Meditations ~ Marcus Aurelius

• People should not be sharply corrected for bad grammar, provincialisms, or mispronunciations; it is better to suggest the proper expression by tactfully introducing it oneself in, say, one’s reply to a question or one’s acquiescence in their sentiments, or into a friendly discussion of the topic itself (not of the diction), or by some other suitable form of reminder.
• To obstruct each other is against Nature’s law – and what is irritation or aversion but a form of obstruction?
• Were you to live three thousand years, or even thirty thousand, remember that the sole life which a man can lose is that which he is living at the moment; and furthermore, that he can have no other life except the one he loses. This means that the longest life and the shortest amount to the same thing. For the passing minute is every man’s equal possession, but what has once gone by is not ours. Our loss, therefore, is limited to that one fleeting instant, since no one can lose what is already past, nor yet what is still to come – for how can he be deprived of what he does not possess?
• For a human soul, the greatest of self-inflicted wrongs is too make itself (so far as it is able to do so) a kind of tumour or abscess on the universe; for to quarrel with circumstances is always a rebellion against Nature – and Nature includes the nature of each individual part. Another wrong, again, is to reject a fellow-creature or oppose hum with malicious intent, as men do when they are angry, A third, to surrender to pleasure or pain. A fourth, to dissemble and show insincerity or falsity in word or deed. A fifth, for the soul to direct its acts and endeavours to no particular object, and waste its energies purposelessly and without due thought; for even the least of our activities ought to have some end in view – and for creatures with reason, that end is conformity with the reason and law of the primordial City and Commonwealth.
• To be a philosopher is to keep unsullied and unscathed the divine spirit within him, so that it may transcend all pleasure and all pain, take nothing in hand without purpose and nothing falsely or with dissimulation, depend not on another’s actions  or inactions, accept each and every dispensation as coming from the same Source as itself – and last and chief, wait with a good grace for death, as no more than a simple dissolving of the elements whereof each living thing is composed.
• Never value the advantages derived from anything involving breach of faith, loss of self-respect, hatred, suspicion, or execration of others, insincerity, or the desire for something which has to be veiled and curtained.
• The man whose heart is palpitating for fame after death does not reflect that out of all those who remember him every one will himself soon be dead also, and in course of time the next generation after that, until in the end, after flaring and sinking by turns, the final spark of memory is quenched. Furthermore, even supposing that those who remember you were never to die at all, nor their memories to die either, yet what is that to you? Clearly, in your grave, nothing; and even in your lifetime, what is good of praise – unless maybe to subserve some lesser design? Surely, then, you are making an inopportune rejection of what Nature has given you today, if all your mind is set on what men will say of you tomorrow.
• O world, I am in tune with every note of thy great harmony. For me nothing is early, nothing late, if it be timely for thee. O Nature, all that thy seasons yield is fruit for me. From thee, and in thee, and to thee are all things.
• All of us are creatures of a day; the rememberer and the remembered alike.
• The Athenians pray, ‘Rain, rain, dear Zeus, upon the fields and plains of Athens.’ Prayers should either not be offered at all, or else be as simple and ingenuous as this.
• To pursue the unattainable is insanity, yet the thoughtless can never refrain from doing so.
• What is not harmful to the city cannot harm the citizen.
• Is one doing me wrong? Let himself look to that; his humours and his actions are his own. As for me, I am only receiving what the World-Nature wills me to receive, and acting as my own nature wills me to act.
• If the thing be no sin of mine, nor caused by any sin of mine, and if society be no worse for it, why give it further thought? How can it harm society?
• No matter to what solitudes banished, I have always been a favorite of Fortune. For Fortune’s favourite is the man who awards her good gifts to himself – the good gifts of a good disposition, good impulses, and good deeds.
• Because a thing is difficult for you, do not therefore suppose it to be beyond mortal power. On the contrary, if anything is possible and proper for man to do, assume that it must fall within your own capacity.
• How barbarous, to deny men the privilege of pursuing what they imagine to be their proper concerns and interests! /yet, in a sense, this is just what you are doing when you allow your indignation to rise at their wrongdoing; for after all, they are only following their own apparent concerns and interests. You say they are mistaken? Why then, tell them so, and explain it to them, instead of being indignant.
• Death: a release from impressions of sense, from twitchings of appetite, from excursions of thought, and from service to the flesh.
• Do you make a grievance of weighing so many pounds only, instead of three hundred? Then why fret about living so many years only, instead of more? Since you are content with the measure of substance allowed you, be so also with the measure of time.
• The man of ambition thinks to find his good in the operations of others; the man of pleasure in his own sensations; but the man of understanding in his own actions.
• You are not compelled to form any opinion about this matter before you, nor to disturb your peace of mind at all. Things in themselves have no power to extort a verdict from you.
• What is no good for the hive is no good for the bee.
• No one can stop you living according to the laws of your own personal nature, and nothing can happen to you against the laws of the World-Nature.
• Soon you will have forgotten the world, and soon the world will have forgotten you.
• Love nothing but that which comes to you woven in the pattern of your destiny. For what could more aptly fit your needs?
• How ridiculous not to flee from one’s own wickedness, which is possible, yet endeavour to flee from another’s which is not.
• We have three relationships: one to this bodily shell which envelops us, one to the divine Cause which is the source of everything in all things, and one to our fellow-mortals around us.
• No event can happen to a man but what is properly incidental to man’s condition, nor to an ox, vine, or stone but what properly belongs to the nature of oxen, vines, and stones. Then if all things experience only what is customary and natural to them, why complain? The same Nature which is yours as well as theirs brings you nothing you cannot bear.
• Is your cucumber bitter? Throw it away. Are there briars in your path? Turn aside. That is enough. Do not go on to say, ‘Why were things of this sort ever brought into the world?’ The student of nature will only laugh at you; just as a carpenter or a shoemaker would laugh, if you found fault with the shavings and scraps from their work which you saw in the shop. Yet they, at least, have somewhere to throw their litter; whereas Nature has no such out-place. That is the miracle of her workmanship: that in spite of this self-limitation, she nevertheless transmutes into herself everything that seems worn-out or old or useless, and re-fashions it into new creations, so as never to need either fresh supplies from without, or a place to discard her refuse. Her own space, her own materials and her own skill are sufficient for her.
• Men exist for each other. Then either improve them, or put up with them.
• It is a sin to pursue pleasure as a good and to avoid pain as an evil. It is bound to result in complaints that nature is unfair in her rewarding of vice and virtue; since it is the bad who are so often in enjoyment of pleasures and the means to obtain them, while pains and events that occasion pains descend upon the heads of the good.
• Despise not death; smile, rather, at its coming; it is among the things that Nature wills. Like youth and age, like growth and maturity, like the advent of teeth, beard, and grey hairs, like begetting, pregnancy, and childbirth, like every other natural process that life’s seasons bring us, so is our dissolution.
• A man does not sin by commission only, but often by omission.
• Teach them better, if you can; if not, remember that kindliness has been given you for moments like these.
• Facts stand wholly outside our gates, they are what they are, and no more; they know nothing about themselves, and they pass no judgement upon themselves. What is it, then, that pronounces the judgement? Our own guide and ruler, Reason.
• Whatever befalls, Nature has either prepared you to face it or she has not. If something untoward happens which is within your powers of endurance, do not resent it, but bear it as she has enabled you to do. Should it exceed those powers, still do not give way to resentment; for its victory over you will put an end to its own existence. Remember, however, that  in fact Nature has given you the ability to bear anything which your own judgement succeeds in declaring bearable and endurable by regarding it as a point of self-interest and duty to do so.
• What need for guesswork when the way of duty lies there before your eyes? If the road be clear to see, go forward with a good will and no turning back; if not, wait and take the best advice you can. Should further obstacles arise, advance discreetly to the limit of your resources, always following where justice seems to point the way. To achieve justice is the summit of success, since it is herein that failure most often occurs.
• Waste no more time arguing what a good man should be. Be one.
• Whatever you take in hand, pause at every step to ask yourself, ‘Is it the thought of forfeiting this that makes me dread death?’
• Nothing can injure the true citizen if it does not injure the city itself.
• ‘Green grape, ripe cluster, raisin;every step a change, not into what is not, but what is yet to be.’
• So much more regard have we for our neighbors’ judgement of us than for our own.

 

 

 

 

 

War and Peace

‘One thing I thank God for is that I did not kill that man,’ said Pierre.
‘Why so?’ asked Prince Andrew. ‘To kill a vicious dog is a very good thing really.’
‘No, to kill a man is bad- wrong.’
‘Why is it wrong?’ urged Prince Andrew. ‘It is not given to man to know what is right and what is wrong. Men always did and always will err, and in nothing more than in what they consider right and wrong.’
‘What does harm to another is wrong,’ said Pierre,
feeling with pleasure that for the first time since his arrival Prince Andrew was roused, had begun to talk, and wanted to express what had brought him to his present state.
‘And who has told you what is bad for another man?’ he asked.
‘Bad! Bad!’ exclaimed Pierre. ‘We all know what is bad for ourselves.’
‘Yes, we know that, but the harm I am conscious of in myself is something I cannot inflict on others,’ said Prince Andrew, growing more and more animated and evidently wishing to express his new outlook to Pierre. He spoke in French. ‘I only know two very real evils in life: remorse and illness. The only good is the absence of those evils. To live for myself avoiding those two evils is my whole philosophy now.’
‘And love of one’s neighbor, and self-sacrifice?’ began Pierre. ‘No, I can’t agree with you! To live only so as not to do evil and not to have to repent is not enough. I lived like that, I lived for myself and ruined my life. And only now when I am living, or at least trying’ (Pierre’s modesty made him correct himself) ‘to live for others, only now have I understood all the happiness of life. No, I shall not agree with you, and you do not really believe
what you are saying.’ Prince Andrew looked silently at Pierre with an ironic smile.

‘but everyone lives in his own way. You lived for yourself and say you nearly ruined your life and only found happiness when you began living
for others. I experienced just the reverse. I lived for glory.- And after all what is glory? The same love of others, a desire to do something for them, a desire for their approval.- So I lived for others, and not almost, but quite, ruined my life. And I have become calmer since I began to live only for myself.’
‘But what do you mean by living only for yourself?’ asked Pierre, growing excited. ‘What about your son, your sister, and your father?’
‘But that’s just the same as myself- they are not others,’ explained Prince Andrew.