BOOK 7 -6

How many who once rose to fame are now consigned to oblivion: and how many who sang their fame are long disappeared.

BOOK 7 -5

Is my mind sufficient for this task, or is not? If it is, I use it for the task as an instrument given me by the nature of the Whole. If it is not, I either cede to the work (if it is otherwise my responsibility) someone better able to accomplish it, or do it best as I can, calling in aid someone who, in cooperation with my own directing mind, can achieve what is at this particular time the need and benefit of the community. Whatever I do, either by myself or with another, should have this sole focus - the common benefit and harmony.

BOOK 7 -4

In conversations one ought to follow closely what is said, in any impulse to follow closely what takes place. In the latter case, to see immediately the intended object of reference: in the former, to watch carefully what is meant.

BOOK 7 -3

The empty pomp of a procession, plays on the stage, flocks and herds, jousting shows, a bone thrown to puppies, tidbits into the fishpond, ants toiling and carrying, the scurries of frightened mice, puppets dancing on their strings. Well, amid all this you must keep yourself tolerant - do not snort at them. But bear in mind that a person's worth is measured by the worth of what he values.

BOOK 7 -2

Your principles are living things. How else could they be deadened, except by the extinction of the corresponding mental images?  And the constant rekindling of these is up to you. 'I am able to form the judgement I should about this event. If able, why troubled? All that lies outside my mind is nothing to it.'  Learn this, and you stand upright. You can live once more. Look at things again as you used to look at them: in this is the resumption of life. 

BOOK 7 -1

This is wickedness: this is what you have often seen.  And you should have this thought ready to hand against any eventuality: 'I have seen this often before.' Generally wherever you look you will find the same things. The histories - ancient, more recent, and modern - are full of them: cities and households are full of them today. There is nothing new. All is familiar, and all short-lived.

BOOK 6 -59

What sort of people they wish to please! And what kind of actions are the means to success! How quickly time will cover everything - and how much everything is covered already.

BOOK 6 -58

No one will prevent you from living in accordance with the principle of your own nature: nothing will happen to you contrary to the principle of universal nature.

BOOK 6 -57

Appearances: to the jaundiced honey seems bitter, to those bitten by rabid dogs water is terror, to little boys a ball is joy. Why then am I angry? Or do you think that false representation has less effect than bile in the jaundiced or poison in the hydrophobic?

BOOK 6 -56

How many with whom I came into the world have left!

BOOK 6 -55

If sailors spoke ill of their captains or patients ill of their doctors, who else would they listen to? Otherwise how would the captain achieve a safe voyage for the passengers or the doctor health for those in his care?

BOOK 6 -54

What does not benefit the hive does not benefit the bee either.

BOOK 6 -53

Accustom yourself not to be disregarding of what someone else has to to say: as far as possible enter into the mind of the speaker.

BOOK 6 -52

It is possible to have no understanding of this and not to be troubled in mind: things of themselves have no inherent power to form our judgements.

BOOK 6 -51

How to understand your own good: the lover of glory takes it to be the reactions of others; the lover of pleasure takes it to be his own passive experience; the intelligent man sees it as his own action.

BOOK 6 -50

Try to persuade them, but act even if they are unpersuaded, whether the principle of justice so directs. But if someone forcibly resists, change tack to an unhurt acceptance, so using the obstacle to bring forth a different virtue. And remember that if you set out on a conditional course - you were not aiming at the the impossible. So what were you aiming at? An impulse qualified by a condition. This you have achieved: what we proposed to ourselves has been accomplished.

BOOK 6 -48

Whenever you want to cheer yourself, think of the qualities of your fellows - the energy of one, for example, the decency of another, the generosity of a third, some other merits in a fourth. There is nothing so cheering as the stamp of virtues manifest in the character of colleagues - and the greater the collective incidence, the better. So keep them ready to hand.

BOOK 6 -47

Think constantly of all sorts of men, of various professions and of all nations on earth, who have died: and so bring your thought down to Philistion, Phoebus, and Origanion. Pass now to the other classes of men. We too are bound to change our abode to that other world, where there are so many skilled orators, so many distinguished philosophers - Heraclitus, Pythagoras, Socrates - so many heroes of old, so many later commanders and kings.

Add Eudoxus, Hipparchus, Achimedes; add other men of penetrating intellect, men of great vision, men dedicated to their work; add rogues, bigots, and even satirists of this transient mortal life, like Menippus and his kind. Reflect of all of these that they are long dead and buried. So, is this anything terrible for them - or indeed for men whose very names are lost? In this world there is only one thing of value, to live out your life in truth and justice, tolerant of those who are neither true nor just.

BOOK 6 -46

Just as the business of the amphitheater and such places offends you as always one and the same sight, and monotony of the spectacle bores you, so it is too with your experience of life as a whole: everything, up or down, is the same, with the same causes. How much longer, then?

BOOK 6 -45

All that happens to the individual is to the benefit of the Whole. So far, so clear. But if you look more closely you will also see as a general rule that what benefits one person benefits other people too - though here 'benefit' should be taken in its popular application to things which are in fact indifferent.

BOOK 6 -44-3

As Antoninus, my city and country is Rome: as a human being, it is the world. So what benefits these two cities is my only good.

BOOK 6 -44-2

But if after all they take thought for nothing (an impious thing to believe - otherwise let us abandon sacrifice, prayer to the gods, swearing by the gods, all the other things which we variously do on the assumption that the gods are with us and share our lives) - if then, they take no thought for any concerns, it is open to me to take thought for myself: and my concern is for what is best. Best for each is what suits his own condition and nature: and my nature is both rational and social. 

BOOK 6 -44

Now if the gods took thought for me and for what must happen to me, they will have thought for my good. It is not easy to conceive of a thoughtless god, and what possible reason could they have had to be bent on my harm? What advantage would there have been from that either for themselves or for the common good, which is the main concern of their providence? If they did not take individual thought for me, then certainly they took thought for the common good, and since what happens to me is a consequential part of that, I should accept and welcome it.

BOOK 6 -43

Does the sun presume to do the work of the rain-god, or Asclepius that of the goddess of harvest? And what of each of the stars? Is it not that they are different, but work together to the same end?

BOOK 6 -42

We all work together to the same end, some with conscious attention, others without knowing it - just as Heraclitus, I think, says that even people asleep are workers in the factory of all that happens in the world.

One person contributes in this way, another in that: and there is room even for the critic who tries to oppose or destroy the production - the world had need of him too. So it remains for you to decide in which category you place yourself. Certainly, He who governs the Whole will make good use of you and welcome you into some part of the joint workforce: but just make sure that your part is not that of the cheap and vulgar line in the comedy, as noted by Chrysippus.

BOOK 6 -41

If you set up as good or evil any of the things beyond your control, it necessarily follows that in the occurrence of that evil or the frustration of that good you blame the gods and hate the men who are the real or suspected causes of that occurrence or that frustration: and indeed we do much injustice through our concern for such things. But if we determine that only what lies in our own power is good or evil, there is no reason left us either to charge a god or to take a hostile stance to a man.

BOOK 6 -40

An instrument, a tool, a utensil - all these things are fine if they perform the function for which they are made. And yet in such cases the maker is external to the object made. In the case of things held together by organic nature, the power that made them is within, and immanent in them. You should therefore respect it the more, and believe that if you keep your being and your conduct in accordance with the will of this power, all then conforms to your mind. So it is in the Whole also: all that is in it conforms to the mind of the Whole.

BOOK 6 -39

Fit yourself for the matters which have fallen to your lot, and love these people among whom destiny has cast you - but your love must be genuine.