Meditations

by Marcus Aurelius

Every perception, every action must both satisfy the circumstantial and exercise the theoretical, so that you preserve the confidence of precise knowledge in every particular – this confidence unobtrusive, but not concealed.

when will you take your pleasure in simplicity? When in dignity? When in the knowledge of each individual thing

Adopt a systematic study of the way all things change into one another: pay constant attention to this aspect of nature and train yourself in it. Nothing is so conducive to greatness of mind.

What need of prompt or hint when it is open to yourself to discern what needs to be done – and, if you can see your way, to follow it with kind but undeviating intent.

Justice is the best aim, as any failure is in fact a failure of justice. A man following reason in all things combines relaxation with initiative, spark with composure.

As soon as you wake from sleep ask yourself: ‘Will it make any difference to you if others criticize what is in fact just and true?’ No, it will not. You have surely not forgotten what these people who whinny in praise or blame of others are like in their bed and at their board, the sort of things they do and avoid or pursue, their cheating and stealing, not with hands and feet, but with the most precious part of themselves, the part where – if allowed – there grows trust, decency, truth, law, the spirit of goodness.

Nature gives all and takes all back. To her the man educated into humility says: ‘Give what you will; take back what you will.’ And he says this in no spirit o...

Here or there makes no difference, if wherever you live you take the world as your city. Let men see, let them observe a true man living in accordance with nature. If they cannot bear him, let them kill him – a better fate than a life like theirs.

No more roundabout discussion of what makes a good man. Be one!

Keep constantly in your mind an impression of the whole of time and the whole of existence – and the thought that each individual thing is, on the scale of existence, a mere fig...

Consider any existing object and reflect that it is even now in the process of dissolution and change, in a sense regenerating through decay or dispersal: in other word...

‘Earth loves the rain, the proud sky loves to give it.’ The whole world loves to create futurity. I say then to the world, ‘I share your love.’ Is this not the source of the phrase, ‘This loves to happen’?

All that happens in the world is its own good.

Either you live on here, used to it now; or you retire, your own decision to leave; or you die, your service done. No other choice. Be cheerful, then.

Always have clear in your mind that ‘the grass is not greener’ elsewhere, and how everything is the same here as on the top of a mountain, or...

What is my directing mind to me? What am I turning it into now, what use am I making of it? Is it drained of intelligence? Is it divorced and broken off from society? Is it so interfused and welded to the flesh that it sways with its tides?

pain, anger, or fear denote refusal of some past, present, or future order from the governor of all things – and this is law, which legislates his lot for each of us. To feel fear, then, pain or anger is to be a fugitive.

man deposits his sperm in a womb and goes away. Thereafter another cause takes over, does its work, and produces a baby. What a result from what a beginning! Then again. The child takes food down its throat, and now another causal sequence takes over, creating sensation and impulse, the whole of life and strength, and all manner of other wonderful things. Look, then, at what happens in such mystery, and see the power at work, just as we see the force which weighs things down or carries them up – not with our eyes, but no less clearly.

All the same as now: just a different cast.

Picture everyone voicing pain or discontent at anything, as like a pig at a sacrifice, kicking and squealing. Just the same is the man who keeps it to himself, silently resentful on his bed. Think of all the threads that bind us, and how only rational creatures are given the choice of submitting willingly to events: pure submission is forced on all.

Consider each individual thing you do and ask yourself whether to lose it through death makes dea...

Whenever you take offence at the wrong done by another, move on at once to consider what similar wrong you are committing – it could be setting value on money, or pleasure, ...

and when you look at yourself, picture one of the Caesars – for each, then, a parallel in the past. Then let this further thought strike you: Where are those men now? Nowhere, or wherever. In this way you will always look on human life as mere smoke and nothing, especially if you remind yourself also that what has once changed will be no more for the infinity of time. Why then this stress? Why not be content with an orderly passage through the brief span you have? And what material situation, what role are you seeking to escape? What is all this other than an exercise for that reason which has looked at all of life with close and scientific inquiry?

Let no one have the chance to accuse you, with any truth, of not being sincere or a good man: make sure that anyone taking this view of you is a liar.

In any given material circumstance what can be done or said to soundest effect? Whatever that is, it is in your power to do it or say it – and make no pretence of ‘obstacles in the way’. You will never cease moaning until you experience the same pleasure in making an appropriately human response to any circumstance you meet or face as the hedonist does in his indulgence – a response, that is, in keeping with man’s constitution. Because you should regard as enjoyment any action you can take in accord with your own nature; and you can do that anywhere.

anything else subject to a nature or life without reason: there are many barriers or impediments in their way. But mind and reason have the power, by their nature and at their will, to move through every obstacle.

Keeping clear in your view this easy facility of reason to carry 3through all things – like fire rising, a stone falling, a roller on a slope – stop looking for anything more. Any remaining hindrances either come from the corpse which is our body, or – without the judgement and consent of our own reason itself – have no power at all to break or harm.

With all other organisms any harm occurring to any of them makes them worse in themselves. But in our case, to put it so, a person actually becomes better and more praiseworthy for the right use of the circumstances he meets.

Your children are no more than ‘leaves’. ‘Leaves’ too these loud voices of loyal praise, these curses from your opponents, this silent blame or mockery: mere ‘leaves’ likewise those with custody of your future fame. All these ‘come round in the season of spring’: but then the wind blows them down, and the forest ‘puts out others’ in their stead. All things are short-lived – this is their common lot – but you pursue likes and dislikes as if all was fixed for eternity. In a little while you too will close your eyes, and soon there will be others mourning the man who buries you.

the healthy mind too must be ready for all eventualities. The mind which says ‘my children must live’, or ‘there must be popular acclaim for all I do’, is the eye demanding pale or the teeth demanding pap.

‘I am leaving the sort of life in which even my colleagues – on whose behalf I have expended so much effort, prayer, and thought – even they want me out of the way, doubtless hoping for some relief from my death.’ So why should anyone cling to a longer stay here on earth? Do not, though, for that reason feel any less warmth for them as you depart this life, but keep true to your own character – friendly, kind, generous.

get into the habit of asking yourself in relation to any action taken by another: ‘What is his point of reference here?’ But begin with yourself: examine yourself first.

Remember that what pulls the strings is that part of us hidden inside: that is the power to act, that is the principle of life, that, one could say, is the man himself. So never give any equal thought to the vessel which contains it or the organs built round it.

It looks on itself, it shapes itself, it makes itself however it wishes to be, it gathers for itself the fruit it bears – whereas the fruit of plants and the corresponding produce of animals is gathered by others. It achieves its own end wherever the limit of life is set. Unlike a ballet or a play or suchlike, where any interruption aborts the whole performance, in every scene and whenever it is cut off the rational soul has its own programme complete and entirely fulfilled, so it can say: ‘I am in possession of my own.’

Further, the rational soul traverses the whole universe and 2its surrounding void, explores the shape of it, stretches into the infinity of time, encompasses and comprehends the periodic regeneration of the Whole. It reflects that our successors will see nothing new, just as our predecessors saw nothing more than we do: such is the sameness of things, a man of forty with any understanding whatsoever has in a sense seen all the past and all the future.

Particular qualities too of the rational soul are love of neighbour, 3truthfulness, integrity, no higher value than itself. This last is a defining quality of law also. There is thus no difference between the t...

Generally, then, with the exception of virtue and its workings, remember to go straight to the component parts of anything, and through that analysis come to despise the thing itself. And the same method should be applied to the whole of life.

What a noble thing is the soul ready for its release from the body, if now must be the time, and prepared for whatever follows – extinction, dispersal, or survival! But this readiness must come from a specific decision: not in mere revolt, like the Christians, but thoughtful, dignified, and – if others are to believe it – undramatic.

Have I done something for the common good? Then I too have benefited. Have this thought always re...

What is your profession? Being a good man. But this can only come about through philosophic concepts – concepts of the nature of the Whole, and conc...

tragedies were brought on stage to remind you of what can happen, that these happenings are determined by nature, and that what moves you in the theatre should...

‘If I and my two sons are now no more The gods’ concern, this too will have its cause.’ Again: ‘Mere things, brute facts, should not provoke your rage.’ And: ‘Ripe ears of corn are reaped, and so are lives.’

How clearly it strikes you that there is no other walk of life so conducive to the exercise of philosophy as this in which you now find yourself!

branch cut from its neighbouring branch is necessarily cut away from the whole tree. In the same way a human being severed from just one other human has dropped from the whole community. Now the branch is cut off by someone else, but a man separates himself from his neighbour by his own hatred or rejection, not realizing that he has thereby severed himself from the wider society of fellow citizens.

Share their stock, but not their doctrines.

Just as those who try to block your progress along the straight path of reason will not be able to divert you from principled action, so you must not let them knock you out of your good will towards them. Rather you should watch yourself equally on both fronts, keeping not only a stability of judgement and action but also a mild response to those who try to stop you or are otherwise disaffected.

all arts create the lower in the interests of the higher: so this is the way of universal nature too. And indeed here is the origin of justice, from which all other virtues take their being, since there will be no preservation of justice if we are concerned with indifferent things, or gullible and quick to chop and change.

The external things whose pursuit or avoidance troubles you do not force themselves on you, but in a way you yourself go out to them. However that may be, keep your judgement of them calm and they too will stay still – then you will not be seen either to pursue or to avoid.

The soul is a sphere which retains the integrity of its own form if it does not bulge or contract for anything, does not flare or subside, but keeps the constant light by which it see...

Someone despises me? That is his concern. But I will see to it that I am not found guilty of any word or action deserving contempt. Will he hate me? That is his concern. But I will be kind and well-intentioned to all, and ready to show this very person what he is failing to see –...

what harm can you suffer, if you yourself at this present moment are acting in kind with your own nature and accepting what suits the present purpose of universal nature – a man at full stretch for the achievement, this way or that, of the common good?