Marcus Aurelius - Meditations (180 AD)

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How much more grievous are the consequences of anger than the causes of it.

Marcus Aurelius
Loss is nothing else but change, and change is Nature's delight.

Marcus Aurelius
Why then dost thou choose to act in the same way? and why dost thou not leave these agitations which are foreign to nature, to those who cause them and those who are moved by them? And why art thou not altogether intent upon the right way of making use of things which happen to thee? for then thou wilt use them well, and they will be material for thee. Only attend to thyself, and resolve to be a good man in every act which thou doest; and remember...

Marcus Aurelius
"Let your occupations be few," says the sage, "if you would lead a tranquil life."

Marcus Aurelius
Think not so much of what thou hast not as of what thou hast: but of the things which thou hast, select the best, and then reflect how eagerly they would have been sought, if thou hadst them not. At the same time, however, take care that thou dost not, through being so pleased with them, accustom thyself to overvalue them, so as to be disturbed if ever thou shouldst not have them.

Marcus Aurelius
Everything is in a state of metamorphosis. Thou thyself art in everlasting change and in corruption to correspond; so is the whole universe.

Marcus Aurelius
Time is a sort of river of passing events, and strong is its current; no sooner is a thing brought to sight than it is swept by and another takes its place, and this too will be swept away.

Marcus Aurelius
Begin each day by telling yourself: Today I shall be meeting with interference, ingratitude, insolence, disloyalty, ill-will, and selfishness – all of them due to the offenders' ignorance of what is good or evil.

Marcus Aurelius
Not to waste time on nonsense. Not to be taken in by conjurors and hoodoo artists with their talk about incantations and exorcism and all the rest of it. Not to be obsessed with quail-fighting or other crazes like that.

Marcus Aurelius
Let there be freedom from perturbations with respect to the things which come from the external cause; and let there be justice in the things done by virtue of the internal cause, that is, let there be movement and action terminating in this, in social acts, for this is according to thy nature.

Marcus Aurelius
The whole universe is change and life itself is but what you deem it

Marcus Aurelius
As thou thyself art a component part of a social system, so let every act of thine be a component part of social life. Whatever act of thine that has no reference, either immediately or remotely, to a social end, this tears asunder thy life, and does not allow it to be one, and it is of the nature of a mutiny, just as when in a popular assembly a man acting by himself stands apart from the general agreement.

Marcus Aurelius
The things... which are proper to the understanding no other man is used to impede, for neither fire, nor iron, nor tyrant, nor abuse, touches it in any way. When it has been made a sphere, it continues a sphere.

Marcus Aurelius
Everything is banal in experience, fleeting in duration, sordid in content; in all respects the same today as generations now dead and buried have found it to be.

Marcus Aurelius
And in the case of superior things like stars, we discover a kind of unity in separation. The higher we rise on the scale of being, the easier it is to discern a connection even among things separated by vast distances.

Marcus Aurelius
When force of circumstance upsets your equanimity lose no time in recovering your self-control, and do not remain out of tune longer than you can help. Habitual recurrence to the harmony will increase your mastery of it.

Marcus Aurelius
Do not waste what remains of your life in speculating about your neighbors, unless with a view to some mutual benefit. To wonder what so-and-so is doing and why, or what he is saying, or thinking, or scheming — in a word, anything that distracts you from fidelity to the ruler within you — means a loss of opportunity for some other task.

Marcus Aurelius
All that happens is as usual and familiar as the rose in spring and the crop in summer.

Marcus Aurelius
How many together with whom I came into the world are already gone out of it.

Marcus Aurelius
Adorn thyself with simplicity and with indifference towards the things which lie between virtue and vice. Love mankind. Follow God. The poet says that Law rules all. And it is enough to remember that law rules all.

Marcus Aurelius
Waste not the remnant of thy life in those imaginations touching other folk, whereby thou contributest not to the common weal.

Marcus Aurelius
The whole contains nothing which is not or its advantage; and all natures indeed have this common principle, but the nature of the universe has this principle besides, that it cannot be compelled even by any external cause to generate anything harmful to itself.

Marcus Aurelius
Things themselves cannot touch the soul, not in the least degree, nor have they admission to the soul nor can they turn or move the soul: it turns and moves itself alone and whatever judgment it may think proper to make, such it makes by remaking for itself the things that present themselves to it

Marcus Aurelius
Whatever may befall you, it was preordained for you from everlasting.

Marcus Aurelius
The universal nature has no external space; but the wondrous part of her art is that though she has circumscribed herself, everything which is within her which appears to decay and to grow old and to be useless she changes into herself, and again makes other new things from these very same, so that she requires neither substance from without nor wants a place into which she may cast that which decays. She is content then with her own space, and her own matter, and her own art.

Marcus Aurelius
All that is harmony for you, my Universe, is in harmony with me as well. Nothing that comes at the right time for you is too early or too late for me. Everything is fruit to me that your seasons bring, Nature. All things come of you, have their being in you, and return to you.

Marcus Aurelius
Direct thy attention to what is said. Let thy understanding enter into the things that are doing and the things which do them.

Marcus Aurelius
It is man's peculiar duty to love even those who wrong him.

Marcus Aurelius
Remember how often you have postponed minding your interest, and let slip those opportunities the gods have given you. It is now high time to consider what sort of world you are part of, and from what kind of governor of it you are descended; that you have a set period assigned you to act in, and unless you improve it to brighten and compose your thoughts, it will quickly run off with you, and be lost beyond recovery.

Marcus Aurelius
All those things at which thou wishest to arrive by a circuitous road, thou canst have now, if thou dost not refuse them to thyself.

Marcus Aurelius