Meditations

by Marcus Aurelius

That my body has held out, especially considering the life I’ve led.

The world is maintained by change—in the elements and in the things they compose. That should be enough for you; treat it as an axiom.

People who labor all their lives but have no purpose to direct every thought and impulse toward are wasting their time—even when hard at work.

You could leave life right now. Let that determine what you do and say and think.

But death and life, success and failure, pain and pleasure, wealth and poverty, all these happen to good and bad alike, and they are neither noble nor shameful—and hence neither good nor bad.

so true

For you can’t lose either the past or the future; how could you lose what you don’t have?

When it allows its action and impulse to be without a purpose, to be random and disconnected: even the smallest things ought to be directed toward a goal.

Isn't that the same with decaying person post retirement ?

Human life.

You need to avoid certain things in your train of thought: everything random, everything irrelevant. And certainly everything self-important or malicious.

And so I’ll treat them as the law that binds us—the law of nature—requires. With kindness and with justice.

That things have no hold on the soul. They stand there unmoving, outside it. Disturbance comes only from within—from our own perceptions. ii. That everything you see will soon alter and cease to exist. Think of how many changes you’ve already seen. “The world is nothing but change. Our life is only perception.”

Not to live as if you had endless years ahead of you. Death overshadows you. While you’re alive and able—be good.

Memento mori

A key point to bear in mind: The value of attentiveness varies in proportion to its object. You’re better off not giving the small things more time than they deserve.

Take the shortest route, the one that nature planned—to speak and act in the healthiest way.

Don’t you see how much you have to offer—beyond excuses like “can’t”? And yet you still settle for less.

to get back up when you fail, to celebrate behaving like a human—however imperfectly—and fully embrace the pursuit that you’ve embarked on.

The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.

If it does not harm the community, it does not harm its members. When you think you’ve been injured, apply this rule: If the community isn’t injured by it, neither am I. And if it is, anger is not the answer. Show the offender where he went wrong.

Existence flows past us like a river: the “what” is in constant flux, the “why” has a thousand variations. Nothing is stable, not even what’s right here. The infinity of past and future gapes before us—a chasm whose depths we cannot see. So it would take an idiot to feel self-importance or distress. Or any indignation, either. As if the

Remember, nothing belongs to you but your flesh and blood—and nothing else is under your control.

Good fortune: good character, good intentions, and good actions.

Like seeing roasted meat and other dishes in front of you and suddenly realizing: This is a dead fish. A dead bird. A dead pig. Or that this noble vintage is grape juice, and the purple robes are sheep wool dyed with shellfish blood. Or making love—something rubbing against your penis, a brief seizure and a little cloudy liquid. Perceptions like that—latching onto things and piercing through them, so we see what they really are. That’s what we need to do all the time—all through our lives when things lay claim to our trust—to lay them bare and see how pointless they are, to strip away the legend that encrusts them. Pride is a master of deception: when you think you’re occupied in the weightiest business, that’s when he has you in his spell.

Not to assume it’s impossible because you find it hard. But to recognize that if it’s humanly possible, you can do it too.

We need to excuse what our sparring partners do, and just keep our distance—without suspicion or hatred.

What harms us is to persist in self-deceit and ignorance.

How cruel—to forbid people to want what they think is good for them. And yet that’s just what you won’t let them do when you get angry at their misbehavior. They’re drawn toward what they think is good for them. —But it’s not good for them. Then show them that. Prove it to them. Instead of losing your temper.

Heraclitus meant when he said that “those who sleep are also hard at work”—that they too collaborate in what happens.)

(Good in the ordinary sense—as the world defines it.)

If the crew talked back to the captain, or patients to their doctor, then whose authority would they accept? How could the passengers be kept safe or the patient healthy?

Straight, not straightened.

Frightened of change? But what can exist without it? What’s closer to nature’s heart? Can you take a hot bath and leave the firewood as it was? Eat food without transforming it? Can any vital process take place without something being changed? Can’t you see? It’s just the same with you—and just as vital to nature.

simply recognize: that they’re human too, that they act out of ignorance, against their will, and that you’ll both be dead before long. And, above all, that they haven’t really hurt you. They haven’t diminished your ability to choose.

Before long, nature, which controls it all, will alter everything you see and use it as material for something else—over and over again. So that the world is continually renewed.

Everywhere, at each moment, you have the option: to accept this event with humility to treat this person as he should be treated to approach this thought with care, so that nothing irrational creeps in.

Now, the main thing we were made for is to work with others. Secondly, to resist our body’s urges. Because things driven by logos—by thought—have the capacity for detachment—to resist impulses and sensations, both of which are merely corporeal. Thought seeks to be their master, not their subject. And so it should: they were created for its use. And the third thing is to avoid rashness and credulity. The mind that grasps this and steers straight ahead should be able to hold its own.

It’s silly to try to escape other people’s faults. They are inescapable. Just try to escape your own.

Nature’s job: to shift things elsewhere, to transform them, to pick them up and move them here and there. Constant alteration. But not to worry: there’s nothing new here. Everything is familiar. Even the proportions are unchanged.

You can discard most of the junk that clutters your mind—things that exist only there—and clear out space for yourself: … by comprehending the scale of the world … by contemplating infinite time … by thinking of the speed with which things change—each part of every thing; the narrow space between our birth and death; the infinite time before; the equally unbounded time that follows.

Everything that happens is either endurable or not. If it’s endurable, then endure it. Stop complaining. If it’s unendurable … then stop complaining. Your destruction will mean its end as well. Just remember: you can endure anything your mind can make endurable, by treating it as in your interest to do so. In your interest, or in your nature.

Because anger, too, is weakness, as much as breaking down and giving up the struggle.

The natural can never be inferior to the artificial; art imitates nature, not the reverse.

A straightforward, honest person should be like someone who stinks: when you’re in the same room with him, you know it.

ex cathedra

The Pythagoreans tell us to look at the stars at daybreak. To remind ourselves how they complete the tasks assigned them—always the same tasks, the same way. And their order, purity, nakedness. Stars wear no concealment.

Grapes. Unripe … ripened … then raisins. Constant transitions. Not the “not” but the “not yet.”

“We need to master the art of acquiescence. We need to pay attention to our impulses,

Reverence: so you’ll accept what you’re allotted. Nature intended it for you, and you for it. Justice: so that you’ll speak the truth, frankly and without evasions, and act as you should—and as other people deserve.

Your three components: body, breath, mind. Two are yours in trust; to the third alone you have clear title.

It never ceases to amaze me: we all love ourselves more than other people, but care more about their opinion than our own. If a god appeared to us—or a wise human being, even—and prohibited us from concealing our thoughts or imagining anything without immediately shouting it out, we wouldn’t make it through a single day. That’s how much we value other people’s opinions—instead of our own.

Practice even what seems impossible. The left hand is useless at almost everything, for lack of practice. But it guides the reins better than the right. From practice.