Today’s meditation

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book I, section 2. George Long translation.

From the reputation and remembrance of my father, modesty and a manly character.

The collection.

Thy present opinion founded on understanding, and thy present conduct directed to social good, and thy present disposition of contentment with everything which happens+—that is enough.
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Among the animals which have not reason one life is distributed; but among reasonable animals one intelligent soul is distributed: just as there is one earth of all things which are of an earthly nature, and we see by one light, and breathe one air, all of us that have the faculty of vision and…
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All things which participate in anything which is common to them all, move towards that which is of the same kind with themselves.…
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Both man and God and the universe produce fruit; at the proper seasons each produces it. But and if usage has especially fixed these terms to the vine and like things, this is nothing.…
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If thou art able, correct by teaching those who do wrong; but if thou canst not, remember that indulgence is given to thee for this purpose. And the gods, too, are indulgent to such persons; and for some purposes they even help them to get health, wealth, reputation; so kind they are.…
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Labor not as one who is wretched, nor yet as one who would be pitied or admired; but direct thy will to one thing only—to put thyself in motion and to check thyself, as the social reason requires.
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To-day I have got out of all trouble, or rather I have cast out all trouble, for it was not outside, but within and in my opinions.
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All things are the same, familiar in experience, and ephemeral in time, and worthless in the matter. Everything now is just as it was in the time of those whom we have buried.
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Things stand outside of us, themselves by themselves, neither knowing aught of themselves, nor expressing any judgment. What is it, then, which does judge about them? The ruling faculty.
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Not in passivity but in activity lie the evil and the good of the rational social animal, just as his virtue and his vice lie not in passivity but in activity.
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For the stone which has been thrown up it is no evil to come down, nor indeed any good to have been carried up (viii. 20).
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Penetrate inwards into men's leading principles, and thou wilt see what judges thou art afraid of, and what kind of judges they are of themselves.
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All things are changing: and thou thyself art in continuous mutation and in a manner in continuous destruction, and the whole universe too.
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Termination of activity, cessation from movement and opinion, and in a sense their death, is no evil. Turn thy thoughts now to the consideration of thy life, thy life as a child, as a youth, thy manhood, thy old age, for in these also every change was a death. Is this anything to fear?…
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Hasten [to examine] thy own ruling faculty and that of the universe and that of thy neighbor: thy own, that thou mayst make it just: and that of the universe, that thou mayst remember of what thou art a part; and that of thy neighbor, that thou mayst know whether he has acted ignorantly or with…
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As thou thyself art a component part of a social system, so let every act of thine be a component part of social life.…
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Quarrels of little children and their sports, and poor spirits carrying about dead bodies [such is everything]; and so what is exhibited in the representation of the mansions of the dead strikes our eyes more clearly.
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Examine into the quality of the form of an object, and detach it altogether from its material part, and then contemplate it; then determine the time, the longest which a thing of this peculiar form is naturally made to endure.
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Thou hast endured infinite troubles through not being contented with thy ruling faculty when it does the things which it is constituted by nature to do. But enough + [of this].
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When another blames thee or hates thee, or when men say about thee anything injurious, approach their poor souls, penetrate within, and see what kind of men they are. Thou wilt discover that there is no reason to take any trouble that these men may have this or that opinion about thee.…
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