In your soul, don't be passive or aggressive. In your life, don't be all about business. For everything happens according to the nature of all things, and in a short time you'll be nobody and nowhere even as the great emperors Hadrian and Augustus are now. The next thing to do--consider carefully the task at hand for what it is, while remembering that your purpose is to be a good human being.
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Get straight to doing what nature requires of you, and speak as you see most just and fitting--with kindness, modesty, and sincerity. What if someone despises me? Let me see to it. But I will see to it that I won't be found doing or saying anything contemptible. What if someone hates me? Let me see to that. But I will see to it that I'm kind and good-natured to all, and prepared to show even the hater where they went wrong.
Not in a critical way, or to show off my patience, but genuinely and usefully. Do not act as if thou wert going to live ten thousand years. Death hangs over thee. While thou livest, while it is in thy power, be good. A person who doesn't know what the universe is, doesn't know who they are.
A person who doesn't know their purpose in life doesn't know who they are or what the universe is. A person who doesn't know any of these things doesn't know why they are here. So what to make of people who seek or avoid the praise of those who have no knowledge of where or who they are? Whenever you suffer pain, keep in mind that it's nothing to be ashamed of and that it can't degrade your guiding intelligence, nor keep it from acting rationally and for the common good.
And in most cases you should be helped by the saying of Epicurus , that pain is never unbearable or unending, so you can remember these limits and not add to them in your imagination. Remember too that many common annoyances are pain in disguise, such as sleepiness, fever and loss of appetite. When they start to get you down, tell yourself you are giving in to pain.
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Enough of this miserable, whining life. Why are you troubled? Take a good look. Or just the matter itself? Then look at that. And as far as the gods go, by now you could try being more straightforward and kind. Keep this thought handy when you feel a bit of rage coming on--it isn't manly to be enraged.
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Rather, gentleness and civility are more human, and therefore manlier. A real person doesn't give way to anger and discontent, and such a person has strength, courage, and endurance--unlike the angry and complaining. The nearer a man comes to a calm mind, the closer he is to strength. Don't tell yourself anything more than what the initial impressions report.
It's been reported to you that someone is speaking badly about you. This is the report--the report wasn't that you've been harmed. I see that my son is sick--but not that his life is at risk. So always stay within your first impressions, and don't add to them in your head--this way nothing can happen to you. Drama, combat, terror, numbness, and subservience--every day these things wipe out your sacred principles, whenever your mind entertains them uncritically or lets them slip in.
I'm constantly amazed by how easily we love ourselves above all others, yet we put more stock in the opinions of others than in our own estimation of self How much credence we give to the opinions our peers have of us and how little to our very own! Does the light of a lamp shine and keep its glow until its fuel is spent? Why shouldn't your truth, justice, and self-control shine until you are extinguished? Words that everyone once used are now obsolete, and so are the men whose names were once on everyone's lips: Camillus , Caeso, Volesus , Dentatus, and to a lesser degree Scipio and Cato, and yes, even Augustus , Hadrian , and Antoninus are less spoken of now than they were in their own days.
For all things fade away, become the stuff of legend, and are soon buried in oblivion. Mind you, this is true only for those who blazed once like bright stars in the firmament, but for the rest, as soon as a few clods of earth cover their corpses, they are 'out of sight, out of mind. So what is left worth living for? Do not then consider life a thing of any value. For look at the immensity of time behind thee, and to the time which is before thee, another boundless space. In this infinity then what is the difference between him who lives three days and him who lives three generations? When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: The people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous, and surly.
Meditations - Wikipedia
They are like this because they can't tell good from evil. But I have seen the beauty of good, and the ugliness of evil, and have recognized that the wrongdoer has a nature related to my own—not of the same blood or birth, but the same mind, and possessing a share of the divine. All things are interwoven with one another; a sacred bond unites them; there is scarcely one thing that is isolated from another. Everything is coordinated, everything works together in giving form to one universe.
The world-order is a unity made up of multiplicity: God is one, pervading all things; all being is one, all law is one namely, the common reason which all thinking persons possess and all truth is one -- if, as we believe, there can be but one path to perfection for beings that are alike in kind and reason.
Marcus Aurelius wrote the following about Severus a person who is not clearly identifiable according to the footnote: The editio princeps of the original Greek the first print version was published by Conrad Gessner and his cousin Andreas in Both it and the accompanying Latin translation were produced by Wilhelm Xylander.
Claudian, Volume 2
His source was a manuscript from Heidelberg University , provided by Michael Toxites. By , when Xylander completed his second edition, he no longer had access to the source and it has been lost ever since. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. This article is about the writings by Marcus Aurelius. For other uses, see Meditation disambiguation.
First page of the English translation by Richard Graves. This section is a candidate to be copied to Wikiquote using the Transwiki process. The next thing to do--consider carefully the task at hand for what it is, while remembering that your purpose is to be a good human being. Get straight to doing what nature requires of you, and speak as you see most just and fitting--with kindness, modesty, and sincerity.
What if someone despises me? Let me see to it. But I will see to it that I won't be found doing or saying anything contemptible. What if someone hates me? Let me see to that. But I will see to it that I'm kind and good-natured to all, and prepared to show even the hater where they went wrong. Not in a critical way, or to show off my patience, but genuinely and usefully. Do not act as if thou wert going to live ten thousand years. Death hangs over thee.
While thou livest, while it is in thy power, be good. A person who doesn't know what the universe is, doesn't know who they are.
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A person who doesn't know their purpose in life doesn't know who they are or what the universe is. A person who doesn't know any of these things doesn't know why they are here. So what to make of people who seek or avoid the praise of those who have no knowledge of where or who they are? Whenever you suffer pain, keep in mind that it's nothing to be ashamed of and that it can't degrade your guiding intelligence, nor keep it from acting rationally and for the common good.
And in most cases you should be helped by the saying of Epicurus , that pain is never unbearable or unending, so you can remember these limits and not add to them in your imagination. Remember too that many common annoyances are pain in disguise, such as sleepiness, fever and loss of appetite. When they start to get you down, tell yourself you are giving in to pain. Enough of this miserable, whining life. Why are you troubled? Take a good look. Or just the matter itself? Then look at that. And as far as the gods go, by now you could try being more straightforward and kind.
Keep this thought handy when you feel a bit of rage coming on--it isn't manly to be enraged. Rather, gentleness and civility are more human, and therefore manlier. A real person doesn't give way to anger and discontent, and such a person has strength, courage, and endurance--unlike the angry and complaining.
The nearer a man comes to a calm mind, the closer he is to strength. Don't tell yourself anything more than what the initial impressions report. It's been reported to you that someone is speaking badly about you. This is the report--the report wasn't that you've been harmed. I see that my son is sick--but not that his life is at risk.
So always stay within your first impressions, and don't add to them in your head--this way nothing can happen to you. Drama, combat, terror, numbness, and subservience--every day these things wipe out your sacred principles, whenever your mind entertains them uncritically or lets them slip in. I'm constantly amazed by how easily we love ourselves above all others, yet we put more stock in the opinions of others than in our own estimation of self How much credence we give to the opinions our peers have of us and how little to our very own!
Does the light of a lamp shine and keep its glow until its fuel is spent? Why shouldn't your truth, justice, and self-control shine until you are extinguished? Words that everyone once used are now obsolete, and so are the men whose names were once on everyone's lips: Camillus , Caeso, Volesus , Dentatus, and to a lesser degree Scipio and Cato, and yes, even Augustus , Hadrian , and Antoninus are less spoken of now than they were in their own days.
For all things fade away, become the stuff of legend, and are soon buried in oblivion. Mind you, this is true only for those who blazed once like bright stars in the firmament, but for the rest, as soon as a few clods of earth cover their corpses, they are 'out of sight, out of mind. So what is left worth living for? Do not then consider life a thing of any value.
For look at the immensity of time behind thee, and to the time which is before thee, another boundless space. In this infinity then what is the difference between him who lives three days and him who lives three generations? When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: The people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous, and surly.
They are like this because they can't tell good from evil. But I have seen the beauty of good, and the ugliness of evil, and have recognized that the wrongdoer has a nature related to my own—not of the same blood or birth, but the same mind, and possessing a share of the divine. All things are interwoven with one another; a sacred bond unites them; there is scarcely one thing that is isolated from another. Everything is coordinated, everything works together in giving form to one universe.
The world-order is a unity made up of multiplicity: God is one, pervading all things; all being is one, all law is one namely, the common reason which all thinking persons possess and all truth is one -- if, as we believe, there can be but one path to perfection for beings that are alike in kind and reason. Marcus Aurelius wrote the following about Severus a person who is not clearly identifiable according to the footnote: The editio princeps of the original Greek the first print version was published by Conrad Gessner and his cousin Andreas in Both it and the accompanying Latin translation were produced by Wilhelm Xylander.
His source was a manuscript from Heidelberg University , provided by Michael Toxites. By , when Xylander completed his second edition, he no longer had access to the source and it has been lost ever since. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. This article is about the writings by Marcus Aurelius. For other uses, see Meditation disambiguation.
First page of the English translation by Richard Graves. This section is a candidate to be copied to Wikiquote using the Transwiki process. Galen 's many writings in what he calls 'the common dialect' are another excellent example of non-atticizing but highly educated Greek. Marcus Aurelius published August , accessed November Five Stages of Greek Religion 3rd ed.