BOOK 9 -5-5

The sinner sins against himself: the wrongdoer wrongs himself, by making himself morally bad.

BOOK 9 -5-4

If you want another criterion - unscientific but emotionally effective - you will find it quite easy to face death if you stop to consider the business you will be leaving and the sort of characters which will no longer contaminate your soul. You must not of course take offense at them, rather care for them and tolerate them kindly: but still remember that the deliverance death brings is not deliverance from the like-minded. This alone, if anything could, might pull you back and hold you to life - if you were allowed to live in the company of people who share your principles. But as things are you see how wearisome it is to live out of tune with your fellows, so that you say: 'Come quickly, death, or I too may forget myself.

BOOK 9 -5-3

Do not despise death: welcome it, rather, as one further part of nature's will. Our very dissolution is just like all the other natural processes which life's seasons bring - like youth and old age, growth and maturity, development  of teeth and beard and grey hair, insemination, pregnancy, and childbirth. In the dedicated attitude to death, then, there is nothing superficial or demanding or disdainful: simply awaiting it as one of the functions of nature. And just as you may now be waiting for the child your wife carries to come out of the womb, so you should look forward to the time when your soul will slip this bodily sheath.

BOOK 9 -5-2

A man of sense and sensitivity would depart the company of men without ever tasting falsehood, pretense of any kind, excess, or pomp. The next best course is at least to sicken of these things before your final breath. Or do you prefer to sit at table with wickedness? Has your experience not yet persuaded you to shun this plague? Because the corruption of the mind is much more a plague than any such contaminating change in the surrounding air we breathe. The latter infects animate creatures in their animate nature: the former infects human beings in their humanity.

BOOK 9 -5

By 'universal Nature treating these things indifferently' I mean that they happen impartially by cause and effect to all that comes into being and owes its being to the fulfillment of an original impulse of Providence. Under this impulse providence set out from a first premise to establish the present order of the universe: she had conceived certain principles of what was to be, and determined generative powers to create substances, transformations, and successive regeneration.

BOOK 9 -4

Further, anyone who fears pain will also at times be afraid of some future event in the world, and that is immediate sin. And a man who pursues pleasure will not hold back from injustice - an obvious sin. Those who wish to follow Nature and share her mind must themselves be indifferent to those pairs of opposites to which universal Nature is indifferent - she would not create these opposites if she were not indifferent either way. So anyone who is not himself indifferent to pain and pleasure, death and life, fame and obscurity - things which universal Nature treats indifferently - is clearly committing a sin.

BOOK 9 -3

Moreover, the pursuit of pleasure as a good and the avoidance of pain as an evil constitute sin. Someone like that must inevitably and frequently blame universal Nature for unfair distribution as between bad men and good, since bad men are often deep in pleasures and the possessions which make  for pleasure, while the good often meet with pain and the circumstances which cause pain.

BOOK 9 -2

Lying, too, is a sin against the same goddess: her name is Truth, and she is the original cause of all that is true. The conscious liar sins to the extent that his deceit causes injustice: the unconscious liar to the extent that he is out of tune with the nature of the Whole and out of order withe the nature of the ordered universe against which he fights. And it is fighting when he allows himself to be carried in opposition to the truth. He has received the prompts from nature: by ignoring them he is now incapable of distinguishing false from truth.

BOOK 9 -1

Injustice is sin. When universal nature has constituted rational creatures for the sake of each other - to benefit one another as deserved, but never to harm - anyone contravening her will is clearly guilty of sin against the oldest of the gods: because universal Nature is the nature of ultimate reality, to which all present existence is related.

BOOK 8 -61

Enter into the directing mind of everyone, and let anyone else enter your own.

BOOK 8 -60

An arrow flies in one way, the mind in another. Yet even when it is keeping on the alert or circling round an inquiry. the mind moves no less directly, and straight to its target. 

BOOK 8 -59

Men are born for the sake of each other. So either teach or tolerate.

BOOK 8 -58

He who fears death fears either unconsciousness or another sort of consciousness. Now if you will no longer be conscious you will not be conscious either of anything bad. If you are to take on a different consciousness, you will be a different being and life will not cease.

BOOK 8 -57

The sun appears to pour itself down, and indeed its light pours in all directions, but the stream does not run out. This pouring is linear extension: that is why its beams are called rays, because they radiate in extended lines. You can see what a ray is if you observe the sun's light entering a dark room through a narrow opening. It extends in a straight line and impacts, so to speak, on any solid body in its path which blocks passage throughout the air on the other side: it settles there and does not slip off or fall.

Something similar will be true of the flow and diffusion of the universal mind - not an exhaustible stream but rather a constant radiation. And there will be nothing forceful or violent in its impact on the obstacles it meets: it will not fall off, but will settle there and illuminate what it receives it.  Anything unreflective will deprive itself of that light.

BOOK 8 -56

To my determining will my neighbor's will is as indifferent as his breath and his body. Sure, we are born above all for the sake of each other: nevertheless the directing mind of each of us has its own sovereignty. Otherwise my neighbor's wickedness would be my own harm: and this was not god's intention, to leave my misfortune up to another.

BOOK 8 -55

Wickedness overall does no harm to the universe. Individual wickedness does no harm to the recipient: it is only harmful to the perpetrator, and he has the option to be rid of it just as soon as he himself decides.

BOOK 8 -54

Don't now just take your breath from the surrounding air, but take your thoughts too from the mind which embraces all things. The power of mind spreads everywhere and permeates no less than the air: it is there for all who want to absorb it, just like the air for those who can draw breath.

BOOK 8 -53

Do you want the praise of a man who curses himself three times an hour? Do you want to please a man who can't please himself?  Can a man please himself when he regrets almost everything he does?

BOOK 8 -52

Someone who does not know that there is an ordered universe does not know where he is. Someone who does not know the natural purpose of the universe does not know who he is or what the universe is. Someone who fails in any one of these ways could not tell the purpose of his own existence either. So what do you think of a man who fears or courts the applause of an audience who have no idea where they are or who they are?

BOOK 8 -51

Do not be dilatory in action, muddled in communication, or vague in thought. Don't let your mind settle into depression or elation. Allow some leasure in your life.

'They kill, they cut in pieces, they hunt with curses.'

What relevance has this to keeping your mind pure, sane and sober, just? As if a man were to come up to a spring of clear, sweet water and curse it - it would still continue to bubble up water good to drink. He could throw in mud or dung: in no time the spring will break it down, wash it away, and take no color from it. How then can you secure an everlasting spring and not a cistern? By keeping yourself at all times intent on freedom - and staying kind, and decent.

BOOK 8 -50

A bitter cucumber? Throw it away. Brambles in the path? Go round them. That is al you need, without going on to ask, 'So why are these things in the world anyway? That question would be laughable to a student of nature, just as any carpenter or cobbler would laugh at you if you objected to the sight of shavings or cut-offs from their wrk on the shop floor. Yet they have somewhere to throw their rubbish, whereas the nature of the Whole has nothing outside itself. The marvel of its craft is that it sets its own confines and recycles into itself all within them which seems to be decaying, growing old, or losing its use: and then creates afresh from the same material. This way it requires no substance other that its own, and has no need for a rubbish-dump. So it is complete in its own space, its own material, and its own craftsmanship.

BOOK 8-49

Do not elaborate to yourself beyond what your initial impressions report. You have been told that so-and-so is maligning you. That is the report: you have been told that you are harmed. I see that my little boy is ill. That is what I see: I do not see that he is in danger. So always stay like this within your first impressions and do not add conclusions from your own thoughts - and then that is all. Or rather you can add the conclusion of one acquainted with all that happens in the world.

BOOK 8 -48

Remember that your directing mind becomes invincible when it withdraws into it own self-sufficiency, not doing anything it does not wish to do, even if its position is unreasonable. How much more, then, when the judgement it forms is reasoned and deliberate? That is why a mind free from passions is a fortress: people have no stronger place of retreat, and someone taking refuge here is impregnable. Anyone who has not seen this is short of wisdom: anyone who has seen it and does not take refuge is short of fortune.

BOOK 8 -47

If your distress has some external cause, it is not the thing itself that troubles you, but your own judgement of it - and you can erase this immediately. If it is something in your attitude that distresses you, no one stops you correcting your view. So too if you are distressed at not achieving some action you think salutary, why not carry on rather than fret? 

'But there's an obstacle in the way too solid to move.'

No cause for distress, then, since the reason for failure does not lie with you. 

'But life is not worth living I fail this.' 

Well then, you must depart this life as gracious in death as one who does achieve purpose, and at peace, too, with those who stood in your way.

BOOK 8 -46

Nothing can happen to any human being outside the experience which is natural to humans - an ox too experiences nothing foreign to the nature of the oxen, a vine nothing foreign to the nature of vines, a stone nothing outside the property of a stone. So if each thing experiences what is usual and natural for it, why should you complain? Universal nature has brought you nothing you can't endure.

BOOK 8 -45

Pick me up and throw me where you will. Wherever I land I shall keep the god within me happy - satisfied, that is, if attitude and action follow its own constitution.

Is this present thing any good for my human soul to be sick and out of sorts - humbled, craving, shackled, shying? Will you find any good reason for that?

BOOK 8 -44

Look, make yourself a gift of this present time. Those who are more inclined to pursue fame hereafter fail to reckon that the next generation will have people just like those they dislike now: and they too will die. What, anyway is it to you if this is the echo in future voices and this the judgement they make of you?

BOOK 8 -43

Joy varies from person to person. My joy is if I keep my directing mind pure, denying no human being or human circumstance, but looking on all things with kindly eyes, giving welcome or use to each as it deserves.

BOOK 8 -42

I have no cause to hurt myself: I have never consciously hurt anyone else.

BOOK 8 -41 2

Now apply all this to yourself. Is pain or pleasure affecting you? That is for the senses. You have formed an impulse and then met some obstruction> If this was an unconditional aim, then yes, the obstruction harms your rational nature: but if you accept what is common experience, no harm is yet done or hindrance caused. You see, no one will impede the proper functions of the mind. The mind cannot be touched by fire, steel, tyranny, slander, or anything whatever, once it has become 'a perfect round in solitude'.

BOOK 8 -41

An obstacle to sense perception is harmful to animal nature. An obstacle to impulse is likewise harmful to animal nature. (Something else will be similarly obstructive and harmful to the constitution of all plants.) It follows that an obstacle to the mind is harmful to intelligent nature.

BOOK 8 -40

If you remove your judgement of anything that seems painful, you yourself stand quite immune to pain. 'What self?' Reason. 'But I am not just reason.' Granted. So let your reason cause itself no pain, and if some other part of you is in trouble, it can form its own judgement for itself.

BOOK 8 -39

In the constitution of the rational being I can see no virtue that counters justice: but I do see the counter to pleasure - self-control.

BOOK 8 -38

If you have a sharp sight, use it: but as the poet says, add wise judgement.

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.