Refrain from all anger
Never intend evil
Private school is an investment
Do what you can rather than hire others
Do not be offended by what others say
Read with diligence
Be the same in all circumstances, to show strength and flexibility
Only pay attention to right and reason
Be patient while teaching others
Be humble while accepting favors and kindness
Display expertise with silence
Be free of passion, yet full of love
Do not constantly correct others
Don't stress to people how busy you are
Make time for those you care about
Make things right with friends
Show elders respect and love your children
Be open and honest with friends
Be optimistic
Never doubt your friend's love for you
Be eager to share and help others
Always do your work
Have power over yourself and be happy and curious in everything you do
Do everything with good intent
Value everyone
Never believe you are better than someone else. Everyone is equal
Have self-control and resistance to distractions
Do your job without whining
Stay on the path rather than being kept on it
Have a sense of humor
Preserve friendships
Don't brag
Work hard and stay persistent
Do not expect friends to entertain or travel with you unless they want to
Constantly devote yourself to the needs of the community, country, and world
Look and do what needs doing and not what wealth is to be made from them
Never lose control of yourself
Approach everything logically and with consideration, but be decisive
Preserve your youth. Don't rush to grow up
Live under the government of the lord and your family
Don't think about that of which you cannot control. Your skin color, face, etc.
Be thankful to the Gods for what you have been given
If I fail, it is only my fault
Every day you will deal with people who are arrogant, dishonest, and jealous, but they have not seen right from wrong and you will learn and meant to work with them
Do not be thirsty for things but grateful for what you have
Focus on what you can do, not what others are doing
Stop being hypocritical, self-centered, and irritable
Have a purpose to direct your thoughts and actions
Do, say, and think, based on the idea that you could die right now
The Gods will never harm you
Realize the power that you have inside of you
The present is the only thing you can lose, not the future or the past
Don't waste the rest of your time here worrying about other people—unless it affects the common good.
You should never be ashamed of what you are thinking. Think unselfishly, not concerned of pleasure
Don't be overwhelmed by anything that happens
Welcome wholeheartedly whatever comes - not worrying too often, or with any selfish motive, about what other people say. Or do, or think.
He does only what is his to do, and considers constantly what the world has in store for him—doing his best, and trusting that all is for the best. For we carry our fate with us —and it carries us.
To care for all human beings is part of being human.
Never act under compulsion, out of selfishness, without forethought, with misgivings.
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
Your ability to control your thoughts protects your mind from false perceptions and makes thoughtfulness possible, and affection for other people, and submission to the divine
Each of us lives only now, this brief instant.
Nothing is so conducive to spiritual growth as this capacity for logical and accurate analysis of everything that happens to us.
So in each case you need to say: 'This is due to God.' Or: 'This is due to the interweaving's and intertwining's of fate, to coincidence or chance.' Or: 'This is due to a human being. Someone of the same race, the same birth, the same society, but who doesn't know what nature requires of him. But I do. And so I'll treat them as the law that binds us—the law of nature—requires. With kindness and with justice. And in inconsequential things? I'll do my best to treat them as they deserve.'
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.
In everything you do, even the smallest thing, remember the chain that links them
Stop drifting. Sprint for the finish. Write off your hopes, and if your well-being matters to you, be your own savior while you can
To welcome with affection what is sent by fate. Not to stain or disturb the spirit within him with a mess of false beliefs. Instead, to preserve it faithfully, by calmly obeying God—saying nothing untrue, doing nothing unjust. And if the others don't acknowledge it—this life lived with simplicity, humility, cheerfulness—he doesn't resent them for it, and isn't deterred from following the road where it leads: to the end of life. An end to be approached in purity, in serenity, in acceptance, in peaceful unity with what must be.
Turns obstacles into fuel
You can get away from it anytime you like by going within.
No random actions, none not based on underlying principles.
Nowhere you can go is more peaceful—more free of interruptions—than your own soul
Rational beings exist for one another
Doing what's right sometimes requires patience;
No one does the wrong thing deliberately
Keep your mouth shut.
Or is it your reputation that's bothering you? But look at how soon we're all forgotten
Above all, no strain and no stress. Be straightforward. Look at things like a man, like a human being, like a citizen, like a mortal
That things have no hold on the soul. They stand there unmoving, outside it. Disturbance comes only from within—from our own perceptions. That everything you see will soon alter and cease to exist. Think of how many changes you've already seen
'The world is nothing but change. Our life is only perception.'
Choose not to be harmed—and you won't feel harmed. Don't feel harmed—and you haven't been
It was for the best. So Nature had no choice but to do it
That every event is the right one. Look closely and you'll see
Keep goodness in everything you do. It defines a good person
Use your mind
What use is praise, except to make your lifestyle a little more comfortable?
Beautiful things of any kind are beautiful in themselves and sufficient to themselves
Does anything genuinely beautiful need supplementing? No more than justice does—or truth, or kindness, or humility.
'If you seek tranquility, do less.'
Do less, better
Most of what we say and do is not essential
Ask yourself at every moment, 'Is this necessary?'
We need to eliminate unnecessary assumptions as well. To eliminate the unnecessary actions that follow
The life of the good man is like—someone content with what nature assigns him, and satisfied with being just and kind himself.
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
Life is short. That's all there is to say. Get what you can from the present—thoughtfully, justly
Love the discipline you know, and let it support you. Entrust everything willingly to the gods, and then make your way through life—no one's master and no one's slave.
Work for 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
Constant awareness that everything is born from change
The knowledge that there is nothing nature loves more than to alter what exists and make new things like it
Go deeper
Look into their minds, at what the wise do and what they don't
Nothing that goes on in anyone else's mind can harm you
Recognize that the difference between years from now and tomorrow is just as small.
Human lives are brief and trivial
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. Why treat the one as a misfortune rather than the other as fortunate? Can you really call something a misfortune that doesn't violate human nature? Or do you think something that's not against nature's will can violate it? But you know what its will is. Does what's happened keep you from acting with justice, generosity, self-control, sanity, prudence, honesty, humility, straightforwardness, and all the other qualities that allow a person's nature to fulfill itself?'
The thing itself was no misfortune at all; to endure it and prevail is great good fortune
Take the shortest route, the one that nature planned—to speak and act in the healthiest way. Do that, and be free of pain and stress, free of all calculation and pretension
'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?
Don't you see the plants, the birds, the ants and spiders and bees going about their individual tasks, putting the world in order, as best they can? And you're not willing to do your job as a human being? Why aren't you running to do what your nature demands?
You don't love yourself enough. Or you'd love your nature too, and what it demands of you. People who love what they do wear themselves down doing it, they even forget to wash or eat. Do you have less respect for your own nature than the engraver does for engraving, the dancer for the dance, the miser for money or the social climber for status? When they're really possessed by what they do, they'd rather stop eating and sleeping than give up practicing their arts.
Don't be distracted. Keep walking. Follow your own nature, and follow Nature
What happens to each of us is ordered. It furthers our destiny
There is a single harmony
It may not always be pleasant, but we embrace it —because we want to get well. Look at the accomplishment of nature's plans in that light—the way you look at your own health—and accept what happens (even if it seems hard to accept). Accept it because of what it leads to: the good health of the world, and the well-being and prosperity of Zeus himself, who would not have brought this on anyone unless it brought benefit to the world as a whole. No nature would do that—bring something about that wasn't beneficial to what it governed.
Get back up when you fail, to celebrate behaving like a human—however imperfectly—and fully embrace the pursuit that you've embarked on
Nothing can happen to me that isn't natural
I can keep from doing anything that God and my own spirit don't approve. No one can force me to
Interrogate yourself, to find out what inhabits your socalled mind and what kind of soul you have now
The things you think about determine the quality of your mind. Your soul takes on the color of your thoughts
A rational being's good is unselfishness
Nothing happens to anyone that he can't endure
In a sense, people are our proper occupation. Our job is to do them good and put up with them
The mind adapts and converts to its own purposes the obstacle to our acting. The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way
If the community isn't injured by it, neither am I. And if it is, anger is not the answer
Keep in mind how fast things pass by and are gone— those that are now, and those to come. Existence flows past us like a river: the 'what' is in constant flux, the 'why' has a thousand variations. Nothing is stable, not even what's right here. The infinity of past and future gapes before us—a chasm whose depths we cannot see. So it would take an idiot to feel self-importance or distress. Or any indignation, either. As if the things that irritate us lasted
So other people hurt me? That's their problem. Their character and actions are not mine. What is done to me is ordained by nature, what I do by my own
The mind is the ruler of the soul. It should remain unstirred by agitations of the flesh—gentle and violent ones alike. Not mingling with them, but fencing itself off and keeping those feelings in their place. When they make their way into your thoughts, through the sympathetic link between mind and body, don't try to resist the sensation. The sensation is natural. But don't let the mind start in with judgments, calling it 'good' or 'bad.'
The spirit God gave each of us to lead and guide us, a fragment of himself
Don't be irritated at people's smell or bad breath. What's the point? With that mouth, with those armpits, they're going to produce that odor. Then use your logic to awaken his. Show him. Make him realize it. If he'll listen, then you'll have solved the problem. Without anger
If the smoke makes me cough, I can leave. What's so hard about that?
I'm free. No one can keep me from doing what I want. And I want what is proper to rational beings, living together
Remember, nothing belongs to you but your flesh and blood—and nothing else is under your control
You can lead an untroubled life provided you can grow, can think and act systematically
Not to let others hold you back
Not to be overwhelmed by what you imagine, but just do what you can and should
True good fortune is what you make for yourself. Good fortune: good character, good intentions, and good actions
Just that you do the right thing. The rest doesn't matter
Look inward. Don't let the true nature or value of anything elude you
To move from one unselfish action to another with God in mind. Only there, delight and stillness
The mind is that which is roused and directed by itself. It makes of itself what it chooses. It makes what it chooses of its own experience
That's what we need to do all the time—all through our lives when things lay claim to our trust—to lay them bare and see how pointless they are, to strip away the legend that encrusts them
Pride is a master of deception: when you think you're occupied in the weightiest business, that's when he has you in his spell
But those who revere that other mind—the one we all share, as humans and as citizens—aren't interested in other things. Their focus is on the state of their own minds—to avoid all selfishness and illogic, and to work with others to achieve that goal
To do (and not do) what we were designed for. That's the goal of all trades, all arts, and what each of them aims at: that the thing they create should do what it was designed to do.
And if you can't stop prizing a lot of other things? Then you'll never be free—free, independent, imperturbable. Because you'll always be envious and jealous, afraid that people might come and take it all away from you. Plotting against those who have them—those things you prize. People who need those things are bound to be a mess—and bound to take out their frustrations on the gods. Whereas to respect your own mind—to prize it—will leave you satisfied with your own self, well integrated into your community and in tune with the gods as well—embracing what they allot you, and what they ordain.
Keep our distance—without suspicion or hatred
Disgraceful: for the soul to give up when the body is still going strong
Revere the gods; watch over human beings. Our lives are short. The only rewards of our existence here are an unstained character and unselfish acts
Take Antoninus as your model, always. His energy in doing what was rational . . . his steadiness in any situation . . . his sense of reverence . . . his calm expression . . . his gentleness . . . his modesty . . . his eagerness to grasp things. And how he never let things go before he was sure he had examined them thoroughly, understood them perfectly . . . the way he put up with unfair criticism, without returning it . . . how he couldn't be hurried . . . how he wouldn't listen to informers . . . how reliable he was as a judge of character, and of actions . . . not prone to backbiting, or cowardice, or jealousy, or empty rhetoric . . . content with the basics—in living quarters, bedding, clothes, food, servants . . . how hard he worked, how much he put up with . . . his ability to work straight through till dusk—because of his simple diet (he didn't even need to relieve himself, except at set times) . . . his constancy and reliability as a friend . . . his tolerance of people who openly questioned his views and his delight at seeing his ideas improved on . . . his piety—without a trace of superstition . . .
Treat everything around you as a dream.
All of us are working on the same project. Some consciously, with understanding; some without knowing it.
Whatever happens to you is for the good of the world
whatever happens to a single person is for the good of others
The only thing that isn't worthless: to live this life out truthfully and rightly. And be patient with those who don't
You accept the limits placed on your body. Accept those placed on your time
To try. And you succeeded. What you set out to do is accomplished
Ambition means tying your well-being to what other people say or do
Practice really hearing what people say. Do your best to get inside their minds
No one can keep you from living as your nature requires. Nothing can happen to you that is not required by Nature
I can control my thoughts as necessary; then how can I be troubled? What is outside my mind means nothing to it. Absorb that lesson and your feet stand firm
You can return to life. Look at things as you did before. And life returns
Our worth is measured by what we devote our energy to
Focus on what is said when you speak and on what results from each action. Know what the one aims at, and what the other means
Is my intellect up to this? If so, then I'll put it to work, like a tool provided by nature. And if it isn't, then I'll turn the job over to someone who can do better—unless I have no choice.
Or I do the best I can with it, and collaborate with whoever can make use of it, to do what the community needs done. Because whatever I do—alone or with others—can aim at one thing only: what squares with those requirements
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?
So many who were remembered already forgotten, and those who remembered them long gone
Forget the future. When and if it comes, you'll have the same resources to draw on—the same logos
I am a single limb (melos) of a larger body—a rational one.
Let it happen, if it wants, to whatever it can happen to. And what's affected can complain about it if it wants. It doesn't hurt me unless I interpret its happening as harmful to me. I can choose not to
No matter what anyone says or does, my task is to be good
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
My only fear is doing something contrary to human nature —the wrong thing, the wrong way, or at the wrong time
When people injure you, ask yourself what good or harm they thought would come of it. If you understand that, you'll feel sympathy rather than outrage or anger
Treat what you don't have as nonexistent
Self-contraction: the mind's requirements are satisfied by doing what we should, and by the calm it brings us
Discard your misperceptions
Stop being jerked like a puppet
Limit yourself to the present
Understand what happens—to you, to others.
Analyze what exists, break it all down: material and cause.
Anticipate your final hours.
Other people's mistakes? Leave them to their makers
Care for other human beings. Follow God
Avoid rashness and credulity
Everything has to do what it was made for
Don't pay attention to other people's minds. Look straight ahead, where nature is leading you—nature in general, through the things that happen to you; and your own nature, through your own actions
Think of yourself as dead. You have lived your life. Now take what's left and live it properly
To love only what happens, what was destined. No greater harmony
Our business is with things that really matter
Look at who they really are, the people whose approval you long for, and what their minds are really like. Then you won't blame the ones who make mistakes they can't help, and you won't feel a need for their approval. You will have seen the sources of both—their judgments and their actions
That pain is neither unbearable nor unending, as long as you keep in mind its limits and don't magnify them in your imagination
It's quite possible to be a good man without anyone realizing it
You don't need much to live happily
It's silly to try to escape other people's faults. They are inescapable. Just try to escape your own
Be satisfied if you can live the rest of your life, however short, as your nature demands. Focus on that, and don't let anything distract you.
Don't be anxious. Nature controls it all
Concentrate on what you have to do. Fix your eyes on it. Remind yourself that your task is to be a good human being; remind yourself what nature demands of people. Then do it, without hesitation, and speak the truth as you see it. But with kindness. With humility. Without hypocrisy
Nature of any kind thrives on forward progress
No truly good person would feel remorse at passing up pleasure
I have it in me to keep my soul from evil, lust and all confusion
Joy for humans lies in human actions. Human actions: kindness to others, contempt for the senses, the interrogation of appearances, observation of nature and of events in nature
You have to assemble your life yourself—action by action. And be satisfied if each one achieves its goal, as far as it can. No one can keep that from happening
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. Then remind yourself that past and future have no power over you. Only the present—and even that can be minimized. Just mark off its limits. And if your mind tries to claim that it can't hold out against that . . . well, then, heap shame upon it
I have no right to do myself an injury. Have I ever injured anyone else if I could avoid it?
People find pleasure in different ways. I find it in keeping my mind clear. In not turning away from people or the things that happen to them. In accepting and welcoming everything I see. In treating each thing as it deserves
Give yourself a gift: the present moment
Nothing that can happen is unusual or unnatural, and there's no sense in complaining. Nature does not make us endure the unendurable
External things are not the problem. It's your assessment of them. Which you can erase right now
And if it's that you're not doing something you think you should be, why not just do it?
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. No overactivity
That's what the outpouring—the diffusion—of thought should be like: not emptied out, but extended. And not striking at obstacles with fury and violence, or falling away before them, but holding its ground and illuminating what receives it
People exist for one another
To enter others' minds and let them enter yours
A rock thrown in the air. It loses nothing by coming down, gained nothing by going up
To fear pain is to fear something that's bound to happen
Leave other people's mistakes where they lie.
When we cease from activity, or follow a thought to its conclusion, it's a kind of death. And it doesn't harm us. Think about your life: childhood, boyhood, youth, old age. Every transformation a kind of dying. Was that so terrible?
Any action not directed toward a social end (directly or indirectly) is a disturbance to your life, an obstacle to wholeness, a source of dissension.
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
The design of the world is like a flood, sweeping all before it. The foolishness of them—little men busy with affairs of state, with philosophy—or what they think of as philosophy. Nothing but phlegm and mucus.
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 unimportan
A commitment to justice in your own acts
You can discard most of the junk that clutters your mind —things that exist only there—and clear out space for yourself: . . . by comprehending the scale of the world . . . by contemplating infinite time . . . by thinking of the speed with which things change— each part of every thing; the narrow space between our birth and death; the infinite time before; the equally unbounded time that follows
Concentrate on what you're doing, and what you're doing it with
You'll find that none of the people you're upset about has done anything that could do damage to your mind
Be satisfied with what you have, and accept the present
Everything is the gift of the gods, that things are good and always will be, whatever they decide and have in store for the preservation of that perfect entity—good and just and beautiful, creating all things, connecting and embracing them, and gathering in their separated fragments to create more like them.
You can endure anything your mind can make endurable, by treating it as in your interest to do so
I will do nothing selfish, but aim instead to join them, to direct my every action toward what benefits us all and to avoid what doesn't
'cooperation' means accepting what nature assigns you—accepting it willingly
'sanity' means understanding things—each individual thing—for what they are
To follow the logos in all things is to be relaxed and energetic, joyful and serious at once
Only a short time left. Live as if you were alone—out in the wilderness
Why such turmoil? To live your brief life rightly, isn't that enough?
'Enjoyment' means doing as much of what your nature requires as you can
Be true to who you are: caring, sympathetic, kind
Learn to ask of all actions, 'Why are they doing that?' Starting with your own
Be patient and cheerful with everyone, not spitefully, or to show off my own self-control, but in an honest, upright way
You have to know an awful lot before you can judge other people's actions with real understanding
When you lose your temper, or even feel irritated: that human life is very short
Kindness is invincible, provided it's sincere
'If you don't have a consistent goal in life, you can't live it in a consistent way.'
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 Providence, and guide the present toward reverence and justice
We all love ourselves more than other people, but care more about their opinion than our own
It's all in how you perceive it. You're in control. You can dispense with misperception at will, like rounding the point. Serenity, total calm, safe anchorage
If you can cut yourself—your mind—free of what other people do and say, of what you've said or done, of the things that you're afraid will happen, the impositions of the body that contains you and the breath within, and what the whirling chaos sweeps in from outside, so that the mind is freed from fate, brought to clarity, and lives life on its own recognizance —doing what's right, accepting what happens, and speaking the truth— then you can spend the time you have left in tranquility. And in kindness. And at peace with the spirit within you