BOOK 10 -10

A spider is proud to trap a fly. Men are proud of their own hunting - a hare, a sprat in the net, boars, bears, Sarmatian  prisoners. If you examine their motives, Are they not bandits?

BOOK 10 -9

Farce, war, frenzy, torpor, slavery! Day by day those sacred doctrines of yours will be wiped out, whenever you conceive and admit them untested by natural philosophy. Every perception, every action must both satisfy the circumstantial and exercise the theoretical, so that you preserve the confidence of precise knowledge in every particular - this confidence unobtrusive, but not concealed.

Because when will you take your pleasure in simplicity? When in dignity? When in the knowledge of each individual thing - what is its essential nature, its place in the world, its natural span of existence, what are its components, to whom can it belong, who can give it and take it away?

BOOK 10 -8-4

A great help to keeping these claims to virtue fresh in your mind will be to keep your mind on the gods,  remembering that what they want is not servile flattery but the development of all rational beings into their own image: they want the fig tree to do the proper work of the fig tree, the dog of a dog, the bee of a bee - and the proper work of man.

BOOK 10 -8-3

Launch yourself, then, on these few claims. If you can stay within them, stay there like a man translated to some paradise, the Islands of the Blest. But if you feel yourself falling away and losing control, retire in good heart to some corner where you will regain control - or else make a complete exit from life, not in anger, but simply, freely, with integrity, making this leaving of it at least one achievement in your life.

BOOK 10 -8-2

To continue the same man as you have been up to now, to be torn apart and defiled in this life you live, is just senseless self-preservation like that of half-eaten gladiators who, mauled all over and covered in blood by the wild beasts, still plead to be kept alive for the next day, when in the same state they will again those same claws and teeth.

BOOK 10 -8

Claim your entitlements to these epithets - good, decent, truthful; in mind clear, cooperative, and independent - and take care then not to swap them for other names: and if you do forfeit these titles, return to them quickly. Remember, too, that 'clarity of mind' was meant to signify for you discriminating attention to detail and vigorous thought; 'a cooperative mind'  the willing acceptance of the dispensation of universal nature; 'independence of mind' the elevation of your thinking faculty above the calm or troubled affections of the flesh, above paltry fame or death or other indifferent thing. So if you keep yourself true to these titles, not just grabbing for this aclaimation from others, you will be a new man and enter a new life.

BOOK 10 -7-3

And do not imagine that this solid and this spirit are the same as at original birth. All this was gathered only yesterday or the day before from the influx of food consumed and air breathed in. So what changes is the gathered influx, and not what your mother bore. Suppose now that this influx has close implication in your individual self: that, I think has no bearing on the present argument.

BOOK 10 -7-2

But, if someone abandons the concept of nature and explains these things as 'just the way things are' how absurd it is to combine the assertion that the parts of the Whole are naturally subject to change with surprise or resentment as if this change was something contrary to nature - especially as the dissolution of each thing is into the elements of which it is composed. Dissolution is either a scattering of the component elements or the change of solid to earth and spirit to air, so that these too are submitted into the Reason of the Whole, whether the Whole is periodically turned to fire or renews itself though eternal mutations. 

BOOK 10 -7

The parts of the Whole, all that forms the natural compliment of the universe, must necessarily perish - and 'perish' should be taken in the sense of 'change'. Now if nature made this 'perishing' of the parts detrimental to them as well as necessary, the Whole would be poorly maintained when its parts are always on the way to change and specifically constituted to perish. Did nature deliberately undertake to harm the parts of herself, to render them both exposed to harm and necessarily condemned to fall into harm, or did she not notice these consequences? Hard to believe either. 

BOOK 10 -6-2

So remembering that I am part of a whole so constituted will leave me happy with all that happens to me. And in so far as I have some close relationship with the other kindred parts, I shall do nothing unsocial, but rather look to the good of my kin and have every impulse directed to the common benefit and diverted from its opposite. All this in operation guarantees that life will flow when he moves on through acts which benefit his fellow citizens, and welcomes all that his city assigns him.

BOOK 10 -6

Whether atoms or a natural order, the first premise must be that I am part of a Whole which is governed by nature: the second, that I have some close relationship with the other kindred parts. With these premises in mind, in so far as I am a part I shall not resent anything assigned by the Whole. Nothing which benefits the Whole can be harmful to the part, and the Whole contains nothing which is not to its benefit. All organic natures have this in common, but the nature of the universe has this additional attribute, that no external cause can force it to create anything harmful to itself.

BOOK 10 -5

Whatever happens to you was being prepared for you from everlasting, and the mesh of causes was ever spinning from eternity both your own existence and the incidence of this particular happening.

BOOK 10 -4

If he is going wrong, teach him kindly and show him what he has failed to see. If you can't do that, blame yourself - or perhaps not even yourself.

BOOK 10 -3

All that happens is an event either within your natural ability to bear it, or not. So if it is an event within that ability, do not complain, but bear it as you were born to. If outside that ability, do not complain either: it will take you away before you have the chance for complaint. Remember, though, that you are by nature born to bear all that your own judgement can decide bearable, or tolerate in action, if you represent it to yourself benefit or duty.

BOOK 10 -2

Observe what your physical nature requires, as one subject to the condition of mere life. Then do it and welcome it, as  long as your nature as an animate being will not be impaired. Next, you should observe what your nature as an animate being requires: again, adopt all of this, as long as your nature as a rational being will not be impaired. And rational directly implies social. Follow these rules, and no further fuss.

BOOK 10 -1

My soul, will you ever be good, simple, individual, bare, brighter than the body that covers you? Will you ever rase the disposition to love and affection? Will you ever be complete and free of need, missing nothing, desiring nothing live or lifeless for the enjoyment of pleasure? Or time for longer enjoyment or amenity of place, space, and climate? Or good company? No, will you not rather be satisfied with your present state and take pleasure in all that is presently yours? Will you not convince yourself that your experience comes from the gods, that all is well and will be well for you, all that the gods see fit to give you, now and hereafter, in the maintenance of that perfect Being which is good and just and beautiful, which generates all things, sustains and contains all things, embraces all things as they dissolve into the generation of others like them? Will you ever be such as to share the society of gods and men without any criticism of them or condemnation by them?

BOOK 9 - 42-4

Above all, when you complain of disloyalty or ingratitude, turn inwards on yourself. The fault is clearly your own, if you trusted that a man of that character would keep his trust, or if you conferred a favor without making it an end in itself, your very action its own and complete reward. What more do you want, man, from a kind of act? Is it not enough that you have done something consonant with your own nature - do you now put a price on it? As the eye demanded a return for seeing, or the feet for walking. Just as these were made for a particular purpose, and fulfill their proper nature by acting in accordance with their own constitution, so a man was made to do good: and whenever he does something good or otherwise contributory to the common interest, he has done what he was designed for, and inherits his own.

BOOK 9 42 -3

Anyway, where is the harm or surprise in the ignorant behavior as the ignorant do? Think about it. Should you not reckon this mistake likely from this man, yet you forgot and are now surprised that he went wrong.