Meditations

by Marcus Aurelius

If you set up as good or evil any of the things beyond your control, it necessarily follows that in the occurrence of that evil or the frustration of that good you blame the gods and hate the men who are the real o...

We all work together to the same end, some with conscious attention, others without knowing it – just as Heraclitus, I think, says that even people asleep are workers in the factory of all that happens in the world.

Does the sun presume to do the work of the rain-god, or Asclepius that of the goddess of harvest? And what of each of the stars? Is it not that they are different, but work together to the same end?

If they did not take individual thought for me, then certainly they took thought for the common good, and since what happens to me is a consequential part of that, I should accept and welcome it. But if after all they take thought for nothing (an 2impious thing to believe – otherwise let us abandon sacrifice, prayer to the gods, swearing by the gods, all the other things which we variously do on the assumption that the gods are with us and share our lives) – if, then, they take no thought for any of our concerns, it is open to me to take thought for myself: and my concern is for what is best. Best for each is what suits his own condition and nature: and my nature is both rational and social.

All that happens to the individual is to the benefit of the Whole.

Think constantly of all the sorts of men, of various professions and of all the nations on earth, who have died: and so bring your thought down to Philistion, Phoebus, and Origanion. Pass now to the other classes of men. We too are bound to change our abode to that other world, where there are so many skilled orators, so many distinguished philosophers – Heraclitus, Pythagoras, Socrates – so many heroes of old, so many later commanders and kings. Add Eudoxus, Hipparchus, Archimedes; add other men of penetrating intellect, men of great vision, men dedicated to their work; add rogues, bigots, and even satirists of this transient mortal life, like Menippus and his kind. Reflect of all of these that they are long dead and buried. So is this anything terrible for them – or indeed for men whose very names are lost? In this world there is only one thing of value, to live out your life in truth and justice, tolerant of those who are neither true nor just.

Whenever you want to cheer yourself, think of the qualities of your fellows – the energy of one, for example, the decency of another, the generosity of a third, some other merit in a fourth. There is nothing so cheering as the stamp of virtues manifest in the character of colleagues

Just as you are content with the amount of matter allocated to you, so you should be content with your allocation of time.

Try to persuade them, but act even if they are unpersuaded, whenever the principle of justice so directs. But if someone forcibly resists, change tack to an unhurt acceptance, so using the obstacle to bring forth a different virtue.

How to understand your own good: the lover of glory takes it to be the reactions of others; the lover of pleasure takes it to be his own passive experience; the intelligent man sees it as his own action.

things of themselves have no inherent power to form our judgements.

What does not benefit the hive does not benefit the bee either.

If sailors spoke ill of their captain or patients of their doctor, who else would they listen to? Otherwise how would the captain achieve a safe voyage for his passengers or the doctor health for those in his care?

How many with whom I came into the world hav...

Appearances: to the jaundiced honey seems bitter, to those bitten by rabid dogs water is a terror, to little boys a ball is joy. Why then am I angry? Or do you think that false representation has less effect ...

nothing will happen to you contrary to the principle of universal nature.

This is wickedness: this is what you have often seen. And you should have this thought ready to hand against any eventuality: ‘I have seen this often before.’ Generally wherever you look you will find the same things. The histories – ancient, more recent, and modern – are full of them: cities and households are full of them today. There is nothing new. All is familiar, and all short-lived.

Your principles are living things. How else could they be deadened, except by the extinction of the corresponding mental images? And the constant rekindling of these is up to you. ‘I am able to form the judgement I should about this event. If able, why troubled? All that lies outside my own mind is nothing to it.’ Learn this, and you stand upright. You can live once more. Look at things again as you used to look at them: in this is the resumption of life.

The empty pomp of a procession, plays on the stage, flocks and herds, jousting shows, a bone thrown to puppies, tit-bits into the fishponds, ants toiling and carrying, the scurries of frightened mice, puppets dancing on their strings. Well, amid all this you must keep yourself tolerant – do not snort at them. ...

In conversation one ought to follow closely what is said, in any impulse to follow ...

Is my mind sufficient for this task, or is it not? If it is, I use it for the task as an instrument given me by the nature of the Whole. If it is not, I either cede the work (if it is otherwise my responsibility) to someone better able to accomplish it, or do it as best I can, calling in aid someone who, in cooperation with my own directing mind, can achieve what is at this particular time the need and benefit of the community. Whatever I do, either by myself or with another, should have this sole focus – the common benefit and harmony.

How many who once rose to fame are now consigned to oblivion: and how many who sang their fame are long disappeared.

Do not be ashamed of help. It is your task to achieve your assigned duty, like a soldier in a scaling-party. What, then, if you are lame and cannot climb the parapet by yourse...

Do not let the future trouble you. You will come to it (if that is what you must) possessed of the same reason th...

All things are meshed together, and a sacred bond unites them. Hardly a single thing is alien to the rest: ordered together in their places they together make up the one order of the universe. There is one universe out of all things, one god pervading all things, one substance, one law, one common reason in all intelligent beings, and one truth...

Everything material rapidly disappears in the universal substance; every cause is rapidly taken up into the universal reason; and the memory of e...

For a rational being, to act in accordance with nature is also to act in ...

Standing straight – or hel...

Rational beings collectively have the same relation as the various limbs of an organic unity – they were created for a single cooperative purpose. The notion of this will strike you more forcefully if you keep on saying to yourself: ‘I am a limb of the composite body of rational beings.’ If, though, by the change of one letter from l to r [melos to meros], you call yourself simply a part rather than a limb, you do not yet love your fellow men from your heart: doing go...

I myself am not yet harmed, unless I judge this occurrence something bad: and I can refuse to do so.

Whatever anyone does or says, I must be a good man. It is as if an emerald, or gold or purple, were always saying: ‘Whatever anyone does or says, I must be an emerald and keep my own colour.’

The directing mind does not disturb itself: for example, it does not frighten itself or lead itself to desire. If anyone else can frighten it or cause it pain, let him do so: of itself, of its own j...

Of itself the directing mind is without needs, unless it creates a need for itself: in the same way it is untroubled and unhindered, unless it troubles or hinders itself.

Happiness is a benign god or divine blessing. Why then, my imagination, are you doing what you do? Go away, in the gods’ name, the way you came: I have no need of you.

Can you yourself take your bath, if the wood that heats it is not changed? Can you be fed, unless what you eat changes? Can any other of the benefits of life be achieved without change? Do you not see then that for you to be changed is equal, and equally necessary to the nature of the Whole?

How many a Chrysippus, a Socrates, an Epictetus has eternity already swallowed! This same thought should strike you about any man at all and any thing.

that I myself should not do something which the human constitution does not intend – or does not intend in this way or at this time.

Soon you will have forgotten all things: soon all things will...

It is human nature to love even those who trip and fall. This follows if you reflect at the time that all men are brothers; that they go wrong through ignorance, not intent; that in a short while both you and they will be dead; and, above all, that the man has not harmed you – he has not made your directing mind worse than it was before.

It is no more hardship for a box to be broken up than to be put together.

if even the consciousness of doing wrong is lost, what reason is there left for living?

All that you see will in a moment be changed by the nature which governs the Whole: it will create other things out of this material, and then again others out of that, so that the world is always young.

When someone does you some wrong, you should consider immediately what judgement of good or evil led him to wrong you. When you see this, you will ...

Do not dream of possession of what you do not have: rather reflect on the greatest blessings in what you do have, and on their account remind yourself how much they would have been missed if they were not there. But at the same time you must be careful not to let your pleasure in them habituate you to dependency, to avoid distress if they are sometimes absent.

Withdraw into yourself. It is in the nature of the rational directing mind to be self-content with acting rightly and the calm it thereby enjoys.

Erase the print of imagination. Stop the puppet-strings of impulse. Define the...

Leave the wrong done by another where it started.

Stretch your thought to parallel what is being said. Let your mind get inside what is happening and who is doing it.

Take your joy in simplicity, in integrity, in indifference to all that lies between virtue and vice. Love mankind. Follow god.

On death. Either dispersal, if we are atoms: or, if we are a unity, extinction or a change of home.