Meditations

Self-Discipline & Control

• Self-control and resistance to distractions.
• He never exhibited rudeness, lost control of himself, or turned violent. No one ever saw him sweat. Everything was to be approached logically and with due consideration, in a calm and orderly fashion but decisively,
• Concentrate every minute like a Roman—like a man—on doing what’s in front of you with precise and genuine seriousness, tenderly, willingly, with justice. And on freeing yourself from all other distractions.
• This is what you deserve. You could be good today. But instead you choose tomorrow.
• No carelessness in your actions. No confusion in your words. No imprecision in your thoughts. No retreating into your own soul, or trying to escape it.

Purpose & Action

• Do external things distract you? Then make time for yourself to learn something worthwhile; stop letting yourself be pulled in all directions. But make sure you guard against the other kind of confusion. 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.
• At dawn, when you have trouble getting out of bed, tell yourself: “I have to go to work—as a human being. What do I have to complain of, if I’m going to do what I was born for—the things I was brought into the world to do? Or is this what I was created for? To huddle under the blankets and stay warm?
• Why all this guesswork? You can see what needs to be done. If you can see the road, follow it. Cheerfully, without turning back. If not, hold up and get the best advice you can. If anything gets in the way, forge on ahead, making good use of what you have on hand, sticking to what seems right. (The best goal to achieve, and the one we fall short of when we fail.)
• “If you don’t have a consistent goal in life, you can’t live it in a consistent way.”

Perception & Mindset

• To read attentively—not to be satisfied with “just getting the gist of it.” And not to fall for every smooth talker.
• Other people’s certainty that what he said was what he thought, and what he did was done without malice.
• The sense he gave of staying on the path rather than being kept on it.
• His searching questions at meetings. A kind of single-mindedness, almost, never content with first impressions, or breaking off the discussion prematurely.
• Your ability to control your thoughts—treat it with respect. It’s all that protects your mind from false perceptions
• That things have no hold on the soul. They stand there unmoving, outside it. Disturbance comes only from within—from our own perceptions.
• Choose not to be harmed—and you won’t feel harmed. Don’t feel harmed—and you haven’t been.
• —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.
• The things you think about determine the quality of your mind. Your soul takes on the color of your thoughts.
• Not to assume it’s impossible because you find it hard. But to recognize that if it’s humanly possible, you can do it too.
• The mind in itself has no needs, except for those it creates itself. Is undisturbed, except for its own disturbances. Knows no obstructions, except those from within.
• Don’t let your imagination be crushed by life as a whole. Don’t try to picture everything bad that could possibly happen. 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.
• Stop perceiving the pain you imagine and you’ll remain completely unaffected.
• Today I escaped from anxiety. Or no, I discarded it, because it was within me, in my own perceptions—not outside.
• Enter their minds, and you’ll find the judges you’re so afraid of— and how judiciously they judge themselves.
• 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. Just remember: you can endure anything your mind can make endurable, by treating it as in your interest to do so. In your interest, or in your nature.
• To live a good life: We have the potential for it. If we can learn to be indifferent to what makes no difference. This is how we learn: by looking at each thing, both the parts and the whole. Keeping in mind that none of them can dictate how we perceive it. They don’t impose themselves on us. They hover before us, unmoving. It is we who generate the judgments—inscribing them on ourselves. And we don’t have to. We could leave the page blank—and if a mark slips through, erase it instantly.
• It never ceases to amaze me: we all love ourselves more than other people, but care more about their opinion than our own.

Time & Mortality

• Keep in mind how fast things pass by and are gone—those that are now, and those to come.
• Not to waste time on nonsense.
• Remember how long you’ve been putting this off, how many extensions the gods gave you, and you didn’t use them.
• 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.
• Even if you’re going to live three thousand more years, or ten times that, remember: you cannot lose another life than the one you’re living now, or live another one than the one you’re losing.
• So we need to hurry. Not just because we move daily closer to death but also because our understanding—our grasp of the world—may be gone before we get there.
• Not to live as if you had endless years ahead of you. Death overshadows you. While you’re alive and able—be good.
• Life is short. That’s all there is to say. Get what you can from the present—thoughtfully, justly.
• 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.
• 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.
• Keep in mind how fast things pass by and are gone—those that are now, and those to come.
• Alexander the Great and his mule driver both died and the same thing happened to both. They were absorbed alike into the life force of the world, or dissolved alike into atoms.
• Death. The end of sense-perception, of being controlled by our emotions, of mental activity, of enslavement to our bodies.
• So many who were remembered already forgotten, and those who remembered them long gone.
• Fear of death is fear of what we may experience. Nothing at all, or something quite new. But if we experience nothing, we can experience nothing bad. And if our experience changes, then our existence will change with it—change, but not cease.
• Well, consider two things that should reconcile you to death: the nature of the things you’ll leave behind you, and the kind of people you’ll no longer be mixed up with. There’s no need to feel resentment toward them—in fact, you should look out for their well-being, and be gentle with them—but keep in mind that everything you believe is meaningless to those you leave behind. Because that’s all that could restrain us (if anything could)—the only thing that could make us want to stay here: the chance to live with those who share our vision. But now? Look how tiring it is—this cacophony we live in. Enough to make you say to death, “Come quickly. Before I start to forget myself, like them.
• To see them from above: the thousands of animal herds, the rituals, the voyages on calm or stormy seas, the different ways we come into the world, share it with one another, and leave it. Consider the lives led once by others, long ago, the lives to be led by others after you, the lives led even now, in foreign lands. How many people don’t even know your name. How many will soon have forgotten it. How many offer you praise now—and tomorrow, perhaps, contempt. That to be remembered is worthless. Like fame. Like everything.

Virtue & Character

• Scientist, don’t give up on attaining freedom, achieving humility, serving others . . .
• To praise without bombast; to display expertise without pretension.
• The way he handled the material comforts that fortune had supplied him in such abundance—without arrogance and without apology. If they were there, he took advantage of them. If not, he didn’t miss them.
• It would be wrong for anything to stand between you and attaining goodness —as a rational being and a citizen. Anything at all: the applause of the crowd, high office, wealth, or self-indulgence. All of them might seem to be compatible with it—for a while. But suddenly they control us
• Never regard something as doing you good if it makes you betray a trust, or lose your sense of shame, or makes you show hatred, suspicion, ill will, or hypocrisy, or a desire for things best done behind closed doors.
• It can ruin your life only if it ruins your character. Otherwise it cannot harm you—inside or out.
• If an action or utterance is appropriate, then it’s appropriate for you. 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.
• Some people, when they do someone a favor, are always looking for a chance to call it in. And some aren’t, but they’re still aware of it—still regard it as a debt. But others don’t even do that. They’re like a vine that produces grapes without looking for anything in return. A horse at the end of the race . . . A dog when the hunt is over . . . A bee with its honey stored . . . And a human being after helping others. They don’t make a fuss about it.
• Not to feel exasperated, or defeated, or despondent because your days aren’t packed with wise and moral actions. But to get back up when you fail, to celebrate behaving like a human—however imperfectly—and fully embrace the pursuit that you’ve embarked on.
• Disgraceful: for the soul to give up when the body is still going strong.
• No matter what anyone says or does, my task is to be good. Like gold or emerald or purple repeating to itself, “No matter what anyone says or does, my task is to be emerald, my color undiminished.
• Everywhere, at each moment, you have the option: — to accept this event with humility — to treat this person as he should be treated — to approach this thought with care, so that nothing irrational creeps in.
• place your own well-being in your own hands. It’s quite possible to be a good man without anyone realizing it. Remember that.
• you don’t need much to live happily. 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.
• Don’t be overheard complaining about life at court. Not even to yourself.
• I have no right to do myself an injury. Have I ever injured anyone else if I could avoid it?
• To do harm is to do yourself harm. To do an injustice is to do yourself an injustice—it degrades you. 5. And you can also commit injustice by doing nothing.
• When you face someone’s insults, hatred, whatever . . . look at his soul. Get inside him. Look at what sort of person he is. You’ll find you don’t need to strain to impress him. But you do have to wish him well. He’s your closest relative. The gods assist him just as they do you—by signs and dreams and every other way— to get the things he wants.
• Does it make any difference to you if other people blame you for doing what’s right? It makes no difference.
• To stop talking about what the good man is like, and just be one.
• Someone despises me. That’s their problem. Mine: not to do or say anything despicable. Someone hates me. Their problem. Mine: to be patient and cheerful with everyone, including them. Ready to show them their mistake. Not spitefully, or to show off my own self- control, but in an honest, upright way.
• There’s nothing more insufferable than people who boast about their own humility.

Relationships & Social Conduct

• Not to be constantly telling people (or writing them) that I’m too busy, unless I really am. Similarly, not to be always ducking my responsibilities to the people around me because of “pressing business.”
• Practice really hearing what people say. Do your best to get inside their minds.
• Don’t be ashamed to need help. Like a soldier storming a wall, you have a mission to accomplish. And if you’ve been wounded and you need a comrade to pull you up? So what?
• Three relationships: i. with the body you inhabit; ii. with the divine, the cause of everything in all things; iii. with the people around you.
• False friendship is the worst. Avoid it at all costs. If you’re honest and straightforward and mean well, it should show in your eyes. It should be unmistakable.

Inner Peace & Tranquility

• Don’t waste the rest of your time here worrying about other people— unless it affects the common good. It will keep you from doing anything useful. You’ll be too preoccupied with what so-and-so is doing, and why, and what they’re saying, and what they’re thinking, and what they’re up to, and all the other things that throw you off and keep you from focusing on your own mind.
• If you do the job in a principled way, with diligence, energy and patience, if you keep yourself free of distractions, and keep the spirit inside you undamaged, as if you might have to give it back at any moment— If you can embrace this without fear or expectation—can find fulfillment in what you’re doing now, as Nature intended, and in superhuman truthfulness (every word, every utterance)—then your life will be happy.
• Nowhere you can go is more peaceful—more free of interruptions— than your own soul.
• The tranquillity that comes when you stop caring what they say. Or think, or do. Only what you do. (Is this fair? Is this the right thing to do?) not to be distracted by their darkness. To run straight for the finish line, unswerving.
• 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.
• Don’t be disturbed. Uncomplicate yourself. Someone has done wrong . . . to himself. Something happens to you. Good. It was meant for you by nature, woven into the pattern from the beginning.
• Because most of what we say and do is not essential. If you can eliminate it, you’ll have more time, and more tranquillity. Ask yourself at every moment, “Is this necessary?” But we need to eliminate unnecessary assumptions as well. To eliminate the unnecessary actions that follow.
• Nothing that goes on in anyone else’s mind can harm you. Nor can the shifts and changes in the world around you.
• All our decisions, urges, desires, aversions lie within. No evil can touch them.
• 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.
• —“a more temperate clime”? Or for people easier to get along with? And instead be satisfied with what you have, and accept the present—all of it.

Wisdom & Philosophy

• According to this theory, man is like a dog tied to a moving wagon. If the dog refuses to run along with the wagon he will be dragged by it, yet the choice remains his: to run or be dragged.
• Objective judgment . . . Unselfish action . . . Willing acceptance . . . of all external events.
• You could have said of him (as they say of Socrates) that he knew how to enjoy and abstain from things that most people find it hard to abstain from and all too easy to enjoy.
• Remedies granted through dreams
• That when I became interested in philosophy I didn’t fall into the hands of charlatans, and didn’t get bogged down in writing treatises, or become absorbed by logic-chopping, or preoccupied with physics.
• And olives on the point of falling: the shadow of decay gives them a peculiar beauty. Stalks of wheat bending under their own weight. The furrowed brow of the lion. Flecks of foam on the boar’s mouth. And other things. If you look at them in isolation there’s nothing beautiful about them, and yet by supplementing nature they enrich it and draw us in. And anyone with a feeling for nature—a deeper sensitivity— will find it all gives pleasure.
• To the stand-bys above, add this one: always to define whatever it is we perceive—to trace its outline—so we can see what it really is: its substance. Stripped bare. As a whole. Unmodified. And to call it by its name—the thing itself and its components, to which it will eventually return.
• Write off your hopes, and if your well-being matters to you, be your own savior while you can.
• The world is nothing but change. Our life is only perception.”
• If thought is something we share, then so is reason—what makes us reasoning beings. If so, then the reason that tells us what to do and what not to do is also shared. And if so, we share a common law. And thus, are fellow citizens. And fellow citizens of something. And in that case, our state must be the world. What other entity could all of humanity belong to? And from it—from this state that we share— come thought and reason and law.
• Beautiful things of any kind are beautiful in themselves and sufficient to themselves. Praise is extraneous. The object of praise remains what it was—no better and no worse. This applies, I think, even to “beautiful” things in ordinary life—physical objects, artworks. 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? Or gold, or ivory, or purple? Lyres? Knives? Flowers? Bushes?
• 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.
• Nothing can happen to me that isn’t natural.
• Nothing pertains to human beings except what defines us as human. No other things can be demanded of us. They aren’t proper to human nature, nor is it incomplete without them. It follows that they are not our goal, or what helps us reach it—the good. If any of them were proper to us, it would be improper to disdain or resist it. Nor would we admire people who show themselves immune to it. If the things themselves were good, it could hardly be good to give them up. But in reality the more we deny ourselves such things (and things like them)—or are deprived of them involuntarily, even—the better we become.
• The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.
• 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.
• My only fear is doing something contrary to human nature—the wrong thing, the wrong way, or at the wrong time.
• 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.
• What humans experience is part of human experience. The experience of the ox is part of the experience of oxen, as the vine’s is of the vine, and the stone’s what is proper to stones. Nothing that can happen is unusual or unnatural, and there’s no sense in complaining. Nature does not make us endure the unendurable.
• What doesn’t transmit light creates its own darkness.
• Characteristics of the rational soul: Self-perception, self-examination, and the power to make of itself whatever it wants. It reaps its own harvest, unlike plants (and, in a different way, animals), whose yield is gathered in by others.
• Learn to ask of all actions, “Why are they doing that?” Starting with your own.
• Stupidity is expecting figs in winter, or children in old age.