Plain truths, repeated

No joining others in their wailing, no violent emotion.

From Plato: But I would give this man a sufficient answer, which is this—you are wrong if you think a man of any worth at all should weigh the risk of life or death, rather than looking, in all he does, only to whether he acts justly or unjustly, as a good man or a bad one would.

For this is the truth, men of Athens: wherever a man has stationed himself, believing it the best place for him, or has been stationed there by a commander, there he ought, in my judgment, to remain and face the danger, weighing nothing—neither death nor anything else—above disgrace.

But, my good friend, consider whether what is noble and good might be something other than saving one's life and being saved. For as to how long a man—at least a real man—lives, isn't that something to be dismissed from one's thoughts, with no clinging to life? These matters should be left to God, and one should believe the women who say that no man can escape his fate—the real question being how best to live the time one has.

Watch the courses of the stars as though you moved along with them, and constantly consider how the elements change into one another—for such thoughts wash away the grime of earthly life.

This is a fine saying of Plato's: that one who is speaking about human beings should also look at earthly things as if viewing them from some vantage point above—looking at their gatherings, armies, farm work, marriages, treaties, births, deaths, the noise of courtrooms, deserted places, the many nations of foreigners, feasts, mournings, marketplaces—a mixture of everything, an orderly arrangement of opposites.

Consider the past—the great shifts of political power—and you can foresee what is to come. It will certainly take the same form, since it cannot depart from the pattern of things happening now. So contemplating human life for forty years is the same as contemplating it for ten thousand. What more would you see?

What has grown from the earth returns to the earth, but what has sprung from heavenly seed returns to the heavenly realms. This is either the unraveling of the interlocking atoms, or a similar scattering of the unfeeling elements.

With foods and drinks and clever magic arts, diverting the channel's course to escape death. The wind that heaven sends we must endure, and labor without complaint.

Another may be more skilled at throwing his opponent, but he is no more sociable, no more modest, no better trained to meet whatever comes, and no more considerate toward the faults of his neighbors.

Wherever a task can be done in keeping with the reason shared by gods and men, there is nothing to fear. For where we can gain benefit through activity that succeeds and proceeds according to our own constitution, there is no harm to be suspected.

Everywhere, at all times, it is in your power to accept your present condition with reverence, to deal justly with those around you, and to apply your skill to your present thoughts, so that nothing slips in unexamined.

Don't look around to discover other people's ruling principles. Look straight ahead to where nature leads you—universal nature through what happens to you, and your own nature through the acts you must perform. Every being ought to do what accords with its own constitution; and everything else has been made for the sake of rational beings, just as, among non-rational things, the lesser exist for the sake of the greater, while rational beings exist for one another. The first principle in man's constitution, then, is the social one. The second is not yielding to the persuasions of the body—for it is the special task of the rational, intelligent motion to draw its own boundaries, and never let itself be overpowered by the motions of sense or appetite, both of which are merely animal; the intelligent motion claims priority and refuses to be overpowered by the others. And rightly so, since it is made by nature to make use of all of them. The third element in the rational constitution is freedom from error and deception. Let the ruling principle, holding fast to these things, go straight on, and it has what belongs to it.

Consider yourself dead, your life already lived out up to this moment; and live according to nature whatever remains to you.

Love only what happens to you and is woven into the thread of your fate. What could suit you better?

In everything that happens, keep before your eyes those to whom the same things happened, and how they fretted over them, treated them as strange, and found fault with them. Where are they now? Nowhere. Why then do you choose to act the same way, and why don't you leave these disturbances, foreign to nature, to those who cause them and those moved by them, and turn your whole attention instead to making good use of what happens to you? For then you'll use it well, and it will become material for you to work with. Just attend to yourself, and resolve to be a good person in every act you do—and remember…

Look within. Within is the spring of good, and it will never stop welling up, as long as you keep digging.

The body ought to be composed, showing no irregularity in movement or posture. Just as the mind shows in the face by keeping there an expression of intelligence and propriety, the same should be asked of the whole body. But all this should be maintained without affectation.

The art of living is more like the wrestler's art than the dancer's, in this respect: it must stand ready and firm to meet sudden, unexpected attacks.

Constantly notice whose approval you're after, and what ruling principles they hold. Then you'll neither blame those who offend involuntarily nor crave their approval, once you've looked into the sources of their opinions and appetites.

Every soul, the philosopher says, is deprived of truth against its will; and by the same token it is deprived of justice, temperance, benevolence, and everything of that kind. It is essential to keep this constantly in mind, for it will make you gentler toward everyone.

In every pain, keep this thought ready: there is no dishonor in it, and it does not make the governing intelligence worse, for it damages neither the intelligence's rational nor its social character. Indeed, for most pains, let this saying of Epicurus help you: pain is neither unbearable nor endless, provided you remember it has its limits and add nothing to it in imagination. Remember too that we fail to notice how many things unpleasant to us are really the same as pain—excessive drowsiness, being scorched by heat, having no appetite. So when you find yourself resenting any of these, tell yourself you are giving way to pain.

Be careful not to feel toward the inhuman the way they feel toward human beings.

How do we know that Telauges wasn't superior in character to Socrates? It isn't enough that Socrates died a more glorious death, argued more skillfully against the Sophists, endured a cold night with more fortitude, or that, ordered to arrest Leon of Salamis, he judged it nobler to refuse, and that he walked the streets with a certain swagger—though even that fact is much doubted. What we ought to ask is what kind of soul Socrates had: whether he could be satisfied simply with being just toward people and pious toward the gods, without being idly provoked by others' wickedness or making himself a slave to anyone's ignorance, without treating anything that fell to him out of the universal order as strange or as intolerable, and without letting his understanding sympathize with the sufferings of his poor flesh.

Nature has not blended the intelligence so thoroughly with the body's makeup that it denies you the power to draw your own boundaries and bring everything that's truly yours under your own control. It is entirely possible to be a godlike person and be recognized as such by no one. Keep this always in mind, and also this: very little indeed is needed for a happy life. And just because you've given up hope of becoming skilled in logic and natural philosophy, don't for that reason abandon the hope of being free, modest, sociable, and obedient to God.

It is in your power to live free of all compulsion, in the deepest calm of mind, even if the whole world shouts against you as loudly as it likes, even if wild beasts tear apart the limbs of this molded clay that has grown up around you. What stops the mind, in the midst of all that, from holding itself in calm, in a just judgment of everything around it, and in a ready use of whatever presents itself—so that judgment can say to what falls under its notice: this is what you are in reality, whatever you may seem in people's opinion; and use can say to what falls under its hand: you are exactly what I was looking for. For to me, whatever presents itself is always material for rational and civic virtue, and in short, for the exercise of an art belonging to man or to God. For everything that happens has a bearing on God or man, and is neither new nor hard to handle, but familiar and fit material to work on.

The perfection of character consists in this: living each day as if it were the last, without frantic excitement, without numbness, and without playing a part.

The immortal gods are not troubled that for so long a time they must go on putting up with people such as they are, and so many of them bad—and besides that, they also care for them in every way. But you, who are due to end so soon, are you tired of enduring the bad, and this when you are one of them yourself?

It's absurd for someone not to flee his own badness, which is indeed possible, while trying to flee other people's badness, which is not possible.

Whatever the rational and social faculty finds to be neither intelligent nor social, it rightly judges to be beneath itself.

When you've done a good deed and someone else has benefited from it, why do you still look for some third thing besides these, the way fools do—either to be credited with having done a good deed, or to get something back for it?

No one grows tired of receiving what is useful. And acting according to nature is useful. So don't grow tired of receiving what is useful by doing it for others.

The nature of the All was moved to bring the universe into being. Now either everything that happens follows as a consequence of that, in unbroken sequence; or else even the chief things toward which the ruling power of the universe directs its own movement are governed by no rational principle at all. Remembering this will make you calmer about many things.