BOOK 8 -9

Let nobody any more hear you blaming palace life: don't hear yourself blaming it.

BOOK 8 -8

Not possible to study. But possible to rein in arrogance; possible to triumph over pleasures and pains; possible to rise above mere glory; possible not to be angry with the unfeeling and the ungrateful, and even, yes, to care for them.

BOOK 8 -7-2

Because it is a part of universal nature just as the nature of the leaf is part of the plant's nature: except that in the case of the leaf its nature partakes of a nature which lacks perception or reason and is liable to impediment. Whereas man's nature is part of a nature which is unimpeded, intelligent, just - in duration, substance, cause, activity, and experience. But do not look to find a one-to-one correspondence in every case, but rather an overall equivalence - the totality of this to the aggregate of that. 

Book 8 -7

Every living organism is fulfilled when it follows the right path for its own nature. For a rational nature the right path is to withhold assent to anything false or obscure in the impressions made on its mind, to direct its impulses solely to social action, to reserve its desires and aversions to what lies in our power, and welcome all that is assigned to it by universal nature.

BOOK 8 -6

The work of the universal nature is to translate this reality to another, to change things, to take them from here and carry them there. All things are mutations, but there is equality too in their distribution. All is familiar: no cause then for fear of anything new.

BOOK 8 -5

First do not be upset: all things follow the nature of the Whole, and in a little while you will be no one and nowhere, as is true now even of Hadrian and Augustus. Next, concentrate on the matter in hand and see it for what it is. Remind yourself of your duty to be a good man and rehearse what man's nature demands: then do it straight and unswerving, or say what you best think right. Always, though, in kindness, integrity, and sincerity.

BOOK 8 -4

Even if you burst with indignation, they will still carry on regardless.

BOOK 8 -3

Alexander, Julius Caesar, Pompey - what are they to Diogenes, Heraclitus, Socrates? These men saw reality, its causes and its material, and their directing minds were their own masters. As for the former, they were slaves to all their ambitions.

BOOK 8 -2

Ask yourself this about each action: 'How does this sit with me? Shall I regret it?' In a short while I am dead and all things are gone. What more do I want, if this present work is that of an intelligent and social being, sharing one law with god?

BOOK 8 -1

This too is counter to pretension, that you have lost the chance to live your life, or at least your adult life, as a philosopher: indeed it has become clear to many, yourself included, that you are far from philosophy. You are tarnished, the: difficult for you now to win the reputation of a philosopher, and besides your station in life is a contrary pull. So if you have a true reputation, and be satisfied if you can just live the rest of your life, whatever remains, in the way your nature wishes. You must consider, then, what those wishes are, and that in all your wanderings you have nowhere found the good life - not in logic, not in wealth, not in glory, not in indulgence: nowhere. Where then is it to be found? In doing what man's nature requires. And how is he to do this? By having principles to govern his impulses and actions. What are these principles? Those of good and evil - belief that nothing is good for a human being which does not make him just, self-controlled, brave, and free: and nothing evil which does not make him the opposite of these.

BOOK 7 -75

The nature of the Whole set itself to create a universe. So now either everything that comes into being springs from that as logical consequence, or even the primary aims to which the directing mind of the universe sets its own impulse are irrational. Reminding yourself of this will help you to face much with greater tranquility

BOOK 7 -74

No one tires of receiving  benefit: and action in accordance with nature is your own benefit. Do not then tire of benefit gained  by benefit given.

BOOK 7 - 73

When you have done good and another has benefited, why do you still look, as fools do, for a third thing besides - credit for good works, or a return?

BOOK 7 -72

Whatever the rational and social faculty finds neither intelligent not to the common good it judges, with good reason, beneath itself.

BOOK 7 -71

Its ridiculous not to escape from one's own vices, which is possible, while trying to escape the vices of others, which is impossible.

BOOK 7 - 70

The gods, who are free from death, do not resent their need throughout all the length of eternity to tolerate in such numbers such worthless creatures as me: they even care for them in all sorts of ways. And do you, with the merest time before your exit, refuse to make the effort - and that when you are one of the worthless creatures yourself?

BOOK 7 -69

Perfection of character is this: to live each day as if it were last, without frenzy, without apathy, without pretense.

BOOK 7 -68

Live through your life without pressure and in the utmost contentment, even if all are clamouring what they will against you, even if wild beasts are tearing off the limbs of this poor lump of a body accreted round you. What in all this prevents the mind from preserving itself in tranquility, in true judgement of circumstance and readiness to use any event submitted to it? So that Judgement says to Circumstance: 'This is what you really are, however different you may conventionally appear'; and ready Use says to Event: 'I was looking for you. I always take the present moment as raw material for the exercise of rational and social virtue - in short, for the art of man or god.' Because a god or a man can assimilate anything that happens: it will not be new or hard to handle, but familiar and easy.

BOOK 7 -67

The way nature has blended you into the compound whole does not prevent you drawing a boundary around yourself and keeping what is your own in your own control. Always remember this: remember too that the happy life depends on very little. And do not think, just because you have given up of becoming a philosopher or a scientist, you should therefore despair of a free spirit, integrity, social conscience, obedience to god. It is wholly possible to become a 'divine man' without anybody's recognition.

BOOK 7 -66

How do we know that Telauges' character did not make him a better man than Socrates? It is not enough that Socrates died a more glorious death, that he argued more skillfully with the sophists, that he showed greater endurance in spending a whole night out in the frost, that he was braver in his decision to refuse the order to arrest Leon of Salamis, that he 'swaggered in the streets' (though one could well question if this last is true). No what we need to investigate is the nature of Socrates' soul. We should ask whether he was able to be content with a life of justice shown to men and piety to the gods; neither condemning all vice wholesale nor yet toadying to anyone's ignorance; not regarding anything allotted to him by the Whole as misplaced in him or a crushing burden to endure; not lending his mind to share the poor passions of the flesh.

BOOK 7 -65

Take care that you never treat the misanthropic as they treat mankind.

BOOK 7 -64

Whenever you suffer pain, have ready to hand the thought that pain is a moral evil and does not harm your governing intelligence: pain can do no damage either to its rational or to its social nature. In most cases of pain you should be helped too by the saying of Epicurus: 'Pain is neither unendurable nor unending, as long as you remember its limits and do not exaggerate it in your imagination.' Remember too that many things we find disagreeable are the unrecognized analogues of pain - drowsiness, for example, oppressive heat, loss of appetite. So when you find yourself complaining of any of these, say to yourself, "You are giving in to pain.'

BOOK 7 - 63

'No soul', says' Plato, 'likes to be robbed of truth' - and the same holds of justice, moderation, kindness, and all such virtues. Essential that you should keep this constantly in your mind: this will make you more gentle.

BOOK 7 -61

All the time you should consider who are these people whose endorsements you wish, and what are the minds that direct them. When you look into the sources of their judgement and impulse, you will not blame their unwitting error, not will you feel the need of their endorsement.

BOOK 7 -61

The art of living is more like wrestling than dancing, in that it stands ready for what comes and is not thrown by the unforeseen.

BOOK 7 -60

The body, too, should stay firmly composed, and not fling itself about either in motion or at rest. Just as the mind displays qualities in the face, keeping it intelligent and attractive, something similar should be required of the whole body. But all this should be secured without making an obvious point of it.

BOOK 7 - 59

Dig inside yourself. Inside there is a spring of goodness ready to gush at any moment, just kepping digging.

BOOK 7 -58

In every contingency keep in your mind's eye those who had the same experience before, and reacted with vexation, disbelief, or complaint. So where are they now? Nowhere. Well then, do you want to act like them? Why not leave the moods and shifts of others to the shifting and the shifted, and for yourself concentrate wholly on how to make use of these contingencies? You will then use them well, and they will be raw material in your hands. Only take care, and seek your own best good in all that you do. Remember, these two things: the action is important, the context indifferent.

BOOK 7 -57

Love what falls your way and is fated for you. What could suit you more than that?

BOOK 7 - 56

Imagine you are now dead, or had not lived before this moment. Now view the rest of your life as a bonus, and live it as nature directs.

BOOK 7 - 55

Do not look around at the directing minds of other people, but keep looking straight ahead to where nature is leading you - both universal nature, in what happens to you, and your own nature, in what you must do yourself. Every creature must do what follows from its constitution. The rest of creation is constituted to serve rational beings (just as in everything else the lower exists for the higher), but rational beings are here to serve each other. So the main principle in man's constitution is the social. The second is resistance  to the promptings of the flesh. It is the specific property of rational and intelligent activity to isolate itself and never be influenced by the activity of the senses or impulses: both these are of the animal order, and it is the aim of intelligent activity to be sovereign over them and never yield them mastery - and rightly so, as it is the very nature of intelligence to put all these things to its own use. The third element in a rational constitution is a judgement unhurried and undeceived. So let your directing mind hold fast to these principles and follow the straight road ahead; then it has what belongs to it.

BOOK 7 -54

Everywhere and all the time it is up to you to honor god in contentment with your present circumstance, to treat the men who are your present company with justice, and to lavish thought on every present impression in your mind, so that nothing slips in past your understanding.

BOOK 7 -53

Where a task can be accomplished in accordance with the reason which gods and men share, there is nothing to be afraid of: because where there is the possibility of benefit from an action which moves along the proper path, following our own human constitution, there should be no lurking fear of harm.

BOOK 7 -52

'Better at throwing his man': but not more public-spirited, or more decent, or more disciplined to circumstance, or more tolerant of neighbors' faults.

BOOK 7 -51

Again:

'With special food or drink. or sorcery,
Seeking a channel from the stream of death.'

'The wind that blows from god
we must endure, and labour uncomplaining.'

BOOK 7 -50

Again: 
'What is born of earth goes back to earth,
but the growth from heavenly seed
returns whence it came, to heaven.'

Or else this: a dissolution of the nexus of atoms, and senseless molecules dispersed.

BOOK 7 -49

Look back over the past - all those many changes of dynasties. And you can foresee the future too: it will be completely alike, incapable of deviating from the present. So far the study of human life forty years are as good as ten thousand: what more will you see?

BOOK 7 -48

Further, when your talk is about mankind, view earthly things as if looking down on them from some point high above - flocks, armies, weddings, divorces, births, death, the hubbub of the law-courts, desert places, various foreign nations, festivals, funerals, markets, all the medley of the world and the ordered conjunction of opposites.

BOOK 7 -47

Observe the mouvement of the stars as if you were running courses with them, and let your mind constantly dwell on the changes of the elements into each other. Such imaginings wash away the filth of life on the ground.

BOOK 7 - 46

'But, my dear fellow, consider it possible that nobility and virtue are something other than saving one's life or having it saved. Could it not be that anyone who is truly a man should dismiss any concern for a particular length of life, and not simply live for the sake of living? Rather he should leave all this to god and believe what the womenfolk say, that no one ever escapes the day of his fate: his thought should be on this further question, how best to live his life in the time he has to be alive.'

BOOK 7 -45

'The truth of the matter, my fellow Athenians is this. Whatever a position a man has taken up in his own  judgment, or is assigned by his commander, there, it seems to me, he should stay and face the danger, giving no thought to death or anything else before dishonor.'

BOOK 7 -44

'But I could give this man a proper answer. I would say: "You are mistaken, my friend, if you think tha a man of any worth at all should take into account the risk of life or death, and not have as his sole consideration in any action whether he is doing right or wrong".'

BOOK 7 - 43

'Don't join in mourning, or in ecstasy'

BOOK 7 -42

'For good and right stand on my side.'

BOOK 7 - 41

'If I and my two sons are now no more the gods' concern, this too will have its cause.'

BOOK 7 -40

'Ripe ears of corn are reaped, and so are our lives: One stands, another falls.'

BOOK 7 -39

'May you give joy to the immortal gods, and us.'

BOOK 7 -38

Mere things, brute facts, should not provoke your rage: They have no mind to care.

BOOK 7 -37

It is shameful that the face should be so obedient, shaping, and ordering its expressions as the mind dictates, when the mind cannot impose its own shape and order on its self.

BOOK 7 -36

'A king's lot: to do good and be damned.'