Let opinion fall away

Soul of mine, will you never be good, simple, single, and as visible to yourself as the body that clothes you? Will you never taste an affectionate and contented temper? Will you never be full and without need, craving nothing more? Will you stop wanting living or lifeless things for pleasure—more time to enjoy them, a particular place, a pleasant climate, or harmony with other people? Will you instead be satisfied with your present condition and pleased with everything around you? Will you persuade yourself that you have everything, that it comes from the gods, and that everything is and will be well for you? Whatever pleases them preserves that perfect living being—good, just, and beautiful—which generates and holds all things together, then contains and embraces what dissolves so that other things like them may arise. Will you never live in such community with gods and people that you find no fault with them and they condemn nothing in you?

Observe what your nature requires, insofar as you are governed by nature alone; then do it and accept it, if your nature as a living being will not be made worse by it. Next you must observe what your nature requires insofar as you are a living being. And you may allow yourself all of this, provided your nature as a rational animal is not made worse by it. But the rational animal is, by consequence, also a social animal. Use these rules, then, and trouble yourself about nothing else.

Everything that happens either happens in a way you are formed by nature to bear, or in a way you are not formed by nature to bear. If it happens in a way you are formed by nature to bear, don't complain—bear it as you are formed to bear it. But if it happens in a way you are not formed by nature to bear, don't complain either, for it will destroy you and then be gone. Remember, though, that you are formed by nature to bear anything which it lies within your own judgment to make endurable and tolerable, by considering it either your interest or your duty to do so.

If a man is mistaken, instruct him kindly and point out his error. But if you can't, blame yourself—or don't even blame yourself.

Whatever happens to you was prepared for you from all eternity; and the interweaving of causes was spinning, from eternity, both the thread of your being and the thread of what would befall it.

Whether the universe is a concourse of atoms or a system governed by nature, let this be settled first: I am a part of the whole that is governed by nature. Next, I am bound in a special way to the parts that are of the same kind as myself. Holding this in mind—that I am a part—I will be discontented with none of the things assigned to me out of the whole, for nothing that benefits the whole can injure the part. The whole contains nothing that does not serve its own advantage—this is a principle common to all natures, but the nature of the universe has this further principle, that it cannot even be forced by any external cause to produce something harmful to itself. So by remembering that I am a part of such a whole, I will be content with everything that happens. And insofar as I am bound in a special way to the parts of my own kind, I will do nothing unsocial; instead I will turn my efforts toward those of my own kind, and direct all my endeavor to the common interest, turning it away from its opposite. If this is done, life must flow on happily—just as you can see that the life of a citizen is happy who pursues a course of action beneficial to his fellow citizens, and is content with whatever the state assigns him.

The parts of the whole—everything, I mean, that is naturally contained within the universe—must necessarily perish; but understand this to mean that they must undergo change. If this were by nature both an evil and a necessity for the parts, the whole could not continue to exist in good condition, given that its parts are subject to change and are constituted so as to perish in various ways. Did Nature herself intend evil for the things that are her own parts, making them liable to evil and falling into evil of necessity? Or did such things happen without her knowing it? Both suppositions are unbelievable. But even if someone drops the term 'Nature' as an active power and speaks instead of these things simply as 'natural,' it would still be absurd to claim in the same breath that the parts of the whole are by nature subject to change, and then to be surprised or upset as though something were happening contrary to nature—especially since the dissolution of things returns each thing into the very things it was composed from. For there is either a scattering of the elements out of which each thing was compounded, or a change from the solid into the earthy and from the airy into the aerial, so that these parts are taken back into the universal reason—whether this reason is at set periods consumed by fire or renewed through eternal changes. And don't imagine that the solid and airy part has belonged to you since your birth. All of it received its increase only yesterday and the day before, so to speak, from the food you ate and the air you breathed. So it is this—what has received the increase—that changes, not what your mother bore. But suppose that what your mother bore entangles you very closely with this other part that has the peculiar property of change—this is no real objection to what has been said.

Once you have taken on these names—good, modest, truthful, rational, even-tempered, and great-souled—take care not to lose them; and if you do lose them, return to them quickly. Remember that 'rational' was meant to signify careful, discriminating attention to each thing, and freedom from carelessness; that 'even-tempered' means the willing acceptance of whatever is assigned to you by the common nature; and that 'great-souled' means the elevation of the intelligent part above the pleasant or painful sensations of the flesh, and above that paltry thing called fame, and above death, and all things of that kind. If you hold on to these names without needing others to call you by them, you will become a different person and enter upon a different life. To go on being what you have been until now, torn to pieces and defiled by such a life, is the mark of a very stupid man, one far too fond of his own life—like those half-eaten fighters against wild beasts who, covered in wounds and gore, still beg to be kept alive until the next day, though they will be thrown to the same claws and bites in the same condition. So plant yourself firmly in possession of these few names, and if you can hold to them, hold as though you had been carried off to islands of the blessed. But if you feel yourself slipping out of them and losing your grip, go bravely to some corner where you can keep hold of them—or else leave life at once, not in anger, but simply, freely, and modestly, having at least done this one commendable thing in your life: gone out of it this way. To help you remember these names, it will greatly help to remember the gods, and that they want no flattery but wish all rational beings to become like them; and to remember that what does the work of a fig tree is a fig tree, what does the work of a dog is a dog, what does the work of a bee is a bee, and what does the work of a man is a man.