Author: Marcus Aurelius

ISBN: 978-0812968255

The content of the book is nothing special if you're familiar with stoic philosophy. What is remarkable about this book is that it offers an insight into the mind of Marcus Aurelius, a Roman emperor. The book is a translation of a personal diary of his. It's amazing to see that even the most powerful man in the world most of the time struggled with the same problems that ordinary Romans did. And then some!

EXCERPTS

Discourses of Epictetus . He later produced an abridged version , the Encheiridion ( “ Manual ” or “ Handbook ” ) .

It is , in other words , not objects and events but the interpretations we place on them that are the problem . Our duty is therefore to exercise stringent control over the faculty of perception , with the aim of protecting our mind from error .

“ We cannot step twice into the same river , ”

Epicurus acknowledged the existence of gods , he denied that they took any interest in human life . As for humans , our role is simply to live as best we can , making the most of what pleasures are available to us and insulating ourselves as far as possible from pain and anxiety . In particular , we are to feel no anxiety about death , which consists simply in the dissolution of our component atoms . This process is not only inevitable , but harmless , for the simple reason that after death there is no “ us ” to suffer harm .

“ Soon you will be dead , ” Marcus tells himself on a number of occasions , “ and none of it will matter ”

There is no sign that he ever questioned slavery as an institution . If asked , he would no doubt have responded that “ true ” slavery is the self - enslavement of the mind to emotion and desire ( cf . 8.3 , 9.40 , 11.30 ) ; actual bodily slavery is merely a condition to be accepted and endured , like nearsightedness or a cold .

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 .

If the gods exist , then to abandon human beings is not frightening ; the gods would never subject you to harm . And if they don’t exist , or don’t care what happens to us , what would be the point of living in a world without gods or Providence ?

The present is the same for everyone ; its loss is the same for everyone ; and it should be clear that a brief instant is all that is lost . For you can’t lose either the past or the future ; how could you lose what you don’t have ?

You boarded , you set sail , you’ve made the passage . Time to disembark . If it’s for another life , well , there’s nowhere without gods on that side either . If to nothingness , then you no longer have to put up with pain and pleasure , or go on dancing attendance on this battered crate , your body — so much inferior to that which serves it . One is mind and spirit , the other earth and garbage .

The earth that composes me derives from earth , the water from some other element , the air from its own source , the heat and fire from theirs — since nothing comes from nothing , or returns to it . So thought must derive from somewhere else as well .

Choose not to be harmed — and you won’t feel harmed . Don’t feel harmed — and you haven’t been .

It can ruin your life only if it ruins your character . Otherwise it cannot harm you — inside or out .

People who are excited by posthumous fame forget that the people who remember them will soon die too . And those after them in turn . Until their memory , passed from one to another like a candle flame , gutters and goes out . But suppose that those who remembered you were immortal and your memory undying . What good would it do you ? And I don’t just mean when you’re dead , but in your own lifetime . What use is praise , except to make your lifestyle a little more comfortable ?

Does anything genuinely beautiful need supplementing ? No more than justice does — or truth , or kindness , or humility . Are any of those improved by being praised ? Or damaged by contempt ? Is an emerald suddenly flawed if no one admires it ?

“ If you seek tranquillity , do less . ” Or ( more accurately ) do what’s essential — what the logos of a social being requires , and in the requisite way . Which brings a double satisfaction : to do less , better .

Then what should we work for ? Only this : proper understanding ; unselfish action ; truthful speech . A resolve to accept whatever happens as necessary and familiar , flowing like water from that same source and spring .

There is nothing bad in undergoing change — or good in emerging from it .

Suppose that a god announced that you were going to die tomorrow “ or the day after . ” Unless you were a complete coward you wouldn’t kick up a fuss about which day it was — what difference could it make ? Now recognize that the difference between years from now and tomorrow is just as small .

In short , know this : Human lives are brief and trivial .

To pass through this brief life as nature demands . To give it up without complaint .

It’s unfortunate that this has happened . No . It’s fortunate that this has happened and I’ve remained unharmed by it — not shattered by the present or frightened of the future . It could have happened to anyone . But not everyone could have remained unharmed by it . Why treat the one as a misfortune rather than the other as fortunate ? Can you really call something a misfortune that doesn’t violate human nature ? Or do you think something that’s not against nature’s will can violate it ?

So remember this principle when something threatens to cause you pain : the thing itself was no misfortune at all ; to endure it and prevail is great good fortune .

What did they gain by dying old ? In the end , they all sleep six feet under — Caedicianus , Fabius , Julian , Lepidus , and all the rest . They buried their contemporaries , and were buried in turn .

Three days of life or three generations : what’s the difference ?

So you were born to feel “ nice ” ? Instead of doing things and experiencing them ? Don’t you see the plants , the birds , the ants and spiders and bees going about their individual tasks , putting the world in order , as best they can ? And you’re not willing to do your job as a human being ? Why aren’t you running to do what your nature demands ?

You don’t love yourself enough . Or you’d love your nature too , and what it demands of you . People who love what they do wear themselves down doing it , they even forget to wash or eat .

Don’t be put off by other people’s comments and criticism . If it’s right to say or do it , then it’s the right thing for you to do or say .

Practice the virtues you can show : honesty , gravity , endurance , austerity , resignation , abstinence , patience , sincerity , moderation , seriousness , high - mindedness . Don’t you see how much you have to offer — beyond excuses like “ can’t ” ? And yet you still settle for less .

“ Nature prescribed illness for him . ” Or blindness . Or the loss of a limb . Or whatever . There “ prescribed ” means something like “ ordered , so as to further his recovery . ” And so too here . What happens to each of us is ordered . It furthers our destiny .

For there is a single harmony . Just as the world forms a single body comprising all bodies , so fate forms a single purpose , comprising all purposes .

So there are two reasons to embrace what happens . One is that it’s happening to you . It was prescribed for you , and it pertains to you . The thread was spun long ago , by the oldest cause of all .

The things you think about determine the quality of your mind.

It is crazy to want what is impossible. And impossible for the wicked not to do so.

Nothing happens to anyone that he can’t endure.

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 .

Remember : Matter . How tiny your share of it . Time . How brief and fleeting your allotment of it . Fate . How small a role you play in it .

You can live here as you expect to live there . And if they won’t let you , you can depart life now and forfeit nothing . If the smoke makes me cough , I can leave . What’s so hard about that ?

Still more sophisticated people admire what is guided by a rational mind — not the universal mind , but one admired for its technical knowledge , or for some other skill — or just because it happens to own a lot of slaves . But those who revere that other mind — the one we all share , as humans and as citizens — aren’t interested in other things . Their focus is on the state of their own minds — to avoid all selfishness and illogic , and to work with others to achieve that goal .

In the ring , our opponents can gouge us with their nails or butt us with their heads and leave a bruise , but we don’t denounce them for it or get upset with them or regard them from then on as violent types . We just keep an eye on them after that . Not out of hatred or suspicion . Just keeping a friendly distance . We need to do that in other areas . We need to excuse what our sparring partners do , and just keep our distance — without suspicion or hatred . [Narrative changes everything!]

If anyone can refute me — show me I’m making a mistake or looking at things from the wrong perspective — I’ll gladly change . It’s the truth I’m after , and the truth never harmed anyone . 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 .

Death . The end of sense - perception , of being controlled by our emotions , of mental activity , of enslavement to our bodies .

Disgraceful : for the soul to give up when the body is still going strong .

And for a human being to feel stress is normal — if he’s living a normal human life . And if it’s normal , how can it be bad ?

The only thing that isn’t worthless : to live this life out truthfully and rightly .

Ambition means tying your well-being to what other people say or do. Self-indulgence means tying it to the things that happen to you. Sanity means tying it to your own actions.

What injures the hive injures the bee.

Helping them isn’t yet its own reward . You’re still seeing it only as The Right Thing To Do . You don’t yet realize who you’re really helping .

Treat what you don’t have as nonexistent . Look at what you have , the things you value most , and think of how much you’d crave them if you didn’t have them . But be careful . Don’t feel such satisfaction that you start to overvalue them — that it would upset you to lose them .

Look at the past — empire succeeding empire — and from that , extrapolate the future : the same thing . No escape from the rhythm of events . Which is why observing life for forty years is as good as a thousand . Would you really see anything new ?

And when faced with a choice , remember : our business is with things that really matter .

And in most cases what Epicurus said should help : that pain is neither unbearable nor unending , as long as you keep in mind its limits and don’t magnify them in your imagination .

It’s quite possible to be a good man without anyone realizing it . Remember that .

And just because you’ve abandoned your hopes of becoming a great thinker or scientist , don’t give up on attaining freedom , achieving humility , serving others , obeying God .

Alexander and Caesar and Pompey . Compared with Diogenes , Heraclitus , Socrates ? The philosophers knew the what , the why , the how . Their minds were their own . The others ? Nothing but anxiety and enslavement .

The first step : Don’t be anxious . Nature controls it all . And before long you’ll be no one , nowhere — like Hadrian , like Augustus .

Remember : you shouldn’t be surprised that a fig tree produces figs , nor the world what it produces . A good doctor isn’t surprised when his patients have fevers , or a helmsman when the wind blows against him .

What dies doesn’t vanish . It stays here in the world , transformed , dissolved , as parts of the world , and of you .

Stick with the situation at hand , and ask , “ Why is this so unbearable ? Why can’t I endure it ? ” You’ll be embarrassed to answer .

People find pleasure in different ways . I find it in keeping my mind clear . In not turning away from people or the things that happen to them . In accepting and welcoming everything I see . In treating each thing as it deserves .

People out for posthumous fame forget that the Generations To Come will be the same annoying people they know now . And just as mortal . What does it matter to you if they say x about you , or think y ?

Nothing that can happen is unusual or unnatural , and there’s no sense in complaining . Nature does not make us endure the unendurable .

External things are not the problem . It’s your assessment of them .

The mind without passions is a fortress . No place is more secure . Once we take refuge there we are safe forever . Not to see this is ignorance . To see it and not seek safety means misery .

The fact that my son is sick — that I can see . But “ that he might die of it , ” no . Stick with first impressions . Don’t extrapolate . And nothing can happen to you . Or extrapolate . From a knowledge of all that can happen in the world .

There are brambles in the path ? Then go around them . That’s all you need to know . Nothing more . Don’t demand to know “ why such things exist . ”

Not to know what the world is is to be ignorant of where you are. Not to know why it’s here is to be ignorant of who you are. Not to know any of this is to be ignorant of why you’re here.

The existence of evil does not harm the world . And an individual act of evil does not harm the victim . Only one person is harmed by it — and he can stop being harmed as soon as he decides to .

We may exist for the sake of one another , but our will rules its own domain . Otherwise the harm they do would cause harm to me . Which is not what God intended — for my happiness to rest with someone else .

To lie deliberately is to blaspheme — the liar commits deceit , and thus injustice .

Don’t look down on death , but welcome it . It too is one of the things required by nature . Like youth and old age . Like growth and maturity . Like a new set of teeth , a beard , the first gray hair . Like sex and pregnancy and childbirth . So this is how a thoughtful person should await death : not with indifference , not with impatience , not with disdain , but simply viewing it as one of the things that happen to us .

To do harm is to do yourself harm . To do an injustice is to do yourself an injustice — it degrades you . And you can also commit injustice by doing nothing.

To decompose is to be recomposed .

Either all things spring from one intelligent source and form a single body ( and the part should accept the actions of the whole ) or there are only atoms , joining and splitting forever , and nothing else .

Either the gods have power or they don’t . If they don’t , why pray ? If they do , then why not pray for something else instead of for things to happen or not to happen ? Pray not to feel fear . Or desire , or grief . If the gods can do anything , they can surely do that for us . Start praying like this and you’ll see . Not “ some way to sleep with her ” — but a way to stop wanting to . Not “ some way to get rid of him ” — but a way to stop trying . Not “ some way to save my child ” — but a way to lose your fear . Redirect your prayers like that , and watch what happens

The logos gave you the means to see it — that a given person would act a given way — but you paid no attention . And now you’re astonished that he’s gone and done it . So when you call someone “ untrustworthy ” or “ ungrateful , ” turn the reproach on yourself . It was you who did wrong . By assuming that someone with those traits deserved your trust . Or by doing them a favor and expecting something in return , instead of looking to the action itself for your reward . What else did you expect from helping someone out ? Isn’t it enough that you’ve done what your nature demands ? You want a salary for it too ? As if your eyes expected a reward for seeing , or your feet for walking .

Whereas humans were made to help others . And when we do help others — or help them to do something — we’re doing what we were designed for . We perform our function .

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 .

[I am part of the nature.] And with that in mind I have no right , as a part , to complain about what is assigned me by the whole . Because what benefits the whole can’t harm the parts , and the whole does nothing that doesn’t benefit it .

“ The earth knows longing for the rain , the sky / knows longing … ” And the world longs to create what will come to be . I tell it “ I share your longing . ” ( And isn’t that what we mean by “ inclined to happen ” ? )

That everything has to submit . But only rational beings can do so voluntarily .

Am I afraid of death because I won’t be able to do this anymore ?

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

A straightforward , honest person should be like someone who stinks : when you’re in the same room with him , you know it . But false straightforwardness is like a knife in the back .

As you kiss your son good night , says Epictetus , whisper to yourself , “ He may be dead in the morning . ” Don’t tempt fate , you say . By talking about a natural event ? Is fate tempted when we speak of grain being reaped ?

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 .

To be angry at something means you’ve forgotten : That everything that happens is natural . And further … That whatever happens has always happened , and always will , and is happening at this very moment , everywhere . Just like this .

What links one human being to all humans : not blood , or birth , but mind . And … That an individual’s mind is God and of God .

There’s nothing more insufferable than people who boast about their own humility .

Salvation : to see each thing for what it is — its nature and its purpose . To do only what is right , say only what is true , without holding back .

You’ve lived as a citizen in a great city . Five years or a hundred — what’s the difference ? The laws make no distinction . And to be sent away from it , not by a tyrant or a dishonest judge , but by Nature , who first invited you in — why is that so terrible ?