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AURELIUS 3APR09
From Aurelius's notes to himself written towards the end of
his life. The quotes seem to get better towards the end, as
he develops his voice.

"He was aware that social life must have its claims: his
friends were under no obligation to join him at his table
or attend his processes, and when they were detained by
other engagements it made no difference to him." (speaking
of his father
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"So submissive, so loving, and so artless" (speaking of his
wife)
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"Begin each day be telling yourself: today I shall be
meeting with interference, ingratitude, insolence,
disloyalty, ill-will, and selfishness--all of them due to
the offender's ignorance of what is good or evil. But for
my part I have long perceived the nature of good and its
nobility, the nature of evil and its meanness, and also the
nature of the culprit himself, who is my brother (not in
the physical sense, but as a fellow-creature similarly
endowed with reasons and a share of the divine); therefore
none of those things can injure me, for nobody can
implicate me in what is degrading."
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"We should apprehend, too, the nature of death; and that if
only it be steadily contemplated, and the fancies we
associate with it be mentally dissected, it will soon come
to be thought of as no more than a process of nature (and
only children are scared by a natural process) -- or
rather, something more than a mere process, a positive
contribution to nature's well-being."
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"Man has but one life; already thine is nearing its close,
yet still hast thou no eye to thine own honour, but art
staking thy happiness on the souls of other men." (on
happiness)
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p. 20 "Hippocrates cured the ills of many, but himself took
ill and died. The Chaldeans foretold the deaths of many,
but fate caught up with them also. Alexander, Pompey, and
Julius Caeser laid waste whole cities time and again, and
cut down many thousands of horse and foot in battle, but
the hour came when they too passed away. Heraclitus
speculated endlessly on the consumption of the universe by
fire, but in the end it was water that saturated his body,
and he died in a dung-plaster. Democritus was destroyed by
vermin; Socrates by vermin of another kind. And the moral
of it all? This: You embark; you make the voyage; you reach
port: step ashore, then."
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"He confines his operations to his own concerns." "Avoid
talkativeness, avoid officiousness."
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"One whose chief regard is for his own mind, and for the
divinity within him and the service of its goodness, will
strike no poses, utter no complaints, and crave neither for
solitude nor yet for a crowd."
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"Letting go all else, cling to the following few truths.
Remember that man lives only in the present, in this
fleeting instant: all the rest of his life is either past
and gone, or not yet revealed. This mortal life is a little
thing, lived in a little corner of the earth; and little,
too, is the longest fame to come--dependent as it is on a
succession of fast-perishing little men who have no
knowledge even of their own selves, much less of one long
dead and gone."
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"Men seek for seclusion in the wilderness, by the

seashore, or in the mountains--a dream you have cherished
only too fondly yourself. But such fancies are wholly
unworthy of a philosopher, since at any moment you choose
you can retire within yourself." (on being alone)
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"Remember the doctrine that all rational beings are created
for one another; that toleration is a part of justice; and
that men are not intentional evildoers." (on blame)
Editor notes Hamlet (Act II, scene 2): "There's nothing
either good or bad but thinking makes it so."
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"That men of a certain type should behave as they do is
inevitable. To wish it otherwise were to wish the fig-tree
would not yield its juice. In any case, remember that in a
very little while both you and he will be dead, and your
names will quickly be forgotten."
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"Most of what we say and do is not necessary, and its
omission would save both time and trouble."
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"Always think of the universe as one living organism, with
a single substance and a single soul; and observe how all
things are submitted to the single perceptively of this one
whole, all are moved by its single impulse, and all play
their parts in the causation of every event that happens.
Remarry the intricacy of the skein, the complexity of the
web."
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"You will never be remarkable for quick-wittedness." He
joins other great thinkers in that respect.
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"Unless things pertain to a man, as man, they cannot
properly be said to belong to him. They cannot be required
of him; for his nature neither promises them, nor is
perfected by them. Therefore they cannot represent his
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chief end in life, nor even the "good" which is the means
to that end."
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"Reflect often upon the rapidity with which all existing
things, or things coming into existence, sweep past us and
are carried away."
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"Think of all the totality of all Being, and what a mite of
it is yours; think of all Time, and the brief fleeting
instant of it that is allotted to yourself; think of
Destiny, and how puny a part of it you are."
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"Press on steadily, keep to the straight road in your
thinking and doing, and your days will ever flow on
smoothly."
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"Either the world is a mere hodgepodge of random cohesions
and dispersions, or else it is a unity of order and
providence. If the former, why wish to survive in such a
purposeless and chaotic confusion; why care about anything,
save the manner of the ultimate return to dust; why trouble
my head at all; since, do what I will, dispersion must
overtake me sooner or later? But if the contrary be true,
then I do reverence, I stand firmly, and I put my trust in
the directing Power." (on his paradigm)
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"Flux and change are for ever renewing the fabric of the
universe, just as the ceaseless sweep of time is for ever
renewing the face of eternity."
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"What is no good for the hive is no good for me."
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"Think it no shame to be helped. Your business is to do
your appointed duty, like a soldier in the breach. How,
then, if you are lame, and unable to scale the battlements
yourself, but could do it if you had the aid of a comrade?"
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"Soon you will have forgotten the world, and soon the world
will have forgotten you."
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"Vex not thy spirit at the course of things, they heed not
thy vexation."
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"Remember that the needs of a happy life are very few."
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"Banish any thoughts of how you might appear to others."
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"That which dies does not drop out of the world. Here it
remains; and here too, therefore, it changes and is
resolved into its several particles; that is, into the
elements which go to form the universe and yourself. They
themselves likewise undergo change, and yet from them comes
no complaint."
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"The whole earth is itself no more than the puniest dot."
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"If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is
not due to the thing itself but to your own estimate of it;
and this you have the power to revoke at any moment. If the
cause of the trouble lies in your own character, set about
reforming your principles; who is there to hinder you? If
it is the failure to take some apparently sound course of
action that is vexing you, then why not take it, instead of
fretting? "Because there is an insuperable obstacle in the
way." In that case, do not worry; the responsibility for
inaction is not yours. "But life is not worth living with
this thing undone." Why then, bid life a good-humored
farewell; accepting the frustration gracefully, and dying
like any other man whose actions have not been inhibited."
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"As your breathing partakes of the circumfluent air, so let

your thinking partake of the circumfluent Mind. For there
is a mental Force which, for him who can draw it to
himself, is no less ubiquitous and all-pervading than is
the atmosphere for him who can breathe it."
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"A man does not sin by commission only, but often by
omission."
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"Work yourself hard, but not as if you were being made a
victim, and not with any desire for sympathy or admiration.
Desire one thing alone: that your actions or inactions
alike should be worthy of a reasoning citizen."
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"For the thrown stone there is no more evil in falling that
there is good in rising."
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"Soon earth will cover us all. Then in time earth, too,
will change; later, what issues from this change will
itself in turn incessantly change, and so again will all
that then takes its place, even unto the world's end. To
let the mind dwell on these swiftly rolling billows of
change and transformation is to know a contempt for all
things mortal."
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"But if you feel yourself drifting and unable to hold your
course, pluck up heart and make for some quiet haven where
you will be able to hold your own; or even bid farewell to
life altogether, not in a passion but simply, freely, and
unassumingly, with at least this one success in life to
your credit, a seemly departure from it." (on suicide)
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"Begin the day by asking yourself, Can the just and right
conduct of another make any difference in myself? It
cannot."
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"Waste no more time arguing what a good man should be. Be

one."
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"Either you go on living here, to which custom has
sufficiently seasoned you by now; or you remove elsewhere,
which you do of your own free election; or you die, which
means that your service is at an end. Other choice there
can be none; so put a good face on it." (on death, change)
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"Extinction, dispersal, or survival."
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Phocion, Athenian general, put to death by the people,
accused of treachery. Last words: "Only that I have no
grudge against the Athenians."
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"You have only to have done with the past altogether,
commit the future to providence, and simply seek to direct
the present hour aright into the paths of holiness and
justice; holiness, by a loving acceptance of your
apportioned lot, since Nature produced it for you and you
for it: justice, in your speech a frank and straightforward
truthfulness, and in your acts by a respect for law and for
every man's rights."
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"How small a fraction of all the measureless infinity of
time is allotted to each one of us; an instant, and it
vanishes into eternity."
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Last lines = "Pass on your way, then, with a smiling face,
under the smile of him who bids you go."
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Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus Roman Emperor from 161
to his death in 180. Meditations, written in Greek while on
campaign between 170 and 180, is still revered as a
literary monument to a life of service and duty.