BOOK 12 -21

That in a short while you will be nobody and nowhere; and the same of all that you now see and all who are now alive. It is the nature of all things to change, to perish and be transformed, so that in succession different things can come to be.

BOOK 12 -20

First, nothing aimless or without ulterior reference. Second, no reference to any end other than the common good.

BOOK 12 -19

Realize at long last that you have within you something stronger and more numinous than those agents of emotions which make you a puppet on theirs strings. What is in my mind at this very moment? Fear, is it? Suspicion? Desire? Something else of that sort?

BOOK 12 -18

Your impulse on every occasion should be to a complete survey of what exactly this thing is which is making an impression on your mind - to open it out by analysis into cause, material, reference, and the time span within which it must cease to be.

BOOK 12 -17

If it is not right, don't do it: If it is not true don't say it.

BOOK 12 -16

Presented with the impression that someone has done wrong, how do I know that this was a wrong? And if it was indeed a wrong, how do I know that he was not already condemning himself. which is the equivalent of tearing his own face?

   Wanting the bad man not do wrong is like wanting the fig tree not to produce rennet in its figs, babies not to cry, horses not to neigh, or any other inevitable fact of nature. What else can he do with a state of mind like this? So if you are really keen, cure his state.

BOOK 12 -15

The light of a lamp shines on and does not lose its radiance until it is extinguished. Will then the truth, justice, and self-control which fuel you fail before your own end?

BOOK 12 - 14

Either the compulsion of destiny and an order allowing no deviation, or a providence open to prayer, or a random welter without direction. Now if undeviating compulsion, why resist it? If a providence admitting the placation of prayer, make yourself worthy of divine assistance. If an ungoverned welter, be glad that such a maelstrom you have within yourself a directing mind of your own: if the flood carries you away, let it take your flesh, your breath, all else - but it will not carry away your mind.

BOOK 12 -13

How absurd - and a complete stranger to the world -is the man surprised at any aspect of his existence in life!

BOOK 12 - 12-2

Do not blame men either: all their wrongs are unwilled. No one, then, should be blamed.

BOOK 12 -12

Do not blame the gods: they do no wrong, willed or unwilled.

BOOK 12 -11

What liberty man has to do only what god will approve, and to welcome all that god assigns him in this course of nature!

BOOK 12 -10

See things for what they are, analyzing into material, cause, and reference.

BOOK 12 -9

The model for the application of your principles is the boxer rather than the gladiator. The gladiator puts down or takes up the sword he uses, but the boxer always has his hands and needs only to clench them into fists.

BOOK 12 -8

Look at causation stripped bare of its covers; what is pain? What is pleasure? What is death? What is fame? Who is not himself the cause of his own unrest? Reflect how no one is hampered by any other; and that all is as thinking makes it so.

BOOK 12 -7

How one should be in both body and soul when overtaken by death; the shortness of life, the immensity of time future and past, the feebleness of all things material.

BOOK 12 -6

Practice even what you have despaired of mastering. For lack of practice the left hand is awkward for most tasks, but has a stronger grip on the bridle than the right -it is practiced in this.

BOOK 12 -5-2

Now if this is indeed the case, you can be sure that if it should have been otherwise the gods would have made it otherwise: because if that t were right, it would also have been possible, and if in accordance with nature, nature would have brought it about. Therefore the fact (if indeed that is a fact) should assure you that it is not to be otherwise.  You can see for yourself that in raising this presumptuous question you are pleading a case with god, But we would not enter such debate with the gods if they were not supremely good and just: and if that is so, they would not have let any part of their ordered arrangements of the world escape them through neglect of justice or reason.

BOOK 12 -5

However was it that the gods, who have ordered all else so well and with such love for men, overlooked this one thing, that some men, the very best of them, those who had conducted, as it were, the most commerce with the divine and reached the closest relation to it through their acts of devotion and  their observances - that these men, once dead, should meet perpetual extinction rather than some return to existence?

BOOK 12 -4

I have often wondered how it is that everyone loves himself more than anyone else, but rates his own judgement of himself below that of others. Anyway, if a god or some wise tutor appeared at his side and told him to entertain no internal thought or intention which he won't immediately broadcast outside, he would not tolerate this regime for a single day. So it is that we have more respect for what our neighbors will think of us than we have of ourselves.

BOOK 12 -3-2

If, as I say, you separate from the directing mind of yours the baggage of passion, time further and past, and make yourself like Empedocles' 'perfect round rejoicing in the solitude it enjoys', and seek only to perfect this life you are living in the present, you will be able at least to live out the time remaining before your death calmly, kindly, and at peace with the god inside you.

BOOK 12 -3

There are three things in your composition: body, breath, and mind. The first two are yours to the extent that you must take care of them, but only the third is in the full sense your own. So, if you separate from yourself - that is, from your mind - all that others say or do, all that you yourself have said or done, and associate breath bring on you without your choice, all that is whirled round in the external vortex encircling use, so that your power of mind, transcending now all contingent ties, can exist on its own, pure and liberated, doing what is just, willing what happens to it, and saying what is true.

BOOK 11 -3

God sees all our directing minds stripped of their material vessels, their husks and their dross. His contact is only between his intelligence and what has flowed from him into these channels of ours. If you train yourself to do the same, you will be rid of what so distracts you. Hardly likely, is it, that one blind to the enveloping flesh will spend his time eying clothes, houses, reputation, or any other such trappings and stage scenery?

BOOK 12 -2

If, then when you finally come close to your exit, you have left all else behind and value only your directing mind and the divinity within you, if your fear is not that you will cease to live, but that you never started a life in accordance with nature, then you will be a man worthy of the universe that gave you birth. You will no longer be a stranger in your own country, no longer meet the day's events as if bemused by the unexpected, no longer hang on this or that.