BOOK 2 -17 -2

What then can escort us on our way? One thing, and one thing only: philosophy. This consists in keeping the divinity within us inviolate and free from harm, master of pleasure and pain, doing nothing without aim,truth, or integrity, and independent of others' action or failure to act. Further, accepting all that happens and is allotted to it as coming from that source which is its own origin: and at all times awaiting death with the glad confidence that it is nothing more than the dissolution of the elements of which ever living creature is composed. Now if there is nothing fearful for the elements themselves in their constant changing of each into another, why should one look anxiously in prospect at the change and dissolution of them all? This is in accordance with nature: and nothing harmful is in accordance with nature.

BOOK 2 -17

In a man's life his time is a mere instant, his existence a flux, his perception fogged, his whole body compositions rotting, his mind a whirligig, his fortune unpredictable, his fame unclear. To put it shortly: all things of the body stream away like a river, all things of the mind are dreams and delusion; life is warfare, and a visit in a strange land; the only lasting fame is oblivion.

BOOK 2 -16

The soul of a man harms itself, first and foremost, when it becomes (as far as it can) a separate growth, a sort of tumor on the universe: because to resent anything that happens is to separate oneself in revolt from Nature, which holds in collective embrace the particular natures of all other things. Secondly, when it turns away from another human being, or is even carried so far in opposition as to intend him harm - such is the case in the souls of those gripped by anger. A soul harms itself, thirdly, when it gives in to pleasure or pain. Fourthly, whenever it dissimulates, doing or saying anything feigned or false. Fifthly, whenever it fails to direct any of its own actions or impulses to a goal, but acts at random, without conscious attention - whereas even the most trivial action should be undertaken in reference to the end. And the end for rational creatures is to follow the reason and the rule of the most venerable archetype of a governing state - the Universe.

BOOK 2 -15

'All is as thinking makes it so'.The retort made to Monimus the Cynic is clear enough: but clear too is the value of his saying, if one takes the kernel of it, as far as it is true.

BOOK 2 -14

Even if you were destined to live three thousand years, or ten times that long, nonetheless remember that no one loses any life other than the one he lives, or lives any life other than the one he loses. It follows that the longest and the shortest lives are brought to the same state. The present moment is equal for all; so what is passing is equal also; the loss therefore turns out to be the merest fragment of time. No one can lose either the past or the future - how could anyone be deprived of what he does not possess?

So always remember these two things. First, that all things have have been of the same kind from everlasting, coming round and round again, and it makes no difference whether one will see the same things for a hundred years, or two hundred years, or for an infinity of time. Second, that both the longest lived and the earliest to die suffer the same loss. It is only the present moment of which either stands to be deprived: and if indeed this is all he has, he cannot lose what he does not have.

BOOK 2 -13

Nothing is more miserable than one who is always out and about, running round everything in circles - in Pindar's words 'delving deep in the bowels of the earth ' - and looking for signs and symptoms to divine his neighbors's minds. He does not realize that it is sufficient to concentrate solely on the divinity within himself and to give it true service. That service is to keep it uncontaminated by passion, triviality, or discontent at what is dealt by gods or men. What comes from the gods demands reverence for their goodness. What comes from men is welcome for our kinship's sake, but sometimes pitiable also in a way, because of their ignorance of good and evil: and this is no less a disability than that which removes the distinction of light and dark.

BOOK 2 -12

How all things quickly vanish, our bodies themselves lost in the physical world, the memories of them lost in time; the nature of all objects of the senses - especially those which allure us with pleasure, frighten us with pain, or enjoy the applause of vanity - how cheap they are, how contemptible, shoddy, perishable, and dead: these matters for our intellectual faculty to consider. And further considerations. What are they, these people whose judgements and voices confer or deny esteem? What is death? Someone looking at death per se, and applying the analytical power of his mind to divest death of its associated images, will conclude then that it is nothing more that a function of nature - and if anyone is frightened of a function of nature, he is a mere child. And death is not only a function of nature, but also to her benefit.

BOOK 2 -11

You may leave this life at any moment: have this possibility in your mind in all that you do or say or think. Now, departure from the world of men is nothing to fear, if gods exist: because they would not involve you in any harm. If they do not exist, or if they have no care for humankind, then what is life to me in a world devoid of gods, or devoid of providence? But they do exist, and they do care for humankind: and they have put it absolutely in man's power to avoid falling into the true kinds of harm. If there were anything harmful in the rest of experience, they would have provided for that too, to make it in everyone's power to avoid falling into it; and if something cannot make a human being worse, how could it make his life a worse life?

BOOK 2 -10

In his comparative ranking of sins, applying philosophy to the common man's distinctions, Theosphrastus  says that offenses of lust are graver than those of anger: because it is clearly some sort of pain and involuntary spasm which drives the angry man to abandon reason, whereas the lust-lead offender has given in to pleasure and seems somehow more abandoned and less manly in his wrongdoing. Rightly, then, and like a true philosopher, Theosphrastus said that greater censure attaches to an offence committed under the influence of pleasure than to one under the influence of pain. And in general the one is more like an injured party, forced to anger by the pain of provocation: whereas the other is his own source of the impulse to wrong, driven to what he does by lust.

BOOK 2 -9

Always remember these things: what the nature of the Whole is, what my own nature is, the relation of this nature to that, what kind of a part it is of what kind of Whole; and that there is no one who can prevent you keeping all that you say and do in accordance with that nature, of which you are a part.

BOOK 2 -8

Failure to read what is happening in another's soul is not easily seen as a cause of unhappiness: but those who fail to attend to the motions of their own souls are necessarily unhappy.

BOOK 2 -7

Do externals tend to distract you? Then give yourself the space to learn some further  good lesson, and stop your wandering. That done, you must guard against the other sort of drift. Those who are dead to life and have no aim for the direction of every impulse and, more widely, every thought are drivelers in deed as well as word.

BOOK 2 -6

Self-harm, my soul, you are doing self-harm: and you will have no more opportunity for self-respect. Life for each of us is a mere moment, and this life of yours is nearly over, while you still show no honour, but let your own welfare depend on other people's souls.

BOOK 2 -5

Every hour of the day give vigorous attention, as a Roman and as a man, to the performance  of the task in hand with precise analysis, with human sympathy, with dispassionate justice - and to vacating your mind from all its other thoughts. And you will achieve this vacation if you perform each action as if it were the last of your life: freed,  that is, from all lack of aim, from all passion-led deviation from the ordinance of reason, from love of self, from dissatisfaction with what fate has dealt you. You see how few things a man needs to master for the settled flow of a god-fearing life. The gods themselves ask nothing more of one who keeps these observances.

BOOK 2 -4

Remember how long you have been putting this off, how many times you have been given a period of grace by the gods and not used it. It is high time now for you to understand the universe of which you are a part, and the governor of that universe of whom you constitute an emanation: and that there is a limit circumscribed to your time - if you do not use it to clear away your clouds, it will be gone, and you will be gone, and the opportunity will not return.

BOOK 2 -3

The work of the gods are full of providence. The works of Fortune are not independent of Nature or the spinning and weaving together of the threads governed by Providence. All things flow from that world: and further factors are necessity and the benefit of the whole universe, of which you are a part. Now every part of nature benefits from that which is brought by the nature of the Whole and all which preserves that nature: and the order of the universe is preserved equally by the changes in the elements and the changes in their compounds. Let this be enough for you, and your constant doctrine. And give up your thirst for books, so that you do not die a grouch, but in true and heartfelt gratitude to the gods

BOOK 2 -2

Whatever it is, this being of mine is made up of flesh, breath, and directing mind. Now the flesh should disdain - blood, bones, a mere fabric and network of nerves, veins, and arteries. Consider too what breath is: wind - and not even a constant, but all the time being disgorged and sucked in again. That leaves the third part, the directing mind. No, think like this, as if you were on the point of death: 'you are old; don't then let this directing mind of yours be enslaved any longer - no more jerking to the strings of selfish impulse, no more disquiet at your present or suspicion of your future fate.

BOOK 2 -1

(written among the Quadi on the River Gran)

Say to yourself first thing in the morning: today I shall meet people who are meddling, ungrateful, aggressive, treacherous, malicious, unsocial. All this has afflicted them through their ignorance of true good and evil. But I had seen that the nature of good is what is right, and the nature of evil what is wrong and I have reflected that the nature of the offender himself is akin to my own - not a kinship of blood or seed, but a sharing in the same mind, the same fragment of divinity. Therefore I cannot be harmed by any of them, as none will infect me with their wrong. Nor can I be angry with my kinsman or hate them. We are born for cooperation, like feet, like hands, like eyelids, like the rows of upper and lower teeth. So to work in opposition to one another is against nature: and anger or rejection is opposition.

BOOK 1 -17-8

That whenever I wanted to help someone or some other need I was told that there was no source of affordable money: and that I myself never fell into similar want of financial assistance form another. That my wife is as she is, so submissive, loving, and unaffected: and that I found no lack of suitable tutors for my children.

That I was given help through dreams, especially how to avoid spitting blood and bouts of dizziness: and the response of the oracle at Caieta, 'just as you use yourself'. That, for all my love of philosophy, I did not fall in with any sophist, or devote my time to the analysis of literature or logic, or busy myself with cosmic speculation. All these things need 'the help of gods and Fortunes's favour.

BOOK 1 - 17-6

That I acquired  a clear and constant picture of what is meant by the life according to nature, so that, with regard to the gods, their communication from that world, their help and their inspiration, nothing now prevents me living the life of nature: my falling somewhat short, still, is due to my own fault and my failure to observe the promptings, not to say the instructions, of the gods.

That my body has held out so far in a life such as mine. That I never touched Bendicta or Theodotus, and that later experience of sexual passion left me cured. That, though I was often angry with Rusticus, my behavior never went to the point of regret. That my mother, fated to die young, nonetheless lived her last years with me.

BOOK 1 -17-4

That I was blessed with a brother whose character could spur me to care for myself, and whose respect and affection were likewise a source of joy to me. That my children were not born short of intelligence or physically deformed. That I did not make further progress in rhetoric, poetry, and the other pursuits in which I could well have been absorbed, if I had felt this my right path. That I was quick to raise my tutors to the public office which I thought they desired and did not put them off, in view of their youth, with promises for the future. That I came to know Appolonius, Rusticus, Maximus.

BOOK 1 -17

From the gods: to have had good grandparents, good parents, a good sister, good teachers, good family, relatives, and friends - almost everything; and that I did not blunder into offending any of them, even though I had the sort of disposition which might indeed have resulted in some offense, given the occasion - it was the grace of the gods that no set of circumstances likely to show me up ever arose. That I was not brought up any longer than I was with my grandfather's mistress, and that I kept my innocence, leaving sexual experience to the proper time and index somewhat beyond it. That I came under a ruler and a father who was to strip me of all conceit and bring me to realize that it is possible to live in a palace without feeling the need for bodyguards or fancy uniforms, candelabra, statues or the other trappings of suchlike pomp, but that one can reduce oneself to the station of a private citizen and thereby not lose any dignity or vigor in the conduct of a ruler's responsibility for the common good.

BOOK 1- 16-7

He was not one to bath at all hours; he had no urge to build houses; he was not particular about food, the material and colour of his clothes, or youthful beauty in his slaves; the fact that his dress came from Lorium sent up from his country house there; the many details of his way of life at Lanuvium; how he handled the apologetic customs officer in Tusculum, and all such modes of behavior.

Nothing about him, was harsh, relentless, or impetuous, and you would never say of him that he 'broke out a sweat': but everything was allotted its own time and thought, as by a man of leisure - his way was unhurried, organized, vigorous, consistent in all. What is recorded of Socrates would apply to him too; that he could regulate abstinence and enjoyment where many people are too weak-willed to abstain or enjoy too indulgently.

Strength of character - and endurance or sobriety as the case may be - signifies the man of full and indomitable spirit, as was shown by Maximus.