The Essential Marcus Aurelius (Tarcher Cornerstone Editions)

by Marcus Aurelius

If something is difficult for you to accomplish, do not then think it impossible for any human being; rather, if it is humanly possible and corresponds to human nature, know that it is attainable by you as well.

If someone is able to show me that what I think or do is not right, I will happily change, for I seek the truth, by which no one ever was truly harmed. Harmed is the person who continues in his self-deception and ignorance.

teach and enlighten them, but don’t be irritated.

Haven’t you seen how even lowly craftsmen accommodate laymen to a certain point but all the time hold fast to the principle of their craft and never allow themselves to abandon it? Isn’t it strange, then, that a craftsman or a doctor should respect the principles of their particular specialty more than a man does his own Reason, which he in fact shares with the gods?

Every tool, instrument, or vessel is good if it performs well that function for which it was made; and yet, in such cases, the maker is external to it. But for those creatures who are made by Nature, the power that made them is within and remains there. Because of this, you must honor that power all the more and understand that if you conduct yourself and live your life in accordance with Nature’s will, then everything will be in accordance with your Intelligence.

another, and some other quality of another; for nothing cheers the heart as much as the images of excellence reflected in the character of our companions,

When studying mankind, it is necessary to examine earthly matters as if from above, looking down upon herds, armies, farms, unions and separations, births and deaths, the noisy courtrooms and deserted places, foreign peoples of all kinds, celebrations, mournings, marketplaces—all as a great mixture and a harmonious order that is made from opposites.

Do not look around you to what guides others but look straight at this: Where is Nature leading you? By this I mean both the nature of the Whole which acts upon you, and your own nature which requires action by you. But everyone must do what is in accordance with their constitution, and all other parts of the person have been constituted for the sake of the rational part, just as in every other case the lower exist for the sake of the higher. But rational beings have been made for the sake of each other.

It is necessary to construct one’s life one action at a time and be content if each of these actions accomplishes its own task as far as possible.

Receive without conceit; release without a struggle.

Do not tell yourself more than your impressions announce. You have been told that someone speaks badly of you. This is what you have been told; you have not seen that you are injured by this. I see that this child is sick; this is all that I see. I do not see that the child is in danger. In this way, then, always remain with your original impressions. Add nothing else from within yourself, and nothing will happen to you; or, rather, add to them only as one would who truly knows what happens within the universal order of the Cosmos.

Humans have come into being for the sake of each other; so teach them or learn to bear them.

And just as you await the time when the child comes forth from your wife’s womb, in the same way you should welcome the hour when your soul emerges from its shell.

Very often an unjust act is done by not doing something, not only by doing something.

If you can, teach others to become better; if you cannot, then remember that the power to be kind has been given to you for this purpose.

Many of the superfluous things which trouble you are products of your own judgment, and you have the power to strip them away and be free of them. If you do this, immediately you will create a vast expanse for yourself, grasping with your mind the whole Cosmos, contemplating both the endless movement of time and the rapidly changing nature of all that exists. How brief the interval between birth and death; how wide the expanse of time before birth, as infinite as that after death.

Who has told you that the gods do not also assist us with what is within our power? Begin to pray in the following way, and you will see. Someone else may pray: “How may I possess that woman?” But you should pray: “How may I not lust after that woman?” Someone else prays: “How can I be rid of him?” But you: “How can I not wish to be rid of him?” Another: “How may I not lose my little child?” But you: “How may I not dread the loss of my child?” Turn your prayers around entirely, and see what happens.

When you see the shameless behavior of someone, immediately ask yourself: Is it possible for there to be no shameless people in the world? Impossible, so do not ask for what is impossible, for this person, too, is one of those shameless people who are destined to exist in the world. Let this thought be at hand also for the villain, the liar, and everyone who has gone astray. For when you remember that this type of person cannot help but exist, you will be kinder toward each and every one of them.

For what more do you want, dear man, once you have done something good? Do you want some additional compensation? Does the eye demand wages for seeing or the feet for walking? Just as these were made for something and, in accomplishing their task, gain what is truly theirs, so too is man naturally a doer of good actions, and when he has done such an action, he has accomplished what he was made for and receives what is truly his.

Whatever one’s theory of the universe, this must be established first of all: I am a part of the Whole which is governed by Nature. Second: I have some sort of allegiance toward those parts of the Whole which are like me. For if I remember these two things, I will not be discontented by anything that has been assigned to me by the Whole, since I am a part of it, for nothing which benefits the Whole is truly harmful to a part because the Whole does not contain anything that is not beneficial to itself. While all natural things possess this feature, the universe has this in addition: it cannot be compelled by some external cause to generate something harmful to itself.

Your life is almost over. Live as though you were on an isolated mountaintop, for it makes no difference where someone is, if they can live anywhere in the world as a citizen of the greater human community.

Stop philosophizing about what a good man is and be one.

Continually be mindful of how everything that happens now has also happened in previous times and will happen in the future. And place before your eyes all the dramas and stage-sets, which you have learned either from experience or from older accounts, such as the royal court of Hadrian, of Antoninus, of Philip, Alexander, and Croesus—for those were the same dramas as we see now; only the actors are different.

For each thing you do, stop and ask yourself if death is to be feared because it deprives you of this.

In a little while you, too, will close your eyes, and soon after that another will mourn the person who carried your coffin.

Remember that your puppet-strings are pulled by what is hidden within. This is the source of activity, this is the source of life, this—if it must be said—is man. Never confuse it with the flesh that surrounds it like a vessel or with your limbs and organs, for these are all “tools” which have been attached to you.21 They are like an axe or any other tool, the only difference being that they are permanently attached. These “tools” are of no more use without the cause which manipulates and restrains them than the loom without the weaver, the pen without the writer, or the whip without the charioteer.

Moreover, the reasoning soul penetrates the whole Cosmos as well as the surrounding void, learning its shape, extending itself into the infinity of the ages, embracing and understanding the cyclic rebirth of the universe. It perceives that those who come after us will see nothing new and that those who came before did not see anything more; but that, in a sense, the man of forty, if he has any real understanding at all, has seen all that has happened and all that will happen within the pattern that shapes all things.

What could be clearer? No other life is more appropriate for the practice of philosophy than that life which you now happen to be living.

Third, that if in fact they are acting rightly, we should not be angry with them; but if they do not act rightly, they clearly do so involuntarily and in ignorance, for only unwillingly does the soul lack the ability to be properly disposed toward each person, just as the soul unwillingly lacks the truth. Notice how all people resent being called unjust, ignorant, greedy, or generally mistaken about their neighbors.

Therefore remove these judgments and resolve to let go of your judgment that someone’s action is terrible, and your anger is already gone. How do you let go? By realizing that such actions are not shameful to you.

kindness is unconquerable, so long as it is without flattery or hypocrisy.

It is this person who has strength, nerve, and courage, not a person who is angry and dissatisfied, for the closer one is to being unaffected, the closer he is to real power; and just as excessive sorrow is a mark of weakness, so is anger, for whoever gives in to these has not merely been wounded, but he has surrendered to his wounds.

it is insanity to expect that bad people not do bad things, for this is to aim at what is impossible.

The Pythagoreans say this: at dawn, behold the starry heavens, so that we may remind ourselves of those beings that are always in accord with each other and always performing their function; and also so that we remember their order, purity, and nakedness, for a star needs no veil.

In the disciplines of writing and recitation, you cannot make new rules if you have not first learned how to follow rules. Even more so with living.

But if, when you have come to the end, having let go of all other things, you honor only your guiding part and the divinity that is within you, and you do not fear ceasing to live so much as you fear never having begun to live in accordance with Nature—then you will be a man who is worthy of the Cosmos that created you;

the sphere of Empedocles: “Completely whole, rejoicing in its solitude.”

I have often been amazed at how every person loves himself more than he loves others yet places less value on his own judgment of himself than on the judgments of others concerning him.

If a god or some wise teacher were to stand next to him and order him not to think or conceive of anything without at the same time speaking it for all to hear, he would not be able to endure it even for a single day. This shows us that what others think of us counts more for us than our own estimation of ourselves.

In the application of principles, you must be like the boxer, not the gladiator, for the latter must put down and take up his weapon, while the boxer has his hand with him always and need only make a fist.