Meditations

1. When it’s hard to get out of bed in the morning, tell yourself that you don’t have anything to complain about, because you’re doing the work you were born to do—being human. You weren’t made to huddle under the blankets, but to experience things as your nature demands. If you loved yourself enough, you’d do it.

5. If you lack one virtue, then practice what virtues you can—you have much to offer besides excuses.

6. When you do somebody a favor, don’t look at it as an opportunity to be repaid someday. Instead, be like a vine that produces grapes, a dog after a hunt, or a bee with its honey. A human being doesn’t make a fuss about helping another.

7. Pray simply and straightforwardly, or don’t pray at all.

8. Whatever happens to us is destined and part of a single harmony. The world comprises all bodies; fate comprises all purposes. According to Marcus, we should accept purposes the way we accept a doctor’s prescription—knowing it won’t necessarily be pleasant, but it will be healing. So whatever happens, accept it not just for your own sake, but for the sake of the whole world’s well-being. The whole is damaged if any part of it is destroyed.

9. Don’t get discouraged when you fail. Celebrate having acted like a human and try again. Think of philosophy as a soothing ointment. Philosophy “requires only what your nature already demands.”

10. The world is so mysterious that even the Stoics get confused. But rather than getting discouraged about life’s seeming meaninglessness, remember that nothing can happen that isn’t natural, and that you can refrain from doing anything that God and yourself don’t approve of.

13. Human beings are made up of “substance and what animates it.” Neither of these things began to exist or can stop existing. Each part of a person will transform into another part of the world, and another and another.

16. The things a person thinks about determine the mind’s quality; the soul, in turn, is colored by one’s thoughts. So it’s good to think about things like these: a good life can be led anywhere; the good of a rational being is unselfishness—lower things are meant to benefit higher, and higher things are meant to benefit one another.

19. Things cannot gain access to the soul. The soul directs itself by interpreting the things before it.

20. Our job in life is to put up with other people. But when people disrupt our tasks, becoming obstacles, we must adapt and work around them. In that way, the obstacle moves action forward—“What stands in the way becomes the way.”

22. If something doesn’t harm the community, then it can’t harm its members.

23. Things flow past us constantly, like a river—there’s nothing stable. So it’s ridiculous to feel either prideful or distraught. Irritations don’t last.

26. The mind rules the soul. It shouldn’t be disturbed by the flesh. Mind and body are linked, so of course sensations make their way into one’s mind. Don’t resist these natural sensations, but don’t let the mind judge them as “good” or “bad.”

27. Living with the gods means accepting what we’re given and doing what the spirit requires—our mind, or logos, a fragment of God.

29. A person can live in this world as if it’s the afterlife. If others won’t let them, then it’s okay to exit life now. Until then, a person is free. Nobody can stop them from doing what they want most—living as a rational being.

33. Soon, a human being is just dust. The things people want in life are trivial. Objects are unstable; senses are easily deceived. There’s nothing to do but wait for death. In the meantime, honor the gods, treat others as they deserve, and be stricter toward oneself than toward others.

37. Good fortune is what a person makes for oneself. It’s a matter of good character, intentions, and actions.