BOOK 8 -37

Is Panthea or Pergamus still sitting by the coffin of Verus? Or Chabrias or Diotimus by Hadrian's? Ridiculous! And if they were sitting there, would the dead be aware? And if they were aware, would they be pleased? And if they were pleased, would they make their mourners immortal? Was it not their fate also first to grow old - old women and old men like any others - and then to die? And with them dead, what would those they mourned do then? It is all stench and corruption in a bag of bones.

BOOK 8 -36

Do not let the panorama of your life oppress you, do not dwell on all the various troubles which may have occurred in the past or may occur in the future. Just ask yourself in each instance of the present: 'What is there in this work which I cannot endure or support?' You will be ashamed to make any such confession. Then remind yourself that it is neither the future nor the past which weighs on you, but always the present: and the present  burden reduces, if only you can isolate it and accuse your mind of weakness if it cannot hold against something thus stripped bare.

BOOK 8 -35

Just as the nature of the Whole is the source of all other faculties in every rational creature, so it has given us the power too. In the same way that nature turns to its own purpose anything obstructive or contrary, placing it in the fated scheme of things and making it part of itself, so the rational being can also convert every obstacle into material for its own use, and use it to further whatever his original purpose was.

BOOK 8 -34

If you have ever seen a severed hand or foot, or a head cut and lying some way away from the rest of the body - analogous is what someone does to himself, as far as he can, when he will not accept his lot and severs himself from society or does some unsocial act. Suppose you have made yourself an outcast  from the unity of nature - you were born a part of it, but now you have cut yourself off. Yet here lies the paradox - that it is open to you to rejoin that unity. No other part has this privilege from god, to come together again once it has been separated and cut away. Just consider the grace of god's favor to man. He has put it in man's power not to be broken off from the Whole in the first place, and also, if he has broken off, to return and grow back again, resuming his role as a member.

BOOK 8 -33

Accept humbly: let go easily.

BOOK 8 -32

You must compose your life action by action, and be satisfied if each action achieves its own end as best as best can be: and no one can prevent you from that achievement. 

'But there will be some external obstacle.'

No obstacle, though to justice, self-control, and reason.

'But perhaps some other other source of action will be obstructed.' 

Well, gladly accept the obstruction as it is, make a judicious change to meet the given circumstance, and another action will immediately substitute and fit into the composition of your life as discussed.

BOOK 8 -31

The court of Augustus - wife, daughter, grandsons, step-sons, sister, Agrippa, relatives, households, friends, Areius, Maecenas, doctors, diviners: an entire court dead. Go on now to other cases, where it is not death of just one individual but of a whole family, like Pompeys. And there is the inscription you see on tombstones: "The last of his line'. Just think of all the anxiety of previous generations to leave behind an heir, and then one has to be the last. Here again the death of a whole family.

BOOK 8 -30

When you speak in the senate or to an individual, be straight-forward, not pedantic. Use language which rings true.

BOOK 8 -29

Erase the impressions on your mind by constantly saying to yourself: 'It is in my power now to keep this soul of mine free from any vice or passion, or any other disturbance at all: but seeing all things for what they are, I can treat them on their merits.' Remember this power which nature gives you.

BOOK 8 -28

Pain is an evil to the body - so let the body give its evidence - or to the soul. But the soul can preserve its own clear sky and calm voyage by not assessing pain as evil. Every judgement, every impulse, desire and rejection is within the soul where nothing evil can penetrate..

BOOK 8 -27

Three relations. First, to your environment; second, to the divine cause which is the source of all that happens to all men; third, to your fellows and contemporaries.

BOOK 8 -26

Man's joy is to do man's proper work. And work proper to man is benevolence to his own kind, disdain for the stirrings of the senses, diagnosis of the impressions he can trust, contemplation of universal nature and all things entailed.

BOOK 8 -25

Lucilla buried Verus, then Lucilla was buried. Secunda buried Maximus, then Secunda next. Such with Epitynchanus and Diotimus, Antononus  and Faustina. The same story always. Celer saw Hadrian to his grave, then went to his own grave. Where are they now, those sharp minds, those prophets or prigs? Certainly Cerax, Demetrius, Eudaemon, and others like them were sharp minds. But all creatures of a day, long dead. Some not remembered even briefly, some turned into legend, and some now vanishing even from legend.

So remember this, that either the poor compound of your body must be scattered, or your frail spirit must be extinguished, or else migrate and take its post elsewhere.

BOOK 8 -24

Just as you see your bath - all soap, sweat, grime, greasy water, the whole thing disgusting - so is every part of life and every object in it.

BOOK 8 -23

Doing something? I do it with reference to the benefit of mankind. Something happening to me? I accept it in reference to the gods and the universal source from which all things spring interrelated.

BOOK 8 -22

Concentrate on the subject or the act in question, on principle or meaning.

You deserve what you are going through. You would rather become good tomorrow than be good today.

Book 8 -21

Turn it inside out and see what it is like, what it becomes in age, sickness and death.

Life is short both for praiser and praised, for the remembering and the remembered. And this, moreover, in just a cranny of one continent: even here not all are not attuned to each other, or even an individual to himself. And the whole earth is a mere point in space.

BOOK 8 -20

Nature's aim for everything includes cessation just as much as its beginning and duration - like someone throwing up a ball. How can it be good for the ball on the way up and bad on the way down, or even when it hits the ground? How can it be good for the bubble when it forms, and bad when it bursts? A candle is a similar example.

BOOK 8 -19

Everything has come into being for a purpose - a horse, say, a vine. Does this surprise you? Even the sun will say, 'I came into being for a purpose': likewise the other gods. For what purpose, then, were you created? For your pleasure? Just see whether this idea can be entertained.

BOOK 8 -18

What dies does not pass out of the universe. If it remains here and is changed, then here too it is resolved into the everlasting constituents, which are the elements of the universe and of you yourself. These too change, and make no complaint of it.

BOOK 8 -17

If the choice is your, why do the thing? But if it is another's choice, what do you blame - atoms or gods? Either is madness. There is no blame. If you can, put him right: if you can't at the least put the matter itself right. If that is impossible, what further purpose does blame serve? Nothing should be done without purpose.

BOOK 8 -16

Remember that to change course or accept correction leaves you just as free as you were. The action is your own, driven by your own impulse and judgement, indeed your own intelligence.

BOOK 8 -15

It would be absurd to be surprised at a fig-tree bearing figs. Remember that there is as little cause for surprise if the world brings forth fruits such as these when the crop is there. Equally absurd for a doctor or a ship's captain to be surprised at fever in a patient or a head-wind springing up.

BOOK 8 -14

Whenever you meet someone, ask yourself first this immediate question: 'What beliefs does this person hold about the good and bad in life?' Because if he believes this or that about pleasure and pain and their constituents, about fame and obscurity, death and life, then I shall not find it surprising or strange if he acts in this way or that, and I shall remember that he has no choice but to act as he does.

BOOK 8 -13

Constantly test your mental impressions - each one individually, if you can: investigate the cause, identify the emotion, apply the analysis of logic.

BOOK 8 -12

When you are reluctant to get up from your sleep, remind yourself that it is your constitution and man's nature to perform social acts, whereas sleep is something you share with dumb animals. Now what accords with the nature of each being is thereby the more closely related to it, the more in its essence and indeed the more to its liking.

BOOK 8 -11

What is this thing in itself, in its own constitution? What are its elements of substance and material, and of cause? What is its function in the world? What is its duration?

BOOK 8 -10

Regret is a censure of yourself for missing something beneficial. The good must be something beneficial, and of concern to the wholly good person. No wholly good person would regret missing a pleasure. Therefore pleasure is neither beneficial nor a good.

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.'