Meditations — Marcus Aurelius — (Gregory Hays Translation)
Introduction
- Three Stoic Disciplines
- Perception
- The discipline of perception requires that we maintain absolute objectivity of thought: that we see things dispassionately for what they are.
- It is not objects or events but the interpretations we place on them that are the problem.
- Our duty is to exercise stringent control over the faculty of perception, with the aim of protecting our mind from error.
- Action
- The discipline of action relates to our relationship with other people.
- Human beings, for Marcus and the Stoics, are social animals.
- This requires not merely passive acquiescence in what happens, but active cooperation with the world, with fate and, above all, with other human beings. We were made, Marcus tells us over and over, not for ourselves but for others, and our nature is fundamentally unselfish. In our relationship with others we must work for their collective good, while treating them justly and fairly as possible.
- Will
- The third discipline of will is in a sense the counterpart to the second, the discipline of action. Action governs our approach to the things in our control. The discipline of will governs our attitude to things that are not within our control
- Perception
Book 2
- *Throw away your books; stop letting yourself be distracted. 2.2
- But the man motivated by desire, who is mastered by pleasure, seems somehow more self-indulgent, less manly in his sins. 2.10
- What is divine deserves our respect because it is good; what is human deserves our affection because it is like us. 2.13
- The body and its parts are a river, the soul is a dream and mist, life is warfare and a journey far from home, lasting reputation is oblivion. 2.17
Book 3
- An athlete in the greatest of all contests — the struggle not to be overwhelmed by anything that happens. 3.4
- *To care for all human beings is part of being human. 3.4
- *How to Act…To stand up straight–Not straightened. 3.5
- It would be wrong for anything to stand between you and attaining goodness — as a rational being and a citizen. 3.6
- *To welcome with affection what is sent by fate. 3.16 Amor Fati
Book 4
- Disturbance come only from within–from your own perceptions. 4.3
- Choose not to be harmed–and you won’t feel harmed. Don’t feel harmed–and you haven’t been. 4.7
- *The tranquility that comes when you stop caring what they say. Or think, or do. Only what you do. 4.18
- Not to be driven this way and that, but to always behave with justice and to see things as they are. 4.22
- Something (bad) happens to you. Good. It was meant for you by nature, woven into the pattern from the beginning. 3.26
- Then what should you 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. 4.33
- Then where is the harm to be found? In your capacity to see it. Stop doing that and everything will be fine. 4.39
- To be like the rock that waves keep crashing over. It stands unmoved and the raging of the sea falls still around it. 4.49
- It’s unfortunate that this has happened. No. It is fortunate that this has happened and I’ve remained unharmed by it–not shattered by the present or frightened of the future. 4.49
Book 5
- At dawn, when you have trouble getting out of bed, tell yourself: “I have to go to work–as a human being…I am going to what I was born for.” 5.1
- The others obey their own lead, follow their own impulses. Don’t be distracted. Keep walking. Follow your own nature, and follow Nature–along the road they share. 5.3
- *The things you think about determine the quality of your mind. Your soul takes on the quality of your thoughts. 5.16
- In a sense, people are our proper occupation. 5.20
- The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way. 5.20
- How many unkind people have you been kind to? 5.31
- Not to be overwhelmed by what you imagine, but just to do what you can and should. 3.36
Book 6
- Just that you do the right thing. The rest doesn’t matter. 6.2
- To move from one unselfish action to another with God in mind. Only there, delight and stillness. 6.7
- Awaken; return to yourself. Now, no longer asleep, knowing they were only dreams, clear-headed again, treat everything around you as a dream. 6.31
- 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? 6.33
- The things ordained for you–teach yourself to be at one with those. And to the people who share them with you–treat them with love. With real love. 6.39
- And to those who complain and try to obstruct and thwart things–they help as much as anyone. The world needs them as well. 6.42
- The only thing that isn’t worthless: to live this life out truthfully and rightly. And be patient with those who don’t. 6.47
- Practice really hearing what people say. Do your best to get inside their minds. 6.53
Book 7
- Don’t be ashamed to need help. 7.7
- Forget the future. When and if it comes, you’ll have the same resources to draw on–the same logos. 7.8
- Everything is interwoven, and the web is holy. 7.9
- It doesn’t hurt me unless I interpret its happening as harmful to me. I can choose not to. 7.14
- 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.” 7.15
- Frightened of change? But what can exist without it? Can any process take place without something being changed? 7.18
- Stop being jerked like a puppet. Limit yourself to the present. 7.29
- Wash yourself clean. With simplicity, with humility, with indifference to everything but right and wrong. Care for other human beings. Follow God. 7.31
- Think of yourself as dead. You have lived your life. Now take what’s left and live it properly. 7.56
- To love only what happens, what was destined. No greater harmony. 7.57
Book 8
- Joy for humans lies in human actions. 8.26
- A rational being can turn each setback into raw material and use it to achieve its goal. 8.35
- Give yourself a gift: the present moment. 8.44
- Nothing that can happen is unusual or unnatural, and there’s no sense in complaining. 8.46
- External things are not the problem. It’s your assessment of them… And if it’s that you’re not doing something you think you should be, why not just do it? 8.47
- The mind without passion is a fortress. No place is more secure. Once we take refuge there we are safe forever. 8.48
- To have that. Not a cistern but a perpetual spring. How? By working to win your freedom. Hour by hour. Through patience, honesty, and humility. 8.51
- You want praise from people who kick themselves every fifteen minutes, the approval of people who despise themselves. 8.53
Book 9
- 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 happens to us. Now you anticipate the child’s emergence from its mother’s womb; that is how you should await the hour when your soul will emerge from its compartment. 9.3
- Objective judgment now at this very moment. Unselfish action, now at this very moment. Willing acceptance, now at this very moment. Of all external events. That’s all you need. 9.6
- *Today I escaped from anxiety. Or no, I discarded it, because it was within me, in my own perceptions–not outside. 9.13
- Enter their minds, and you’ll find the judges you’re so afraid of–and how judiciously they judge themselves. 9.18
- Do what nature demands. Get a move on–if you have it in you–and don’t worry whether anyone will give you credit for it. And don’t go expecting Plato’s republic; be satisfied with even the smallest progress, and treat the outcome of it all as unimportant. 9.29
- Humans were made to help others. And when we do help others–or help them do something–we’re doing what we were designed for. We perform our function. 9.42
Book 10
- To follow the logos in all things is to be relaxed and energetic, joyful and serious at once. 10.12
- Stop talking about what a good man is like, and just be one. 10.16
- When faced with people’s bad behavior, turn around and ask when you have acted like that. 10.30
- To live your brief life rightly, isn’t that enough? 10.31
Book 11
- Because anger too is weakness, as much as breaking down and giving up the struggle. Both are deserters: the man who breaks and runs, and the one who lets himself be alienated from his fellow humans. 11.9
- It’s the pursuit of these things, and your attempts to avoid them, that leave your mind in such turmoil. And yet they aren’t seeking you out; you are the one seeking them. Suspend judgment about them. And at once they will lie still, and you will be freed from fleeing and pursuing. 11.11
- A straightforward, honest person should be like someone who stinks: when you’re in the same room with him, you know it. 11.15
- To live a good life: We have the potential for it If we can learn to be indifferent to what makes no difference. 11.16
Book 12
- Everything you’re trying to reach–by taking the long way round–you could have right now, this moment. If you’d only stop thwarting your own attempts. If you’d only let go of the past, entrust the future to God, and guide the present towards reverence and justice. 12.1
- If you can cut free of impressions that cling to the mind, of future and past–then you can spend the time you have left in tranquility. And in kindness. And at peace with the spirit within you. 12.3
- It never ceases to amaze me: we all love ourselves more than other people, but care more about their opinion than our own. 12.4
- *The student as a boxer, not fencer. The fencer’s weapon is picked up and put down again. the Boxer’s is part of him. All he has to do is clench his fist. 12.9
- It’s time you realize that you have something in you more powerful and miraculous than the things that affect you and make you dance like a puppet. 12.19
- 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 invited you in–why is that so terrible. Like the impresario ringing down the curtain on an actor: “But I’ve only gotten through three acts…!” Yes. This will be a drama in three acts, the length fixed by the power that directed your creation now directs your dissolution. Neither was yours to determine. So make your exit with grace–the same grace shown to you.