Remember, that to change thy mind upon occasion, and to follow him that is able to rectify thee, is equally ingenuous, as to find out at the first, what is right and just, without help. For of thee nothing is required, ti, is beyond the extent of thine own deliberation and jun. merit, and of thine own understanding.
If once round and solid, there is no fear that ever it will change.
61. To enter others’ minds and let them enter yours.
We were born to work together like feet, hands, and eyes, like the two rows of teeth, upper and lower. To obstruct each other is unnatural.
Concentrate every minute like a Roman – like a man – on doing what’s in front of you with precise and genuine seriousness, tenderly, willingly, with justice.
I will not allow things outside my mind to affect my mind. I will not let external events shake and shatter my inner peace. I will not waste my energy on things outside my control.
Everyone gets one life. Yours is almost used up, and instead of treating yourself with respect, you have entrusted your own happiness to the souls of others.
And is there anything preferable to thought itself – to logic, to understanding? Think of their surefootedness. Their fluent stillness.
Dig deep within yourself, for there is a fountain of goodness ever ready to flow if you will keep digging.
Give thyself time to learn something new and good, and cease to be whirled around. But then thou must also avoid being carried about the other way.
That in this, there is strength and nerves, or vigour and fortitude: whereof anger and indignation is altogether void.
Be the stone cliff against which the waves constantly break, standing firm against the fury of the sea.
And as grief doth proceed from weakness, so doth anger. For both, both he that is angry and that grieveth, have received a wound, and cowardly have as it were yielded themselves unto their affections.
Practice the virtues you can show: honesty, gravity, endurance, austerity, resignation, abstinence, patience, sincerity, moderation, seriousness, high-mindedness. Don’t you see how much you have to offer – beyond excuses like “can’t”?
So there are two reasons to embrace what happens. One is that it’s happening to you. It was prescribed for you, and it pertains to you. The thread was spun long ago, by the oldest cause of all. The other reason is that what happens to an individual is a cause of well-being in what directs the world – of its well-being, its fulfillment, of its very existence, even.
The universe, then, is God, of whom the popular gods are manifestations; while legends and myths are allegorical. The soul of man is thus an emanation from the godhead, into whom it will eventually be re-absorbed. The divine ruling principle makes all things work together for good, but for the good of the whole. The highest good of man is consciously to work with God for the common good, and this is the sense in which the Stoic tried to live in accord with nature.
The rational commanding part, as it alone can stir up and turn itself; so it maketh both itself to be, and everything that happeneth, to appear unto itself, as it will itself.
It is high time for thee, to understand that there is somewhat in thee, better and more divine than either thy passions, or thy sensual appetites and affections. What is now the object of my mind, is it fear, or suspicion, or lust, or any such thing? To do nothing rashly without some certain end; let that be thy first care.
When it’s hard to get out of bed in the morning, remind yourself: I am rising to resume my life’s work. How can I be unhappy when I have another opportunity to do what I was born to do?
Marcus sought by-laws to protect the weak, to make the lot of the slaves less hard, to stand in place of father to the fatherless.