Meditations

by Marcus Aurelius

In a short while I am dead and all things are gone. What more do I want, if this present work is that of an intelligent and social being, sharing one law with god?

These men saw into reality, its causes and its material, and their directing minds were their own masters. As for the former, they were slaves to all their ambitions.

Even if you burst with indignation, they will still carry on regardless.

do not be upset: all things follow the nature of the Whole, and in a little while you will be no one and nowhere, as is tru...

concentrate on the matter in hand and see it for what it is. Remind yourself of your duty to be a good man and rehearse what man’s nature demands: then do it straight and unswerving, or say what you best think rig...

The work of universal nature is to translate this reality to another, to change things, to take them f...

For a rational nature the right path is to withhold assent to anything false or obscure in the impressions made on its mind, to direct its impulses solely to social action, to reserve its desires and aversions to what lies in our power, and to welcome all that is assigned to it by universal nature.

man’s nature is part of a nature which is unimpeded, intelligent, and just – in that to each creature it gives fair and appropriate allocations of duration, substance, cause, activity, and experience.

Whereas plants, such as an acorn, can be impeded to exert its nature (lack of rain, for instance), the man cannot. That is, whatever the circumstance the man can always exercise virtue. It is always in his power.

Let nobody any more hear you blaming palace life: don’t hear yourself blaming it.

Don't be overheard complaining, not even to yourself.

pleasure is neither beneficial nor a good.

When you are reluctant to get up from your sleep, remind yourself that it is your constitution and man’s nature to perform social acts, whereas sleep is something you share with dumb animals.

investigate the cause, identify the emotion, apply the analysis of logic.

to change course or accept correction leaves you just as free as you were. The action is your own, driven by your own impulse and judgement, indeed your own intelligence.

There is no blame. If you can, put him right: If you can’t, at the least put the matter itself right. If that too is impossible, what further purpose does blame serve? Nothing should be done without purpose.

What dies does not pass out of the universe. If it remains here and is changed, then here too it is resolved into the everlasting constituents, which are the elements of the universe and of you yourself. These too change, and make no complaint of it.

For what purpose, then, were you created? For your pleasure? Just see whether this idea can be entertained.

Nature’s aim for everything includes its cessation just as much as its beginning and its duration – like someone throwing up a ball. How can it be good for the ball on the way up and bad on the way down, or even when it hits the ground? How can it be good for a bubble when it forms, and bad when it bursts? A candle is a similar example.

Life is short both for praiser and praised, for the remembering and the remembered.

Concentrate on the subject or the act in question, on principle or meaning. You deserve what you’re going through. You would rather become good tomorrow than be good today.

Doing something? I do it with reference to the benefit of mankind. Something happening to me? I accept it in reference to the gods and the universal source

that either the poor compound of your body must be scattered, or your frail spirit must be extinguished, or else migrate and take its post elsewhere.

Pain is an evil either to the body – so let the body give its evidence – or to the soul. But the soul can preserve its own clear sky and calm voyage by not assessing pain as an evil.

Just think of all the anxiety of previous generations to leave behind an heir, and then one has to be the last. Here again the death of a whole family.

compose your life action by action, and be satisfied if each action achieves its own end as best can be: and no one can prevent you from that achievement. ‘But there will be some external obstacle.’ No obstacle, though, to justice, self-control, and reason. ‘But perhaps some other source of action will be obstructed.’ Well, gladly accept the obstruction as it is, make a judicious change to meet the given circumstance, and another action will immediately substitute and fit into the composition of your life as discussed.

Accept humbly: let go easily.

If you have ever seen a severed hand or foot, or a head cut off and lying some way away from the rest of the body – analogous is what someone does to himself, as far as he can, when he will not accept his lot a...

In the same way that nature turns to its own purpose anything obstructive or contrary, placing it in the fated scheme of things and making it part of itself, so the rational being can also convert every obstacle into material for his own use, and use it to further whatever his original purpose was.

do not dwell on all the various troubles which may have occurred in the past or may occur in the future.

it is neither the future nor the past which weighs on you, but always the present: and the present burden reduces, if only you can isolate it and accuse your mind of weakness if it cannot hold against something thus stripped bare.

Is Panthea or Pergamus still sitting by the coffin of Verus? Or Chabrias or Diotimus by Hadrian’s? Ridiculous! And if they were still sitting there, would the dead be aware? And if they were aware, would they be pleased? And if they were pleased, would that make their mourners immortal? Was it not their fate also first to grow old – old women and old men like any others – and then to die? And with them dead, what would those they mourned do then? It is all stench and corruption in a bag of bones.

When we mourn, are we comforting the dead? No, it is only ourselves we comfort by remembering them. In life, half the people who attend the funeral wouldn't care much about the person. But when the person dies, they present themselves. Perhaps it is a way for people to comfort their own mortality with rememberance. But why is there a need to comfort death, which is all natural and not an evil? And why not enjoy the presence and love the person when they're alive rather than mourn only when they're dead. Not to be cynical, of course, the rituals are important in themselves. All in all, remember death is not an evil and learn to leave life as easily as you came in. Also, let go of the people in your life when time comes as they were never yours to begin with. Enjoy their presence while they're with you and leave them when nature takes them back for reallocation of her resources.

If you have sharp sight, use it: but, as the poet says, add wise judgement.

no virtue that counters justice: but I do see the counter to pleasure – self-control.

an obstacle to the mind is harmful to intelligent nature. Now apply all this to yourself. Is pain or pleasure affecting you? That is for the senses. You have formed an impulse and then met some obstruction? If this was an unconditional aim, then, yes, the obstruction harms your rational nature: but if you accept what is common experience, no harm is yet done or hindrance caused. You see, no one else will impede the proper functions of the mind. The mind cannot be touched by fire, steel, tyranny, slander, or anything whatever, once it has become ‘a perfect round in solitude’.

I have no cause to hurt myself: I have never consciously hurt anyone else.

What, anyway, is it to you if this is the echo in future voices and this the judgement they make of you?

Is this present thing any good reason for my soul to be sick and out of sorts

if each thing experiences what is usual and natural for it, why should you complain? Universal nature has brought you nothing you can’t endure.

If your distress has some external cause, it is not the thing itself that troubles you, but your own judgement of it

Remember that your directing mind becomes invincible when it withdraws into its own self-sufficiency, not doing anything it does not wish to do, even if its position is unreasonable. How much more, then, when the judgement it forms is reasoned and deliberate?

Do not elaborate to yourself beyond what your initial impressions report.

A bitter cucumber? Throw it away. Brambles in the path? Go round them. That is all you need, without going on to ask, ‘So why are these things in the world anyway?’

Do not be dilatory in action, muddled in communication, or vague in thought. Don’t let your mind settle into depression or elation. Allow some leisure in your life.

‘They kill, they cut in pieces, they hunt with curses.’ What relevance has this to keeping your mind pure, sane, sober, just?

How then can you secure an everlasting spring and not a cistern? By keeping yourself at all times intent on freedom – and staying kind, simple, and decent.

So what do you think of the man who fears or courts the applause of an audience who have no idea where they are or who they are?

Individual wickedness does no harm to the recipient: it is only harmful to the perpetrator, and he has the option to be rid of it just as soon as he himself decides.

To my determining will my neighbour’s will is as indifferent as his breath and his body.

Something similar will be true of the flow and diffusion of the universal mind – not an exhaustible stream but rather a constant radiation. And there will be nothing forceful or violent in its impact on the obstacles it meets: it will not fall off, but will settle there and illuminate what receives it. Anything unreflective will deprive itself of that light.

if you will no longer be conscious you will not be conscious either of anything bad. If you are to take on a different consciousness, you will be a different being and life will not cease.

Men are born for the sake of each other. So either teach or tolerate.