The work at hand

Attend to the matter before you, whether it's an opinion, an act, or a word. You suffer this justly, for you'd rather become good tomorrow than be good today.

Am I doing something? I do it with reference to the good of mankind. Does something happen to me? I accept it and refer it to the gods, and to the source of all things, from which everything that happens is derived.

Just as bathing appears to you—oil, sweat, dirt, filthy water, everything disgusting—so is every part of life, and everything in it.

Lucilla watched Verus die, and then Lucilla died. Secunda watched Maximus die, and then Secunda died. Epitynchanus watched Diotimus die, and then Epitynchanus died. Antoninus watched Faustina die, and then Antoninus died. Such is everything. Celer watched Hadrian die, and then Celer died. And those sharp-witted men—whether seers or men swollen with pride—where are they now? For instance the sharp-witted Charax, and Demetrius the Platonist, and Eudaemon, and anyone else like them. All short-lived, all long dead. Some haven't even been remembered for a short time; others have become the heroes of fables; and others still have vanished even from the fables. Remember this, then: this little compound that is you must either be scattered, or your poor breath must be snuffed out, or be moved on and placed elsewhere.

It satisfies a person to do the proper work of a human being. And the proper work of a human being is to be kind to one's own kind, to look past the promptings of the senses, to form a sound judgment of plausible impressions, and to contemplate the nature of the universe and what happens within it.

There are three relations that concern you: one to the body that surrounds you, a second to the divine cause from which all things come to all, and a third to those who live alongside you.

Pain is either an evil to the body—then let the body say so—or to the soul; but it is in the soul's power to preserve its own calm and stillness, and not to judge pain to be an evil. For every judgment, impulse, desire, and aversion lies within, and no evil climbs up that high.

Erase your impressions by often telling yourself: right now it is in my power to let no badness dwell in this soul, no desire, no disturbance at all—but seeing all things for what they are, I use each according to its worth. Remember this power, which you have from nature.

Speak both in the senate and to anyone at all, whoever he may be, fittingly, without affectation. Use plain speech.

Augustus's court—wife, daughter, descendants, ancestors, sister, Agrippa, kinsmen, close friends, associates, Areius, Maecenas, physicians, and sacrificing priests—the whole court is dead. Turn then to the rest, and consider not the death of a single man but of an entire line, as with the Pompeii; and that phrase inscribed on tombs—the last of his line. Consider what trouble those before them went through to leave a successor, and then that necessarily someone must be the last. Here again, consider the death of an entire line.

It's your duty to order your life well in each single act, and if every act does its part as far as possible, be content—no one can prevent each act from doing its part. But something external will stand in the way, you say. Nothing will stand in the way of your acting justly, temperately, and thoughtfully. But perhaps some other active power will be blocked. Well then, by accepting the obstacle and being content to redirect your effort to what is allowed, another opportunity for action is put before you at once in place of the one blocked—one that will fit into the order we're discussing.

Receive wealth or good fortune without arrogance, and be ready to let it go.

If you ever saw a hand cut off, or a foot, or a head, lying apart from the rest of the body, that is what a person makes of himself, as far as he can, when he is not content with what happens, cuts himself off from others, or does anything unsocial. Suppose you have detached yourself from the natural unity—for you were made by nature a part, but now you have cut yourself off—yet here is this beautiful provision: it is in your power to unite yourself again. God has allowed no other part, once separated and severed, to come together again. But consider the kindness by which he has honored man: he has put it in man's power never to be separated at all from the whole, and, if separated, to return and be joined and resume his place as a part.

Just as the nature of the universe has given every rational being all the other powers it has, so we have received this power from it too: for as universal nature turns to its own use and fixes in its appointed place whatever stands in its way and opposes it, making such things a part of itself, so too the rational animal can turn every hindrance into its own material and use it for whatever purposes it has set.

Don't trouble yourself by thinking of your whole life at once. Don't let your thoughts take in all at once the whole range of troubles you might expect to befall you; instead, on each occasion ask yourself: what is there in this that is unbearable, past enduring? For you'll be ashamed to admit there is. Next, remember that neither the future nor the past causes you pain, only the present—and this shrinks to very little if you simply bound it off and scold your mind if it can't hold out against even that much.

Does Panthea or Pergamus still sit by the tomb of Verus? Does Chaurias or Diotimus sit by the tomb of Hadrian? That would be absurd. Well, suppose they did sit there—would the dead notice? And if they noticed, would they be pleased? And if pleased, would that make them immortal? Wasn't it fated that these people too would first become old women and old men, and then die? And what would those left behind do once these were dead? All of it: foul smell and blood in a bag.

If you can see keenly, look and judge wisely, says the philosopher.

In the constitution of the rational animal I see no virtue opposed to justice, but I do see one opposed to the love of pleasure: temperance.

If you strip away your judgment about whatever seems to cause you pain, you yourself stand in perfect security. Who is this self? Reason. But I am not reason. Granted. Then let reason itself refrain from troubling itself. And if some other part of you suffers, let it hold its own opinion about itself.

Obstruction of the senses' perceptions is an evil to the animal nature; obstruction of impulses is likewise an evil to the animal nature; and there's a comparable obstruction and evil for the constitution of plants. So too whatever obstructs the intelligence is an evil to the intelligent nature. Apply all this to yourself, then. Does pain or pleasure affect you? The senses will attend to that. Has some obstacle blocked your effort toward an object? If you were making that effort unconditionally, then yes, this obstacle is an evil to you as a rational animal. But if you take into account the ordinary course of things, you haven't yet been harmed, nor even truly obstructed. As for what properly belongs to the understanding, no one else can obstruct it, for neither fire, nor iron, nor tyrant, nor abuse touches it in any way. Once it has been made a sphere, it remains a sphere.

It's not fitting that I should cause myself pain, since I have never deliberately caused pain even to another.

Different things delight different people, but my delight is to keep the ruling faculty sound, never turning away from any person or from anything that happens to people, but looking at and receiving everything with welcoming eyes, using each thing according to its worth.