Marcus Aurelius

How quickly all things disappear,--in the universe the bodies themselves, but in time the remembrance of them.

But death certainly, and life, honor and dishonor, pain and pleasure,--all these things equally happen to good men and bad, being things which make us neither better nor worse.

Now that which does not make a man worse, how can it make a man's life worse?

Through not observing what is in the mind of another a man has seldom been seen to be unhappy; but those who do not observe the movements of their own minds must of necessity be unhappy.

Give thyself time to learn something new and good, and cease to be whirled around.

Do the things external which fall upon thee distract thee?

Every man's life is sufficient.+ But thine is nearly finished, though thy soul reverences not itself, but places thy felicity in the souls of others.

Thou seest how few the things are, the which if a man lays hold of, he is able to live a life which flows in quiet, and is like the existence of the gods; for the gods on their part will require nothing more from him who observes these…

And thou wilt give thyself relief if thou doest every act of thy life as if it were the last, laying aside all carelessness and passionate aversion from the commands of reason, and all hypocrisy, and self-love, and discontent with the…

Every moment think steadily as a Roman and a man to do what thou hast in hand with perfect and simple dignity, and feeling of affection, and freedom, and justice, and to give thyself relief from all other thoughts.

Remember how long thou hast been putting off these things, and how often thou hast received an opportunity from the gods, and yet dost not use it.

But cast away the thirst after books, that thou mayest not die murmuring, but cheerfully, truly, and from thy heart thankful to the gods.

Let these principles be enough for thee; let them always be fixed opinions.

Now the universe is preserved, as by the changes of the elements so by the changes of things compounded of the elements.

But that is good for every part of nature which the nature of the whole brings, and what serves to maintain this nature.

From thence all things flow; and there is besides necessity, and that which is for the advantage of the whole universe, of which thou art a part.

That which is from fortune is not separated from nature or without an interweaving and involution with the things which are ordered by providence.

All that is from the gods is full of providence.

The third, then, is the ruling part; consider thus: Thou art an old man; no longer let this be a slave, no longer be pulled by the strings like a puppet to unsocial movements, no longer be either dissatisfied with thy present lot, or…

Throw away thy books; no longer distract thyself: it is not allowed; but as if thou wast now dying, despise the flesh; it is blood and bones and network, a contexture of nerves, veins, and arteries.

Whatever this is that I am, it is a little flesh and breath, and the ruling part.

All these things happen to them by reason of their ignorance of what is good and evil.

Begin the morning by saying to thyself, I shall meet with the busybody, the ungrateful, arrogant, deceitful, envious, unsocial.

Further, I owe it to the gods that I was not hurried into any offence against any of them, though I had a disposition which, if opportunity had offered, might have led me to do something of this kind; but, through their favor, there never…

But to be strong enough both to bear the one and to be sober in the other is the mark of a man who has a perfect and invincible soul, such as he showed in the illness of Maximus.