BOOK 4 -51

Always run on the short road: and nature's road is short. Go then for the healthiest in all you say and do. Such a purpose releases a man from the labors of service, from all need to manage or impress.

BOOK 4 - 50

An unphilosophic but nonetheless effective help to putting death in its place is to run over the list of those who have clung long to life. What did they gain over the untimely dead? At any rate they are all in their graves by now - Caedicianus, Fabius, Julianus, Lepidus, and all others like them who took part in funerals and then their own. In truth, the distance we have to to travel is small: and we drag it out with such labour, in such poor company, in such a feeble body. No great thing, then. Look behind you at the huge gulf of time, and another infinity ahead. In this perspective what is the difference between an infant of three days and a Nestor of three generations?

BOOK 4 -49

Be like the rocky headland on which waves constantly break. It stands firm, and round it the seething waters are laid to rest. 

'It is my bad luck that this has happened to me.' No, you should rather say: 'It is my good luck that, although this has happened to me, I can bear it without pain, neither crushed by the present nor fearful of the future.' Because such a thing could have happened to any man, but not every man could have borne it without pain. So why see more misfortune in the event than good fortune in your ability to bear it? Or in general would you call anything a misfortune for a man which is not a deviation from man's nature? Or anything a deviation from man's nature which is not contrary to the purpose of his nature? Well, then. You have learnt what that purpose is. Can there be anything, then, in this happening which prevents you being just, high-minded, self-controlled, intelligent, judicious, truthful, honorable and free - or any other of those attributes whose combination is the fulfillment of man's proper nature? So in all future events which might induce sadness remember to call on this principle: 'this is no misfortune, but to bear it true to yourself is good fortune.'

BOOK 4 -48

Think constantly how many doctors have died, after knitting their brows over their own patients, how many astrologers, after predicting the deaths of others, as if death were something important; how many philosophers, after endless deliberation on death or immortality; how many heroes, after the many others they killed; how many tyrants, after using their power over mens's lives with monstrous insolence, as if they themselves were immortal. Think too how many whole cities have 'died' - Helice, Pompeii, Herculaneum, innumerable others. Go over now all those you have known yourself, one after the other:  then another one man follows a friend's funeral and is then laid out himself, then another follows him - and all in a brief space of time. The conclusion of all this? You should always look on human life as short and cheap. Yesterday sperm: tomorrow a mummy or ashes.

So one should pass through this tiny fragment of time in tune with nature, and leave it gladly, as an olive might fall when ripe, blessing the earth which bore it and grateful to the tree which gave it growth.

BOOK 4 -47

Just as if a god told you that you would die tomorrow or at least the day after tomorrow, you would attach no importance to the difference of one day, unless you are a complete coward (such is the tiny gap of time): so you should think there no great difference between life to the umpteenth year and life to tomorrow.

BOOK 4 -46

Always remember Heraclitus: 'The death of earth is the birth of water; the death of water is the birth of air; the death of air is fire , and back again.' Remember too his image of the man who forgets his way home; his saying that men are at odds with their most constant companion, the Reason which governs all things; that their everyday experience takes them by surprise; that we must not act or speak as if asleep, and sleep brings the illusion  of speech and action; and that we should not be like children with their parents, simply accepting what we are told.

BOOK 4 -45

What comes after is always in affinity to what went before. Not some simple enumeration of disparate things and a merely necessary sequence, but a rational connection: and just as existing things are harmoniously interconnected, so the processes of becoming exhibit no mere succession, but a wonderfully inherent affinity.

BOOK 4 - 44

All that happens is as habitual and familiar as roses in spring and fruit in the summer. True, too, of disease, death, and defamation, and conspiracy - and all that delights or gives pain to fools.

BOOK 4 -43

There is a river of creation, and time is a violent stream As soon as one thing comes into sight, it is swept past and another is carried down: it too will be taken on its way.

BOOK 4 -42

Change: nothing inherently bad in the process, nothing inherently good in the result.

BOOK 4 -41

You are a soul; carrying a corpse, as Epictetus used to say.

BOOK 4 -40

Think always of the universe as one living creature, comprising one substance and one soul: how all is absorbed into this one consciousness; how a single impulse governs all its actions; how all things collaborate in all that happens; the very web and mesh of it all.

BOOK 4 -39

Harm to you cannot subsist in another's directing mind, nor indeed in any turn or change of circumstance. Where, then? In that part of you which judge harm. So no such judgement, and all is well. Even if what is closet to it, your own body, is subjected to knife or cautery, or left to suppurate or mortify, even so that faculty in you which judges these things should stay untroubled. That is , it should assess nothing either bad or good which can happen equally to the bad man or good: because what can happen to a man irrespective of his life's conformity to nature is not of itself in accordance with nature or contrary to it.

BOOK 4 -38

Look into their directing minds: observe what even the wise will avoid or pursue.

BOOK 4 -37

Your death will soon be on you: and you are not yet clear-minded, or untroubled, or convinced that justice of action is the only wisdom.

BOOK 4 -36

Constantly observe all that comes through change, and habituate yourself to the thought that the nature of the Whole loves nothing so much as to change one form of existence into another, similar but new. All that exists is in a sense the seed of its successor: but your concept of 'seed' is simply what is put into the earth or the womb - that is very unphilosophic thinking.

BOOK 4 -35

All is ephemeral, both memory and the object of memory.

BOOK 4 -34

Gladly surrender yourself to Clotho: let her spin your thread into whatever web she wills.

BOOK 4 -33

Words in common use long ago are obsolete now. So too the names of those once famed are in a sense obsolete - Camillus, Caeso, Volesus, Dentatus; a little later Scipio and Cato, then Augustus too, then Hadrian and Antoninus. All things fade and quickly turn to myth: quickly too utter oblivion drowns them. And I am talking of those who shone with some wonderful brilliance: the rest, once they have breathed  their last, are immediately 'beyond knowledge'. But what in any case is everlasting memory? Utter emptiness.

So where should a man direct his endeavor? here only - a right mind, action for the common good, speech incapable of lies, a disposition to welcome all that happens as necessary, intelligible, flowing from an equally intelligible spring of origin.

BOOK 4 -32-2

Pass on again to the time of Trajan, Again, everything the same. That life too is dead.

Similarly, look at the histories of other eras and indeed whole nations, and see resolution into the elements. Above all, review in your mind those you have seen yourself in empty struggles, refusing to act in accord with their own natural constitution, to hold tight to it and find it sufficient. And in this context you must remember that there is proportionate value in our attention to each action - so you will not lose heart if you devote no more time than they warrant to matters of less importance.

BOOK 4 -32

Consider, for example, the time of Vespasian. You will see everything the same. People marrying, having children, falling ill, dying, fighting, feasting, trading, farming, flattering, pushing, suspecting, plotting, praying for the death of others, grumbling at their lot, falling in love, storing up wealth, longing of consulships and kingships. And now that life of theirs is gone, vanished.

BOOK 4 -31

Love the art which you have learnt, and take comfort in it. Go through the remainder of your life in sincere commitment of all your being to the gods, and never making yourself a tyrant or slave to any man.

BOOK 4 -30

One philosopher has no shirt, one has no book. Here is another half-naked: 'I have no bread', he says, 'but I am faithful to Reason.' But I, for my part, have all the food of learning, and yet I am not faithful.

BOOK 4 -29

If one who does not recognize the contents of the universe is a stranger in it, no less a stranger is the one who fails to recognize what happens on it. He is a fugitive if he runs away from social principle; blind, if he shuts the eye of the mind; a beggar, if he depends on others and does not possess within him all he needs for life; a tumor on the universe, if he stands aside and separates himself from the principle of our common nature in dissatisfaction with his lot (for it is nature which brings this about, just as it brought you about too); a social splinter, if he splits his own soul away from the soul of all rational beings, which is a unity.

BOOK 4 -28

A black character, an effeminate, unbending character, the character of a brute or dumb animal: infantile, stupid, fraudulent, coarse,  mercenary, despotic.

BOOK 4 -27

Either an ordered universe, or a stew of mixed ingredients, yet still coherent order. otherwise how could a sort of private order subsist within you, if there is disorder in the Whole? Especially given that all things, distinct as they are, nevertheless permeate and respond to each other.

BOOK 4 -26

You have seen that: now look at this. do not trouble yourself, keep yourself simple. Someone does you wrong? He does wrong to himself. Has something happened to you? Fine. All that has happens has been fated by the Who;e from the beginning and spun for you own destiny. In sum, life is short: make your gain from the present moment with right reason and justice. keep sober and relaxed.

BOOK 4 -25

Try out too how the life of the good man goes for you - the man content with his dispensation from the Whole, and satisfied in his own just action and kind disposition.

BOOK 4 -24

'If you want to be happy' says Democritus, 'do little.' May it not be better to do what is necessary, what the reason of a naturally social being demands, and the way reason demands it done? This brings the happiness both of right action and of little action. Most of what we say and do is unnecessary: remove the superfluity, and you will have more time and less bother. So in every case one should prompt oneself: 'Is this, or is it not, something necessary?' And the removal of the unnecessary should apply not only to actions but to thoughts also: then no redundant actions either will follow.

BOOK 4 -23

Universe, your harmony is my harmony: nothing in your good time is too early or too late for me. Nature, all that you your seasons bring is fruit to me: all comes from you, exists in you, returns to you. The poet says, 'Dear city of Cecrops': will you not say "Dear city of Zeus'?

BOOK 4 -22

No wandering. In every impulse, give what is right: in every thought, stick to what is certain.

BOOK 4 -21 -2

We should consider, though, not only the multitudes of bodies thus buried, but also the number of animals eaten every day by us and other creatures - a huge quantity consumed and in a sense buried in the bodies of those who feed on them. And yet there is room for them because they are reduced to blood and changed into the elements of air and fire.

How to investigate the truth of this? By distinguishing the material and the causal.

BOOK 4 -20

You may ask how, if souls live on, the air can accommodate them all from the beginning of time. Well, how does the earth accommodate all those bodies buried in it over the same eternity? Just as here on earth, once bodies have kept their residence for whatever time, their change and decomposition makes room for other bodies, so it is with souls migrated to the air. They continue for a time, then change, dissolve, and take fire as they are assumed into the generative principle of the Whole: in this way they make room for successive residents. Such would be one's answer on the assumption that souls do live on.

BOOK 4 -20

Everything in any way beautiful has its beauty of itself, inherent and self-sufficient: praise is no part of it. At any rate, praise does not make anything better or worse. This applies even to the popular conception of beauty, as in material things or works of art. So does the truly beautiful need anything beyond itself? No more than law , no more than truth, no more than kindness or integrity. Which of these things derives its beauty from praise, or withers under criticism? Does an emerald lose its quality if it is not praised? And what of gold, ivory, purple, a lyre, a dagger, a flower a bush?

BOOK 4 -19

One who is all in a flutter over his subsequent fame fails to imagine that those who remember him will very soon be dead - and he too. Then the same will be true of of all successors, until the whole memory of him will be extinguished in a sequence of lamps lit and snuffed out. But suppose immortality in those who will remember you, and everlasting memory, even so, what is that to you? And I do not simply mean that this is nothing to the dead, but to the living also what is the point of praise, other than for some practical aspect of management? As it is, you are losing the opportunity of that gift of nature which does not depend on another's word.

BOOK 4 -18

What ease of mind you gain from not looking at what your neighbor has said or done or thought, but only at your own actions, to make them just, reverential, imbued with good! So do not glance at the black characters either side, but run right on  to the line: straight, not straggly

BOOK 4 -17

No, you do not have thousands of years to live. Urgency is on you. While you live, while you can, become good.

BOOK 4 -16

Within ten days you will be regarded as a god by those very people who now see you as a beast or baboon - if you return to your principles and worship of Reason.

BOOK 4 -15

Many grains of incense on the same alter. One falls to ash first, another later: no difference.

BOOK 4 -14

You have subsisted as a part of the Whole. You will vanish into that which gave you birth: or rather you will be changed, taken up into the generative principle of the universe.

BOOK 4 -13

'Do you possess reason?' 'I do.' 'Why not use it then? With reason doing its job, what else do you want?'

BOOK 4 -12

Always have these two principles in readiness. First, to do only what the reason inherent in kingly and judicial power prescribes for the benefit of mankind. Second, to change your ground, if in fact there is someone to correct and guide you away from some notion. But this transference must always spring from a conviction of justice or the common good: and your preferred course must be likewise, not simply for apparent pleasure or popularity.

BOOK 4 -11

When someone does you wrong, do not judge things as he interprets them or would like you to interpret them. Just see them as they are. in plain truth.

BOOK 4 -10

'All's right that happens in the world.' Examine this saying carefully, and you will find it true. I do not mean 'right' simply in the context of cause and effect, but in the sense of 'just' - as is some adjudicator were assigning dues. So keep on observing this, as you have started, and in all that you do combine doing it with being a good man, in the specific conception of 'good man'. Preserve this in every sphere of action.

BOOK 4 -9

The nature of the beneficial was bound to act thus.

BOOK 4 -8

What does not make a human being worse in himself cannot make his life worse either: it cannot harm him from outside or inside.

BOOK 4 -7

Remove the judgement, and you have removed the thought 'I am hurt': remove the the thought 'I am hurt', and the hurt itself is removed.

BOOK 4 -6

With such people such an outcome is both natural and inevitable - if you wish it otherwise you are hoping that figs will no longer produce their rennet. In any case remember that in a very brief time both you and he will be dead, and shortly after not even your names will be left.

BOOK 4 -5

Death just like birth, is a mystery of nature: first a combination, then a dissolution, of the same elements. Certainly no cause for shame: because nothing out of the ordinary for an intelligent being or contrary to the principle of his constitution.

BOOK 4 -4-4

From there, then, this common city, we take our very mind, our reason, our law - from where else? Just as the earthly part of me has been derived from some earth, the watery from the next element, the air of my breath from some other source, the hot and fiery from its origin (for nothing comes from nothing, nor returns to nothing) - so the mind also has its source.