Our inward power, when it obeys nature, reacts to events by accommodating itself to what it faces—to what is possible. It needs no specific material. It pursues its own aims as circumstances allow; it turns obstacles into fuel. As a fire overwhelms what would have quenched a lamp. What’s thrown on top of the conflagration is absorbed, consumed by it—and makes it burn still higher
No random actions, none not based on underlying principles.
At dawn, when you have trouble getting out of bed, tell yourself: “I have to go to work—as a human being. What do I have to complain of, if I’m going to do what I was born for—the things I was brought into the world to do? Or is this what I was created for? To huddle under the blankets and stay warm?
When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: The people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous, and surly. They are like this because they can’t tell good from evil. But I have seen the beauty of good, and the ugliness of evil, and have recognized that the wrongdoer has a nature related to my own
Nowhere you can go is more peaceful—more free of interruptions—than your own soul
take into consideration:
• that rational beings exist for one another;
• that doing what’s right sometimes requires patience;
• that no one does the wrong thing deliberately;
• and the number of people who have feuded and envied and hated and fought and died and been buried.
The recognition that I needed to train and discipline my character.
To do my own work, mind my own business, and have no time for slanderers.
The emptiness of all those applauding hands. The people who praise us—how capricious they are, how arbitrary. And the tiny region in which it all takes place
Stop allowing your mind to be a slave, to be jerked about by selfish impulses, to kick against fate and the present, and to mistrust the future.
That things have no hold on the soul. They stand there unmoving, outside it. Disturbance comes only from within—from our own perceptions
That everything you see will soon alter and cease to exist. Think of how many changes you’ve already seen.
“The world is nothing but change. Our life is only perception.”
Some people, when they do someone a favor, are always looking for a chance to call it in. And some aren’t, but they’re still aware of it—still regard it as a debt. But others don’t even do that. They’re like a vine that produces grapes without looking for anything in return
To read attentively—not to be satisfied with “just getting the gist of it.” And not to fall for every smooth talker.
That sort of person is bound to do that. You might as well resent a fig tree for secreting juice. (Anyway, before very long you’ll both be dead—dead and soon forgotten.)
Choose not to be harmed—and you won’t feel harmed.
Don’t feel harmed—and you haven’t been
. It can ruin your life only if it ruins your character. Otherwise it cannot harm you—inside or out
there is a limit to the time assigned you, and if you don’t use it to free yourself it will be gone and will never return
That every event is the right one. Look closely and you’ll see.
Not just the right one overall, but right. As if someone had weighed it out with scales
Don’t waste the rest of your time here worrying about other people—unless it affects the common good. It will keep you from doing anything useful
You need to avoid certain things in your train of thought: everything random, everything irrelevant. And certainly everything self-important or malicious
You have functioned as a part of something; you will vanish into what produced you.
Or be restored, rather.
To the logos from which all things spring.
By being changed.
Not to live as if you had endless years ahead of you. Death overshadows you. While you’re alive and able—be good.
The tranquillity that comes when you stop caring what they say. Or think, or do. Only what you do. (Is this fair? Is this the right thing to do?)
Not to feel exasperated, or defeated, or despondent because your days aren’t packed with wise and moral actions. But to get back up when you fail, to celebrate behaving like a human—however imperfectly—and fully embrace the pursuit that you’ve embarked on.
Do external things distract you? Then make time for yourself to learn something worthwhile; stop letting yourself be pulled in all directions
People who labor all their lives but have no purpose to direct every thought and impulse toward are wasting their time
an athlete in the greatest of all contests—the struggle not to be overwhelmed by anything that happens
He does only what is his to do, and considers constantly what the world has in store for him—doing his best, and trusting that all is for the best. For we carry our fate with us—and it carries us.
He keeps in mind that all rational things are related, and that to care for all human beings is part of being human.
And to help others and be eager to share, not to be a pessimist, and never to doubt your friends’ affection for you
take refuge in these two things:
i. Nothing can happen to me that isn’t natural.
ii. I can keep from doing anything that God and my own spirit don’t approve. No one can force me to.
Self-control and resistance to distractions
Optimism in adversity—especially illness
Doing your job without whining
A personality in balance: dignity and grace together
Other people’s certainty that what he said was what he thought, and what he did was done without malice
The sense he gave of staying on the path rather than being kept on it.
“If you seek tranquillity, do less.” Or (more accurately) do what’s essential—what the logos of a social being requires, and in the requisite way. Which brings a double satisfaction: to do less, better
Ask yourself at every moment, “Is this necessary?
what you do and say and think
And then you might see what the life of the good man is like—someone content with what nature assigns him, and satisfied with being just and kind himself
Schismatic: (n.) one who separates his own soul from others with the logos. They should be one.
As a rational being? Then follow through. Or just as an animal? Then say so and stand your ground without making a show of it. (Just make sure you’ve done your homework first.)
Never regard something as doing you good if it makes you betray a trust, or lose your sense of shame, or makes you show hatred, suspicion, ill will, or hypocrisy, or a desire for things best done behind closed doors
If it’s time for you to go, leave willingly—as you would to accomplish anything that can be done with grace and honor
And what dying is—and that if you look at it in the abstract and break down your imaginary ideas of it by logical analysis, you realize that it’s nothing but a process of nature, which only children can be afraid of
The way he handled the material comforts that fortune had supplied him in such abundance—without arrogance and without apology. If they were there, he took advantage of them. If not, he didn’t miss them.
A key point to bear in mind: The value of attentiveness varies in proportion to its object. You’re better off not giving the small things more time than they deserve
Everything transitory—the knower and the known.
Nothing is so conducive to spiritual growth as this capacity for logical and accurate analysis of everything that happens to us. To look at it in such a way that we understand what need it fulfills, and in what kind of world. And its value to that world as a whole and to man in particular
What is it—this thing that now forces itself on my notice? What is it made up of? How long was it designed to last? And what qualities do I need to bring to bear on it—tranquillity, courage, honesty, trustworthiness, straightforwardness, independence or what
The world as a living being—one nature, one soul. Keep that in mind. And how everything feeds into that single experience, moves with a single motion. And how everything helps produce everything else. Spun and woven together.
“A little wisp of soul carrying a corpse.”—Epictetus.
that the longest-lived and those who will die soonest lose the same thing. The present is all that they can give up, since that is all you have, and what you do not have, you cannot lose
Everything is just an impression.” —Monimus the Cynic
ii. When it turns its back on another person or sets out to do it harm, as the souls of the angry do.
iii. When it is overpowered by pleasure or pain.
iv. When it puts on a mask and does or says something artificial or false.
v. When it allows its action and impulse to be without a purpose, to be random and disconnected
If you do the job in a principled way, with diligence, energy and patience, if you keep yourself free of distractions, and keep the spirit inside you undamaged, as if you might have to give it back at any moment—
If you can embrace this without fear or expectation—can find fulfillment in what you’re doing now, as Nature intended, and in superhuman truthfulness (every word, every utterance)—then your life will be happy.
No one can prevent that
Keep your philosophy ready too—ready to understand heaven and earth. In everything you do, even the smallest thing, remember the chain that links them
Those who have forgotten where the road leads.”
“They are at odds with what is all around them”—the all-directing logos. And “they find alien what they meet with every day.”
“Our words and actions should not be like those of sleepers” (for we act and speak in dreams as well) “or of children copying their parents”—doing and saying only what we have been told.
To be like the rock that the waves keep crashing over. It stands unmoved and the raging of the sea falls still around it
—It’s unfortunate that this has happened.
No. It’s fortunate that this has happened and I’ve remained unharmed by it—not shattered by the present or frightened of the future. It could have happened to anyone. But not everyone could have remained unharmed by it.