BOOK 6 -15

Some things are hurrying to come into being, others, are hurrying to be gone, and part of that which is being born is already extinguished. Flows and changes are constantly renewing the world, just as the ceaseless passage of time makes eternity ever young. In this river, then, where there can be no foothold, what should anyone prize of all that races past him? It is as if he were to begin to fancy one of the little sparrows that fly past - but already it is gone from his sight. Indeed this is the nature of our lives - as transient as the exhalation of vapor from the blood or breath drawn from the air. No different from a single breath taken in and returned to the air, something which we do every moment, no different is the giving back of your whole power of breathing - acquired at your birth just yesterday or thereabouts - to that world from which you first drew it.

BOOK 6 -14

Most of the things valued by the masses come under the categories of what is sustained by cohesion (minerals, timber, or natural growth (figs,vines, olives). What is valued by the slightly more advanced belongs to the class of things sustained by a principle of life, such as flocks and herds, or the bare ownership of a multitude of slaves. The things valued by yet more refined people are those sustained by the rational soul - not, however, reason as such, but reason expressed in craftsmanship or some other skill. But the man who fully esteems the soul as both rational and political no longer has any regard for those other things, but above all else keeps his one soul in a constant state of rational and social activity, and cooperates to that end with his like.

BOOK 6 -13

How good it is, when you have roast meat or suchlike foods before you, to impress on your mind that this is the dead body of fish, this the dead body of a bird or a pig; and again, that the Falernian wine is the mere juice of grapes, and your purple-edged robe simply the hair of a sheep soaked in shell-fish blood! And in sexual intercourse that is no more than the friction of a membrane  and a spurt of mucus ejected. How good these perceptions are at getting to the heart of the real thing and penetrating through it, so you can see it for what it is! This should be your practice throughout all your life: when things have such a plausible appearance, show them naked, see their shoddiness, strip away their own boastful account of themselves. Vanity is the greatest seducer of reason: when you are most convinced that your work is important, that is when you are most under its spell. See, for example, what Crates says even about Xenocrates.

BOOK 6 -12

If you had a step-mother and a mother at the same time, you would pay attention to your step-mother but nonetheless your constant recourse would be to your mother. That is now how it is with the Court and philosophy. So return to philosophy again and again, and take your comfort to her: she will make the other seem bearable to you, and you bearable in it.

BOOK 6 -11

When circumstances force you to some sort of distress, quickly return to yourself. Do not stay out of rhythm for longer than you must: you will master the harmony the more by constantly going back to it.

BOOK 6 -10

Either a stew, an intricate web, and dispersal into atoms: or unity, order, and providence. Now if the former, why do I even wish to spend my time in a world compounded at random and in like confusion? Why have any concern other than somehow, some time, to become 'earth unto earth'? And why actually am I troubled? Dispersal will come on me, whatever I do. But if the latter is true, I revere it, I stand firm, I take courage in that which directs all.

BOOK 6 -9

All things have their accomplishments in accordance with the nature of the Whole: it could not be in accordance with any other nature, either enclosing from without or enclosed within, or any external influence.

BOOK 6 -8

The directing mind is that which wakes itself, adapts itself, makes itself of whatever nature it wishes, and makes all that happens to it appear in the way it wants.

BOOK 6 -7

Let one thing be your joy and comfort: to move on from social act to social act, with your mind on god.

BOOK 6 -6

The best revenge is not to be like your enemy.

BOOK 6 -5

The governing reason knows its own disposition, what it creates, and what is the material for its creation.

BOOK 6 -4

All that exists will change. Either it will be turned into vapor, if all matter is unity, or it will be scattered in atoms.

BOOK 6 -3

Look within: do not allow the special quality or worth of anything to pass you by.

BOOK 6 -2

If you are doing your proper duty let it not matter to you whether to you whether you are cold or warm, whether you are sleepy or well-slept, whether men speak badly or well of you, even whether you are on the point of death or doing something else because even this, the act in which we die, is one of the acts of life, and so here too it suffices to 'make the best move you can'.

BOOK 6 -1

The substance of the Whole is passive and malleable, and the reason directing this substance has no cause in itself to do wrong, as there is no wrong in it: nothing it creates is wrongly made, nothing harmed by it. All things have their beginning and their end in accordance with it.

BOOK 5 -37

'There was a time when I met luck at every turn.' But luck is the good fortune you determine for yourself: and good fortune consists in good inclinations of the soul, good impulses, good actions.

BOOK 5 -36

Don't let the impression of other people's grief carry you away indiscriminately. Help them, yes, as best you can and as the case deserves, even if their grief is for the loss of something indifferent: but do not imagine their loss as any real harm - that is the wrong way of thinking. Rather, you should be like the old man in the play who reclaimed at the end his foster-child's favorite toy, never forgetting that it was only a toy. So there you are, broadcasting your pity on the hustings - have you forgotten, man, what these things are worth? 'Yes, but they are important to these folk'. Is that any reason for you to join their folly?

BOOK 5 -25

If there is no wrongdoing of mine, nor the result of any wrong done to me, and if the community is not harmed, then why do I let it trouble me? And what is the harm that can be done to the community?                                                          

BOOK 5 -34

You can always insure the right current to your life if you can first follow the right path - if, that is, your judgements and actions follow the path of reason. There are two things common to the souls of all rational creatures, god or man: they are immune to any external impediment, and the good they seek resides in a just disposition and just action, with this the limit of their desire.

BOOK 5 -33

In no time at all ashes or bare bones, a mere name or not even a name: and if a name, only sound and echo. The 'prizes' of life empty, rotten, puny: puppies snapping at each other, children squabbling, laughter turning straight to tears. And Faith, Honor, Justice, and Truth 'fled up to Olympus from the wide-wayed earth'.

So what else is there to keep us here, if the objects of sense are ever changeable and unstable, if our senses themselves are blurred and easily smudged like wax, if our very soul is a mere exaltation of blood, if success in such a world is vacuous? What then? A calm wait for whatever it is, either extinction or translation. And until the time for that comes what do we need? Only to worship and praise the gods, and to do good to men - to bear and forebear. And to remember that all that lies within the limits of our poor carcass and our little breath is neither yours nor in your power.

BOOK 5 -32

Why do unskilled and ignorant minds confound the skillful and the wise? Well, what is the mind of true skill and wisdom? It is the mind which knows the beginning and the end, and knows Reason which informs all of existence and governs the Whole in appointed cycles through all eternity.

BOOK 5 -31

How have you behaved up to now towards the gods, parents, brother, wife, children, teachers, tutors, friends, relations, servants? Has your principle up to now with all of these been 'say no evil, do no evil'?

Remind yourself what you have been through and had the strength to endure; that the story of your life is fully told and your service completed; how often you have seen beauty, disregarded pleasure and pain, forgone glory, and been kind to the unkind.

BOOK 5 -30

The intelligence of the Whole is a social intelligence. Certainly it has made the lower for the sake of the higher, and set the higher in harmony with each other. You can see how it has subordinated some creatures, coordinated others, given each in proper place, and brought together the superior beings in unity of mind.

BOOK 5 -29

You can live here in this world just as you intend to live when you have left it. But if this is allowed you, then you should depart life itself - but not as if this were some misfortune. 'The fire smokes and I leave the house.' Why think this any big matter? But as long as no such thing drives me out, I remain a free man and no one will prevent me doing what I wish to do: and my wish is to follow the nature of a rational and social being.

BOOK 5 -28

Are you angry with the man who smells like a goat, or the one with foul breath? What will you have him do? That's the way his mouth is, that's the way his armpits are, so it is inevitable that they should give out odors to match. 'But the man is endowed with reason' you say, 'and if he puts his mind to it he can work out why he causes offense.' Well, good for you! So you too are no less endowed with reason: bring your rationality, then, to bear on his rationality - show him, tell him. If he listens, you will cure him, and no need for anger.

Neither hypocrite or whore.

BOOK 5 -27

'Live with the gods.' He lives with the gods who consistently shows them his soul content with its lot, and performing the wishes of that divinity, that fragment of himself which Zeus has given to each person to guard and guide him. In each of us is our mind and reason.

BOOK 5 -26

The directing and sovereign part of your soul must stay immune to any current in the flesh, either smooth or troubled, and keep its independence: it must define its own sphere and confine those affections to the parts they affect. When, though, as must happen in a composite unity, these affections are transmitted to the mind along the reverse route of sympathy, then you must not try to deny the perception of them: but your directing mind must not of itself add any judgment of good or bad.

BOOK 5 -25

Another does wrong. What is that to me? Let him see to it: he has his own disposition, his own action. I have now what universal nature wishes me to have, and I do what my own nature wishes me to do now.