9781945186240

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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— If you can cut free of impressions that cling to the mind, free of the future and the past—can make yourself, as Empedocles says, “a sphere rejoicing in its perfect stillness,” and concentrate on living what can be lived (which means the present) . . . then you can spend the time you have left in tranquillity. And in kindness. And at peace with the spirit within you. 4. It never ceases to amaze me: we all love ourselves more than other people, but care more about their opinion than our own. If a god appeared to us—or a wise human being, even—and prohibited us from concealing our thoughts or imagining anything without immediately shouting it out, we wouldn’t make it through a single day. That’s how much we value other people’s opinions—instead of our own. 5. How is it that the gods arranged everything with such skill, such care for our well-being, and somehow overlooked one thing: that certain people —in fact, the best of them, the gods’ own partners, the ones whose piety and good works brought them closest to the divine—that these people, when they die, should cease to exist forever? Utterly vanished. Well, assuming that’s really true, you can be sure they would have arranged things differently, if that had been appropriate. If it were the right thing to do, they could have done it, and if it were natural, nature would have demanded it. So from the fact that they didn’t—if that’s the case—we can conclude that it was inappropriate. Surely you can see yourself that to ask the question is to challenge the gods’ fairness. And why would you be bringing in fairness unless the gods are, in fact, fair—and absolutely so? And if they are, how could they have carelessly overlooked something so unfair—so illogical—in setting up the world? 6. Practice even what seems impossible. The left hand is useless at almost everything, for lack of practice. But it guides the reins better than the right. From practice. 7. The condition of soul and body when death comes for us.
Shortness of life. Vastness of time before and after. Fragility of matter. 8. To see the causes of things stripped bare. The aim of actions. Pain. Pleasure. Death. Fame. Who is responsible for our own restlessness. That no one obstructs us. That it’s all in how you perceive it. 9. The student as 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. 10. To see things as they are. Substance, cause and purpose. 11. The freedom to do only what God wants, and accept whatever God sends us. 11a. What it’s made of. 12. The gods are not to blame. They do nothing wrong, on purpose or by accident. Nor men either; they don’t do it on purpose. No one is to blame. 13. The foolishness of people who are surprised by anything that happens. Like travelers amazed at foreign customs. 14. Fatal necessity, and inescapable order. Or benevolent Providence. Or confusion—random and undirected. If it’s an inescapable necessity, why resist it? If it’s Providence, and admits of being worshipped, then try to be worthy of God’s aid. If it’s confusion and anarchy, then be grateful that on this raging sea you have a mind to guide you. And if the storm should carry you away, let it carry off flesh, breath and all the rest, but not the mind. Which can’t be swept away.
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Marcus Aurelius Meditations A New T
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Meditations
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Meditations to his father’s chara
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surely Marcus’s adopted father, A
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Another area where Marcus’s polic
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seriously weakened the Roman positi
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underlies the work, but also with t
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fuse drives the flower,” and is p
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Cato, Thrasea, and Helvidius were d
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with which he addresses these quest
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us (by others or by nature). We con
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(especially in Book 7), and Socrati
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Although the sect numbered not a fe
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and exploratory, like the notes of
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aw quotations from tragedies in Boo
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transience. All things change or pa
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heaven.’ Why are you still here?
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dialogue “The Caesars” Marcus i
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I saw him for the last time a few y
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surviving fragments are translated
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He prides himself on not having tak
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Book 1 DEBTS AND LESSONS
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imaginary descriptions of The Simpl
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Optimism in adversity—especially
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He never exhibited rudeness, lost c
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Book 2 ON THE RIVER GRAN, AMONG THE
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Discard your thirst for books, so t
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us with pain or are loudly trumpete
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Book 3 IN CARNUNTUM
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3. Hippocrates cured many illnesses
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temptations (as Socrates used to sa
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If you can embrace this without fea
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Book 4
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Or are you complaining about the th
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—Yes. Well, why not use it? Isn
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every moment, “Is this necessary?
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36. Constant awareness that everyth
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To pass through this brief life as
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1. At dawn, when you have trouble g
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—Yes. Except conscious of it. Bec
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Quite the contrary. We need to comf
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obliviousness or because they want
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It created lower things for the sak
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Book 6
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10. (i) Mixture, interaction, dispe
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need those things are bound to be a
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Take Antoninus as your model, alway
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those you decide to make responsibl
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live and not more? You accept the l
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Book 7
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alone or with others—can aim at o
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20. My only fear is doing something
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“ ‘Not in the least.’ ” 36.
Page 110 and 111: in. • to accept this event with h
Page 112 and 113: to arrest the man from Salamis deci
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Page 116 and 117: The others? Nothing but anxiety and
Page 118 and 119: 18. What dies doesn’t vanish. It
Page 120 and 121: the last. There, too, the death of
Page 122 and 123: steel, not tyrants, not abuse—not
Page 124 and 125: A man standing by a spring of clear
Page 128 and 129: Providence—the decree by which fr
Page 130 and 131: that intermingling. But however muc
Page 132 and 133: 25. Identify its purpose—what mak
Page 134 and 135: That’s what nature does. Nature
Page 136 and 137: logos gave you the means to see it
Page 138 and 139: 1. To my soul: Are you ever going t
Page 140 and 141: which they came. Because our elemen
Page 142 and 143: 12. Why all this guesswork? You can
Page 144 and 145: law, which governs what happens to
Page 146 and 147: which the logos is carried through
Page 150 and 151: Apply this to life as a whole. 3. T
Page 152 and 153: matter, if we are naive, gullible,
Page 154 and 155: Even if cowardice has kept you from
Page 156 and 157: There is no common benchmark for al
Page 162 and 163: 15. The lamp shines until it is put
Page 164 and 165: Arrogance . . . about this? 25. Thr
Page 166 and 167: 32. The fraction of infinity, of th
Page 168 and 169: 2. On the River Gran, Among the Qua
Page 170 and 171: how you perceive it” (12.8), thou
Page 172 and 173: 11.31 “But my heart rejoiced”::
Page 174 and 175: CAEDICIANUS: Perhaps identical with
Page 176 and 177: HIPPOCRATES: Greek doctor active in
Page 178 and 179: iography of him by Suetonius. (12.2
Page 180 and 181: THE MODERN LIBRARY EDITORIAL BOARD
Page 182 and 183: 2002 Modern Library Edition Introdu
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