How quickly all things disappear, in the universe the bodies themselves, but in time the remembrance of them;.
The person who lives shortest owns the exact same amount of life as the one who lives longest. For the present is all we have and all we can lose. When we die, we don’t “lose” the past or future – we never owned them.
Some things are hurrying into existence, and other are hurrying out of it; and of that which is coming into existence, part is already extinguished. Motions and changes are continually renewing the world, just as the uninterrupted course of time is always renewing the infinite duration of ages.
To conclude, always observe how ephemeral and worthless human things are, and what was yesterday a speck of semen tomorrow will be a mummy or ashes.
Love all people, including those who do wrong. They may be acting unintentionally, out of ignorance. Even if they are acting intentionally, they can’t harm you – that is, they can’t make you a worse person than before. Only you can harm yourself, by fanning the flames of hatred and resentment. When someone wrongs you, identify the mistaken ideas that motivated their behavior. Then, instead of being angry, you’ll pity them.
That whatever happens has always happened, and always will, and is happening at this very moment, everywhere. Just like this. What links one human being to all humans: not blood, or birth, but mind.
The responsibility is all yours; no one can stop you from being honest or straightforward.
According to this theory, man is like a dog tied to a moving wagon. If the dog refuses to run along with the wagon he will be dragged by it, yet the choice remains his: to run or be dragged.
22. Not to be driven this way and that, but always to behave with justice and see things as they are.
One man prays thus: How shall I be able to lie with that woman? Do thou pray thus: How shall I not desire to lie with her? Another prays thus: How shall I be released from this? Pray thou: How shall I not desire to be released? Another thus: How shall I not lose my little son? Thou thus: How shall I not be afraid to lose him? In fine, turn thy prayers this way, and see what comes.
If thou shouldst live three thousand, or as many as ten thousands of years, yet remember this, that man can part with no life properly, save with that little part of life, which he now lives: and that which he lives, is no other, than that which at every instant he parts with.
The time of a man’s life is as a point; the substance of it ever flowing, the sense obscure; and the whole composition of the body tending to corruption.
If he have sinned, his is the harm, not mine. But perchance he hath not.
Some things are rushing into existence, others out of it. Some of what now exists is already gone. Change and flux constantly remake the world, just as the incessant progression of time remakes eternity. We find ourselves in a river. Which of the things around us should we value when none of them can offer a firm foothold?
Is it not plain that the inferior exists for the sake of the superior? But the things which have life are superior to those which have not life, and of those which have life the superior are those which have reason.
To the jaundiced honey tastes bitter, and to those bitten by mad dogs water causes fear; and to little children the ball is a fine thing. Why then am I angry? Do you think that a false opinion has less power than the bile in the jaundiced or the poison in someone bitten by a mad dog?
Toys and fooleries at home, wars abroad: sometimes terror, sometimes torpor, or stupid sloth: this is thy daily slavery.
Never act without purpose; make sure that all your actions conform to the philosophical principles that constitute the art of living.
There’s no retreat more peaceful and untroubled than a man’s own mind, and this is especially true of a man who has inner resources which are such that he has only to dip into them to be entirely untroubled.
For it is a thing very possible, that a man should be a very divine man, and yet be altogether unknown.