Goktug Yilmaz's Reviews > Meditations

3 keys:

- Men seeks retreats for themselves - in the country, by the sea, in the hills – but all this is quite unphilosophic. No retreat offers someone more quiet and relaxation than that into his own mind.
- The present moment is equal for all.
- One who is all in a flutter over his subsequent fame fails to imagine all those who remember him will very soon be dead – and he too.

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- Do not trouble yourself, keep yourself simple. Someone does wrong? He does wrong to himself.
- Say to yourself first thing in the morning: today I shall meet people who are meddling, ungrateful, aggressive, treacherous, malicious, unsocial. All this has afflicted them through their ignorance of true right or wrong. I cannot be harmed by any of them, as none will infect me with their wrong. Nor can I be angry with my kinsman or hate him. We were born for cooperation, so to work in opposition to one another is against nature: and anger or rejection is opposition.
- Every hour of the day give vigorous attention to the performance of the task in hand with precise analysis, with unaffected dignity – and to vacating your mind from all its other thoughts.
- Do not waste the remaining part of your life in thoughts about other people, when you are not thinking with reference to some aspect of the common good.
- You should take no action unwillingly, selfishly, uncritically, or with conflicting motives. Do not dress up your thoughts in smart finery.
- No action should be undertaken without aim, or other than in conformity with a principle affirming the art of life.
- Tolerance is a part of justice, because wrongdoing may not be deliberate.
- Remove the judgement, and you have removed the thought ‘I am hurt’: remove the thought ‘I am hurt’, and the hurt is removed.
- What does not damage your character cannot make your life worse either.
- Everything thats is beautiful in any way is beautiful inherently. Praise does not make anything better or worse.
- Most of what we say and do is unnecessary: remove the superfluity, and you will have more time and less bother.
- No, you do not have thousands of years to live. Urgency is on you. While you live, while you can, become good.
- When someone does you wrong, do not judge things as he interprets them or would like you to interpret them. Just see them as they are, in plain truth.
- To lead a good life: set yourself to your present task with determination, vigor and good will. Admit to no distraction, keep your own divinity pure and standing strong. Expect nothing, avoid nothing, have self-content with each present action taken. Be truthful, say what you mean.