Kendime Düşünceler

Book IV: On Change and Impermanence

That which is not good for the swarm, neither is it good for the bee.

A wrong done by one man to another is an action against their shared nature.

Think often of how rapidly things that exist or come to exist pass away and are carried off. For substance is like a river in ceaseless flow, its activities in continuous change, its causes subject to ten thousand alterations; scarcely anything stands still.

Consider frequently the connection of all things in the universe and their relationship to one another. For all things are in a manner woven together and belong to each other, and this mutual sympathy and bond runs through them all.

Of human life the time is a point, and the substance is in a flux, and the perception dull, and the composition of the whole body subject to putrefaction, and the soul a whirl, and fortune hard to divine, and fame a thing devoid of judgment. And, to say all in a word, everything which belongs to the body is a stream, and what belongs to the soul is a dream and vapor, and life is a warfare and a stranger's sojourn, and after-fame is oblivion.

Everything harmonizes with me, which is harmonious to you, O Universe. Nothing for me is too early nor too late, which is in due time for you. Everything is fruit to me which your seasons bring, O Nature: from you are all things, in you are all things, to you all things return.

Love mankind. Follow God.

Our anger and grief do more damage to us than the things that cause them.

Waste no more time arguing what a good man should be. Be one.

Dig within. Within is the wellspring of Good, and it will ever bubble up, if you will ever dig.

Book V: On Duty

In the morning when you rise unwillingly, let this thought be present: I am rising to the work of a human being. Why then am I dissatisfied if I am going to do the things for which I exist and for which I was brought into the world? Or have I been made for this, to lie in the bed-clothes and keep myself warm? But this is more pleasant. Do you exist then to take your pleasure, and not at all for action or exertion? Do you not see the little plants, the little birds, the ants, the spiders, the bees working together to put in order their several parts of the universe? And are you unwilling to do the work of a human being, and do you not make haste to do that which is according to your nature?

Here is a rule of life: Do what nature requires. Set out immediately, if it is possible; and do not look about you to see if men shall know it; and do not expect Plato's ideal state: but be satisfied with even the smallest advance, and consider this no small matter.

When you have trouble being kind, remember that kindness is invincible, if it be genuine. What can the most violent man do to you, if you continue to be kind to him? If at the moment of meeting him you gently admonish him and quietly correct his vision at the very time when he is trying to do you harm.

No man can rob us of our free will.

If it is not right, do not do it; if it is not true, do not say it.

Accept the things to which fate binds you, and love the people with whom fate brings you together, and do so with all your heart.

Book VI: On the Inner Life

The universe is change; our life is what our thoughts make it.

The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.

If anyone can refute me, show me I am making a mistake or looking at things from the wrong perspective, I will gladly change. It is the truth I am after, and the truth never harmed anyone. What harms us is to persist in self-deceit and ignorance.

Concentrate every minute like a Roman, like a man, on doing what's in front of you with precise and genuine seriousness, tenderly, willingly, with justice. And on freeing yourself from all other distractions. Yes, you can if you do everything as if it were the last thing you were doing in your life, and stop being aimless, stop letting your emotions override what your mind tells you, stop being hypocritical, self-centered, irritable. You see how few things you have to do to live a satisfying and reverent life? If you can manage this, that is all even the gods can ask of you.

If you do the job in front of you, following right reason seriously, vigorously, calmly, without allowing anything else to distract you, but keeping your divine part pure, as if you might have to give it back at any moment. If you hold to this, expecting nothing, fearing nothing, but satisfied with your present activity according to nature, and with heroic truth in every word and sound which you utter, you will live happy. And there is no man who is able to prevent this.

Never esteem anything as of advantage to you that will make you break your word or lose your self-respect.

Book VII: On Reason and Virtue

What injures the hive injures the bee.

Is any man afraid of change? Why, what can take place without change? Or what can be more pleasing or more suitable to the universal nature? And can you take a hot bath unless the wood undergoes a change? And can you be nourished unless the food undergoes a change? And can anything else that is useful be accomplished without change? Do you not see then that for yourself also to change is just the same, and equally necessary for the universal nature?

In the morning when you rise, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive, to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love.

Do not indulge in hopes that torture you. Live only in the present; now is the only time.

The best revenge is not to be like that.

You have power over your mind, not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.

If someone is able to show me that what I think or do is not right, I will happily change, for I seek the truth, by which no one was ever truly harmed. It is the person who continues in his self-deception and ignorance who is harmed.

Make for yourself a definition or description of the thing which is presented to you, so as to see distinctly what kind of a thing it is in its substance, in its nudity, in its complete entirety, and tell yourself its proper name, and the names of the things of which it has been compounded, and into which it will be resolved.

All is opinion. Opinion is in your power. Take it away when you will, and like a mariner who has doubled the headland, you will find calm, everything stable, a bay without a wave.

Book IX: On Time and Mortality

He who acts unjustly acts impiously. For since the universal nature has made rational animals for the sake of one another with a view to mutual benefit according to their deserts, but in no way to injure one another, the man who transgresses her will is clearly guilty of impiety towards the highest divinity.

Oftentimes you will have observed how quickly a man passes away and disappears, both he who is remembered and those who remember him.

The Pythagoreans bid us in the morning look to the heavens that we may be reminded of those bodies that continually do the same things and in the same manner perform their work, and also be reminded of their orderliness, purity and nakedness. For there is no veil over a star.

All things from eternity are of like forms and come round in a circle, and whether a man sees the same things during a hundred years or two hundred, or an infinite time, no great thing is this.

If any man has done wrong to you, the harm is his, not yours. For every wrong that is done, the doer also suffers the consequences in his reason and his relations to other men.

Search men's governing principles, and consider the wise, what they shun and what they cleave to.

Loss is nothing else but change, and change is Nature's delight. The universe is change; life is opinion.

Look back over the past, with its changing empires that rose and fell, and you can foresee the future, too. Its pattern will be the same, down to the last detail, unable to deviate from the rhythm of the present. Studying human life for forty years is as good as studying it for ten thousand: for what more will you see?

Book XII: The Final Book

All the things which you pray to attain at some future time, you can have now, if you are not too mean-spirited with yourself. This is the case if you leave all the past behind, commit the future to providence, and direct the present only in the way of piety and justice.

Piety means being content with what is assigned to you by nature, for nature designed it for you and you for it. Justice means speaking the truth freely and without dissembling, and acting in accordance with law and the value of things. Let nothing stand in your way: not another man's wickedness, nor your own opinion of it, nor your body's weakness, nor your reputation.

If you have done wrong, and are afflicted by it, be so with such proportionate grief as may serve to prevent its recurrence, but not so much as to grieve you beyond measure.

Everything harmonizes with me, which is harmonious to you, O Universe. Nothing for me is too early nor too late, which is in due time for you. All is fruit to me which your seasons bring, O Nature; from you are all things, in you are all things, to you all things return.

You have been a citizen of this great world-city. Five years or a hundred, what difference? For the laws of the city are the same for all. What is there hard in being discharged from the city, not by a tyrant, nor by an unjust judge, but by Nature, who commissioned you here in the first place? It is like the praetor dismissing from the stage an actor whom he had himself engaged. But I have only played three acts, not the whole five. That is fair enough; in life three acts make a complete play. The end is decided by one who was responsible for your composition in the first place. Neither of these causes is yours. Depart content, then, for he who releases you is content.