Meditations by Marcus Aurelius: the New Translation

by Marcus Aurelius

If you can’t even tell you’re doing wrong, what reason is there to live?

Nature changes everything. From the substance of one thing it creates another, and so on, in order to make the world anew.

If someone does you wrong, immediately consider their sense of good and bad. Once you do this, you can sympathize with them and let go of your incredulity and anger. For you either share the same worldview with them, in which case you’ll pardon their beliefs, or you don’t share...

Don’t focus on what you don’t have; be grateful for what you do. Go find something highly valuable to you now. Reflect on how eagerly this thing would be sought if you didn’t have it. At the same time, be care...

Kill your false imaginings. Cut the puppet strings. Confine yourself to the present. Strive to truly understand yourself and others. Divide everything into material and causation. Think of your final hour. Let wrongdoings lay with the wrongdoers, not with you.

Pay attention to what is said. Put your mind to what’s happening and who making it happen.

Everywhere, at all times, it is in your power to feel satisfied with your present condition, behave justly to others, and manage your thoughts, so that nothing slides in unexamined.

Imagine you’re already dead, having lived up to this very moment. Go now, and live according to a higher nature the rest of your life.

Love only what happens to you, as it arrives with destiny. What’s more suitable than that?

When something affects you, keep in mind those who experienced something similar. Remember how frustrated they got, how they overreacted to its strangeness and complained. And where are these complainers now? Nowhere. So why act the same way? Why not leave these foreign adversaries to those who want to fight? Or why not focus on the right way to utilize these events? Because yes, you can use them to your advantage. They are materials to work wi...

Look within, for there is the fountain of goodness, and if you keep digging, mor...

Study those whose approval you seek. Observe what sort of inner lives they have. Here’s how you will learn not to blame them for their involuntary mistakes, and find you don’t actually require their approval, as you’ve identified the sources of their opinions and appetites.

Pain is neither intolerable nor everlasting; it is limited by one’s imagination.

When these discomforts begin to bother you, remember that you’re giving in to it.

Before every act, ask yourself: “How could this affect me? Is there any chance I’d change my mind about it later? A little time, and then I’m dead and gone. As an intelligent creature, a social creature, and one following the same laws as the gods, is something worth its having?”

Secondly, mind your own business. Fix your eyes to your path and never turn away, remembering that it’s your duty to be a good person, as nature demands. Speak justly, and with high character, but modestly, and without hypocrisy.

Life is like bathwater: filled with oils, sweat, dirt, filth, and all of it disgusting. Life and everything else.

Remember that neither future nor past pains can actually hurt you; only the present can, and only if you let it.

Why would I hurt myself, when I have never even intentionally injured another?

Stay in the moment.

If something external affects you negatively, it’s your own judgment that’s causing you pain, which is within your power to settle. Furthermore, regarding personal character flaws, what’s keeping you from correcting those? If you’re frustrated or not doing the thing you should be doing, why not just do it?

If you actually have no control, then it’s not your problem.

The mind is invincible. When disciplined, it is satisfied, choosing to do nothing against its will, even when dead set and unreasonable. So imagine its power when aided by reason and purpose...

And never let ambition swallow all your time and keep you from enjoying leisure.

To be ignorant of the world is to be lost.

Humans exist for the sake of one another. Teach them or tolerate them.

Share your wisdom with others, and take others’ wisdom into you.

To do wrong is to wrong yourself. To act unjustly is to harm yourself, as it makes you bad person.

11. If you can, teach. Correct wrongs. And if you can’t, just remember that patience was given to you for this purpose.

You have the power to help as well—so what’s stopping you?

Today I rid myself of anxiety. Or rather, I cast it out of me, as it came not from outside but from within, from my own opinions.

The faults of others must be left with others.

Get moving, if you’re able, and don’t look about to see if anyone is watching.

If a person does wrong, the harm is on them. And maybe no wrong was done to begin with.

By remembering then that I am part of a such a whole, I shall be content with everything that happens.

Why be so doubtful of things, when it’s in your power to ask what ought to be done? If the path is clear, follow it happily, without turning back. If it isn’t, stop and take advisement.

Time is short. Live as if alone in the wild. For it makes no difference where you live, if you consider the universe a city. Let them see a real human animal living according to nature. And if they can’t tolerate you, let them kill you. For it’s better to die than live as they do.

Stop talking about what a good person looks like and be one.

Wherever you choose, be.

Persevere in making your life your own, and like a strong stomach, digest everything you can, or like how the blazing, bright fire digests whatever is thrown into it.

Given how we’re constructed, what’s the sanest way to live? Whatever the answer, it’s in your power to live that way. No excuses.

Frustration is a weakness, as is diverting from your course of action because of fear.

Consider where things come from. What they consist of. What they change into. What caused the change. Can it be hurt?

Remember that another person’s actions can’t disturb you—that’s between them and their own brain, and not your problem. What disturbs you is your own opinion of those actions.

If you don’t have a consistent goal in life, you will not have a consistent life.

You can’t teach others by laying down rules, in writing or speaking, that you haven’t learned to obey yourself. This and so much more.

Everything you hope to achieve or gain by taking the long route you can instead have right now, if only you’d quit standing in your own way.

Don’t let anything stop you: not another’s wickedness, nor their opinions or rants, nor your aging body, which can care for itself.

You are composed of three things: a little body, a little breath, and intelligence. The first two are yours, as you must care for them, but the third you truly own.

If you strive to live in the present, you can live nobly under your own willpower, free from anxiety till the time you die.