? Can’t you see the plants, the birds, the ants, the spiders, the bees each doing his own work, helping for their part to adjust a world? And then you refuse to do a man’s office and don’t make haste to do what is according to your own nature.’ ‘But a man needs rest as well.’ I agree, he does, yet Nature assigns limits to rest, as well as to eating and drinking, and you nevertheless go beyond her limits, beyond what is sufficient; in your actions only this is no longer so, there you keep inside what is in your power.

(Aurelius 1992, 27)

16. … But to reverence and value your own understanding will make you acceptable to yourself, harmonious with your fellows, and in concord with gods; that is, praising whatsoever they assign and have ordained.

(Aurelius 1992, 37)

21. Suppose a man can convince me of error and bring home to me that I am mistaken in thought or act; I shall be glad to alter, for the truth is what I pursue, and no one was ever injured by the truth, whereas he is injured who continues in his own self-deception and ignorance.

(Aurelius 1992, 38)

29. It is absurdly wrong that, in this life where your body does not give in, your spirit should be the first to surrender.

(Aurelius 1992, 39)

30. Take heed not to be transformed into a Caesar, not to be dipped in the purple dye; for it does happen. Keep yourself therefore simple, good, pure, grave, unaffected, the friend of justice, religious, kind, affectionate, strong for your proper work.

(Aurelius 1992, 39)

38. Meditate often upon the bond of all in the Universe and their mutual relationship. For all things are in a way woven together and all are because of this dear to one another; for these follow in order one upon another because of the stress-movement and common spirit and the unification of matter.

(Aurelius 1992, 40)

41. Should you propose to yourself as good or evil something beyond your will, the necessary result is that, if you fall into that evil or fail of that good, you blame the gods and you hate men who are or who you suspect will be the causes of your loss of the good or your falling into the evil; and indeed we commit many wrongs from concern in regard to these things. If, however, we decide that only what our will controls is good or evil, then no ground is left either to arraign God or to adopt the position of an enemy to man.

(Aurelius 1992, 41)

51. He who does glory thinks the activity of another to be his own good; he who loves pleasure thinks his own feeling to be his good; he who has intelligence thinks his own action to be his good.

52. It is possible to entertain no thought about this, and not to be troubled in spirit; for things of themselves are not so constituted as to create our judgements upon them.

53. Habituate yourself not to be inattentive to what another has to say and, so far as possible, be in the mind of the speaker.

(Aurelius 1992, 43)

58. No one will prevent your living by the rule of your own nature: nothing will happen to you contrary to the rule of Universal Nature.

(Aurelius 1992, 43)

3. …yet understand that every man is worth just so much as the worth of what he has set his heart upon.

4. In conversation one ought to follow closely what is being said; in the field of impulse to follow what is happening; in the latter case to see immediately what is the object of reference, in the former to mark closely the meaning expressed.

(Aurelius 1992, 44)

18. Is it change that a man fears? Why, what can have come to be without change, and what is dearer or more familiar to Universal Nature?

(Aurelius 1992, 46)

26. When a man offends against you, think at once what conception of good or ill it was which made him offend. And, seeing this, you will pity him, and feel neither surprise nor anger.

(Aurelius 1992, 47)

27. Do not think of what are absent as though they were now existing, but ponder on the most fortunate of what you have got, and on account of them remind yourself how they would have been missed, if they had not been here. Take heed at the same time not to accustom yourself to overvalue the things you are thus contented to have, so as to be troubled if at any time they are not here.

(Aurelius 1992, 47)

49. Behold the past, the many changes of dynasties; the future, too, you are able to foresee, for it will be of like fashion, and it is impossible for the future to escape from the rhythm of the present. Therefore to study the life of man for forty years is no different from studying it for a hundred centuries. For what more will you see?

(Aurelius 1992, 49)

55. … Thus the principal end in man’s constitution is the social; and the second, to resist the passions of the body; for it is a property of reasonable and intelligent movements to limit itself and never to be worsted by movements of sense or impulse; for each of those belongs to the animal in us, but the movement of intelligence resolves to be sovereign and not to be mastered by those movements outside itself. And rightly so, for that is constituted by Nature to make use of them. The third end in a reasonable constitution is to avoid rash judgment and not to be deceived. Let the governing self, therefore, hold fast to these, and progress on a straight path, and it possesses what is its own.

(Aurelius 1992, 50)

69. Perfection of character possesses this; to live each day as if the last, to be neither feverish nor apathetic, and not to act a part.

(Aurelius 1992, 52)

22. Attend to the subject, the activity, the doctrine, or the meaning. You deserve to suffer this; so you would rather become good tomorrow that be good today.

(Aurelius 1992, 55)

36. Do not allow the imagination of the whole of your life to confuse you, do not dwell upon all the manifold troubles which have come to pass and will come to pass, but ask yourself in regard to every present piece of work: what is there here that can’t be borne and can’t be endured? You will be ashamed to make the confession. Then remind yourself that it is not the future or the past that weighs heavy upon you, but always the present, and that this gradually grows less, if only you isolate it and reprove your understanding, if that is not strong enough to hold our against it, thus taken by itself.

(Aurelius 1992, 57-58)

52. He who does not know that the Universe exists, does not know where he is. He who does not know the purpose of the Universe, does not know who he is nor what the Universe is. He who fails in any one of these respects could not even declare the purpose of his own birth. What then do you imagine him to be, who shuns or pursues the praises of men who applaud, and yet do not know either where they are or who they are?

(Aurelius 1992, 60)

58. He who fears death fears either total loss of consciousness or a change of consciousness. Now if you should no longer possess consciousness, you will no longer be aware of any evil; alternatively, if you possess an altered consciousness, you will be an altered creature and will not cease from living.

(Aurelius 1992, 61)

40. The gods are either powerless or powerful. If then they are powerless, why do you pray? But if they are powerful, why not rather pray them for the gift to fear none of these things, to desire none of them, to sorrow for none of them, rather than that any one of them should be present or absent? For surely if they can cooperate with man, they can cooperate to these ends. But perhaps you will say: ‘The gods put these things in my power.’ Were it not better then to use what is in your power with a free spirit rather than to be concerned for what is not in your power with a free spirit rather than to be concerned for what is not in your power with a servile and abject spirit? Besides, who told you that the gods do not cooperate even in respect to what is in our power? Begin at least to pray about these things and you will see. That man prays: ‘How may I know that woman’; do you pray: ‘How may I not desire to know her.’ Another prays: ‘How may I get rid of him’; do you pray: ‘How may I not want to be rid of him.’ Another: ‘How may I not lose my little child’; do you pray: ‘How may I not be afraid to him.’ Turn your prayers round in this way generally and see what is the result.

(Aurelius 1992, 69)

1. The properties of the rational soul: it is conscious of itself, it moulds itself, makes of itself whatever it will, the fruit which it bears it gathers itself (whereas others gather the fruits of the field and what in animals corresponds to fruit), it achieves its proper end, wherever the close of life comes upon it; if any interruption occur, its whole action is not rendered incomplete as is the case in the dance or a play and similar arts, but in every scene of life and wherever it may be overtaken it makes what it proposed to itself complete and entire, so that it can say: ‘I have what is my own.’

(Aurelius 1992, 80)

3. How admirable is the soul which is ready and resolved, if it must this moment be released from the body, to be either extinguished or scattered or to persist. This resolve, too, much arise from a specific decision, not out of sheer opposition like the Christians, but after reflection and with dignity, and so as to convince others, without histrionic display.

4. Have I done a neighborly act? I am thereby benefited. Let this always be ready to your mind, and nowhere desist.

(Aurelius 1992, 80)

18. … Eighthly, how much more grievous are what fits of anger and the consequent sorrows bring than the actual things are which produce in us those angry fits and sorrows.

Ninthly, that gentleness is invincible, if it be genuine and not sneering or hypocritical. For what can the most insolent do to you, if you continue gentle to him, and, if opportunity allows, mildly admonish him and quietly show him a better way at the very moment when he attempts to do you injury.

(Aurelius 1992, 84)

4. I often wonder how it is that everyone loves himself more than all the world and yet takes less account of his own judgment of himself than of the judgment of the world. At all events, if a god appeared to him or some wise master and bade him think and contemplate nothing within himself without at the same time speaking it our loud, he would not tolerate it even for a single day. Thus we respect whatever our neighbors will think about us more highly than we respect ourselves.

(Aurelius 1992, 89)

26. … You have forgotten, moreover, that every individual’s mind is of God and has flowed from that other world, that nothing is a man’s own, but even his child, his body, and his vital spirit itself have come from that other world, that all is judgment, that every man lives only the present life and this is what he is losing.

(Aurelius 1992, 92)

28. To those who ask the question: ‘Where have you seen the gods, or whence have you apprehended that they exist, that you thus worship them?’ First, they are visible even to the eyes; secondly, I have not seen my own soul and yet I honor it; and so too with the gods, from my experiences every instant of their power, from these I apprehend that they exist and I do them reverence.

(Aurelius 1992, 92)

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References

Aurelius, Marcus. 1992. Meditations. Edited by Arthur Spenser L. Farquharson. Translated by Arthur Spenser L. Farquharson. N.p.: David Campbell.

ISBN 978-1-85715-055-1