Meditations by Marcus Aurelius (good books to read .txt) 📕

away, let it carry away the poor flesh, the poor breath, everything else;

for the intelligence at least it will not carry away.

15. Does the light of the lamp shine without losing its splendor until it

is extinguished; and shall the truth which is in thee and justice and

temperance be extinguished [before thy death]?

16. When a man has presented the appearance of having done wrong [say],

How then do I know if this is a wrongful act? And even if he has done

wrong, how do I know that he has not condemned himself? And so this is

like tearing his own face. Consider that he who would not have the bad

man do wrong, is like the man who would not have the fig-tree bear juice

in the figs, and infants cry, and the horse neigh, and whatever else must

of necessity be. For what must a man do who has such a character? If then

thou art irritable, cure this man’s disposition.

17. If it is not right, do not do it: if it is not true, do not say it.

[For let thy efforts be—]

18. In everything always observe what the thing is which produces for

thee an appearance, and resolve it by dividing it into the formal, the

material, the purpose, and the time within which it must end.

19. Perceive at last that thou hast in thee something better and more

divine than the things which cause the various effects, and as it were

pull thee by the strings. What is there now in my mind,—is it fear, or

suspicion, or desire, or anything of the kind (V. 11)?

20. First, do nothing inconsiderately, nor without a purpose. Second,

make thy acts refer to nothing else than to a social end.

21. Consider that before long thou wilt be nobody and nowhere, nor will

any of the things exist which thou now seest, nor any of those who are

now living. For all things are formed by nature to change and be turned

and to perish, in order that other things in continuous succession may

exist (IX. 28).

22. Consider that everything is opinion, and opinion is in thy power.

Take away then, when thou choosest, thy opinion, and like a mariner who

has doubled the promontory, thou wilt find calm, everything stable, and a

waveless bay.

23. Any one activity, whatever it may be, when it has ceased at its

proper time, suffers no evil because it has ceased; nor he who has done

this act, does he suffer any evil for this reason, that the act has

ceased. In like manner then the whole which consists of all the acts,

which is our life, if it cease at its proper time, suffers no evil for

this reason, that it has ceased; nor he who has terminated this series at

the proper time, has he been ill dealt with. But the proper time and the

limit nature fixes, sometimes as in old age the peculiar nature of man,

but always the universal nature, by the change of whose parts the whole

universe continues ever young and perfect. And everything which is useful

to the universal is always good and in season. Therefore the termination

of life for every man is no evil, because neither is it shameful, since

it is both independent of the will and not opposed to the general

interest, but it is good, since it is seasonable, and profitable to and

congruent with the universal. For thus too he is moved by the Deity who

is moved in the same manner with the Deity, and moved towards the same

things in his mind.

24. These three principles thou must have in readiness: In the things

which thou dost do nothing either inconsiderately or otherwise than as

Justice herself would act; but with respect to what may happen to thee

from without, consider that it happens either by chance or according to

providence, and thou must neither blame chance nor accuse providence.

Second, consider what every being is from the seed to the time of its

receiving a soul, and from the reception of a soul to the giving back of

the same, and of what things every being is compounded, and into what

things it is resolved. Third, if thou shouldst suddenly be raised up

above the earth, and shouldst look down on human things, and observe the

variety of them how great it is, and at the same time also shouldst see

at a glance how great is the number of beings who dwell all around in the

air and the ether, consider that as often as thou shouldst be raised up,

thou wouldst see the same things, sameness of form and shortness of

duration. Are these things to be proud of?

25. Cast away opinion: thou art saved. Who then hinders thee from casting

it away?

26. When thou art troubled about anything, thou hast forgotten this, that

all things happen according to the universal nature; and forgotten this,

that a man’s wrongful act is nothing to thee; and further thou hast

forgotten this, that everything which happens, always happened so and

will happen so, and now happens so everywhere; forgotten this too, how

close is the kinship between a man and the whole human race, for it is a

community, not of a little blood or seed, but of intelligence. And thou

hast forgotten this too, that every man’s intelligence is a god and is an

efflux of the Deity; and forgotten this, that nothing is a man’s own, but

that his child and his body and his very soul came from the Deity;

forgotten this, that everything is opinion; and lastly thou hast

forgotten that every man lives the present time only, and loses only

this.

27. Constantly bring to thy recollection those who have complained

greatly about anything, those who have been most conspicuous by the

greatest fame or misfortunes or enmities or fortunes of any kind: then

think where are they all now? Smoke and ash and a tale, or not even a

tale. And let there be present to thy mind also everything of this sort,

how Fabius Catullinus lived in the country, and Lucius Lupus in his

gardens, and Stertinius at Baiae, and Tiberius at Capreae, and Velius

Rufus [or Rufus at Velia]; and in fine think of the eager pursuit of

anything conjoined with pride; and how worthless everything is after

which men violently strain; and how much more philosophical it is for a

man in the opportunities presented to him to show himself just,

temperate, obedient to the gods, and to do this with all simplicity: for

the pride which is proud of its want of pride is the most intolerable of

all.

28. To those who ask, Where hast thou seen the gods, or how dost thou

comprehend that they exist and so worshippest them, I answer, in the

first place, they may be seen even with the eyes; [Footnote: 8] in the

second place, neither have I seen even my own soul, and yet I honor it.

Thus then with respect to the gods, from what I constantly experience of

their power, from this I comprehend that they exist, and I venerate them.

29. The safety of life is this, to examine everything all through, what

it is itself, that is its material, what the formal part; with all thy

soul to do justice and to say the truth. What remains, except to enjoy

life by joining one good thing to another so as not to leave even the

smallest intervals between?

30. There is one light of the sun, though it is interrupted by walls,

mountains, and other things infinite. There is one common substance,

though it is distributed among countless bodies which have their several

qualities. There is one soul, though it is distributed among infinite

natures and individual circumscriptions [or individuals]. There is one

intelligent soul, though it seems to be divided. Now in the things which

have been mentioned, all the other parts, such as those which are air and

matter, are without sensation and have no fellowship: and yet even these

parts the intelligent principle holds together and the gravitation

towards the same. But intellect in a peculiar manner tends to that which

is of the same kin, and combines with it, and the feeling for communion

is not interrupted.

31. What dost thou wish,—to continue to exist? Well, dost thou wish to

have sensation, movement, growth, and then again to cease to grow, to use

thy speech, to think? What is there of all these things which seems to

thee worth desiring? But if it is easy to set little value on all these

things, turn to that which remains, which is to follow reason and God.

But it is inconsistent with honoring reason and God to be troubled

because by death a man will be deprived of the other things.

32. How small a part of the boundless and unfathomable time is assigned

to every man, for it is very soon swallowed up in the eternal! And how

small a part of the whole substance; and how small a part of the

universal soul; and on what a small clod of the whole earth thou

creepest! Reflecting on all this, consider nothing to be great, except to

act as thy nature leads thee, and to endure that which the common nature

brings.

33. How does the ruling faculty make use of itself? for all lies in this.

But everything else, whether it is in the power of thy will or not, is

only lifeless ashes and smoke.

34. This reflection is most adapted to move us to contempt of death, that

even those who think pleasure to be a good and pain an evil still have

despised it.

35. The man to whom that only is good which comes in due season, and to

whom it is the same thing whether he has done more or fewer acts

conformable to right reason, and to whom it makes no difference whether

he contemplates the world for a longer or a shorter time,—for this man

neither is death a terrible thing (II. 7; VI. 23; X. 20; XII. 23).

36. Man, thou hast been a citizen in this great state [the world]; what

difference does it make to thee whether for five years [or three]? for

that which is conformable to the laws is just for all. Where is the

hardship then, if no tyrant nor yet an unjust judge sends thee away from

the state, but nature, who brought thee into it? the same as if a praetor

who has employed an actor dismisses him from the stage.—“But I have not

finished the five acts, but only three of them.”—Thou sayest well, but

in life the three acts are the whole drama; for what shall be a complete

drama is determined by him who was once the cause of its composition, and

now of its dissolution: but thou art the cause of neither. Depart then

satisfied, for he also who releases thee is satisfied.

THE PHILOSOPHY OF MARCUS AURELIUS ANTONINUS.

It has been said that the Stoic philosophy first showed its real value

when it passed from Greece to Rome. The doctrines of Zeno and his

successors were well suited to the gravity and practical good sense of

the Romans; and even in the Republican period we have an example of a

man, M. Cato Uticensis, who lived the life of a Stoic and died

consistently with the opinions which he professed. He was a man, says

Cicero, who embraced the Stoic philosophy from conviction; not for the

purpose of vain discussion, as most did, but in order