Marcus Aurelius: Meditations
He was taught to dress plainly and to live simply, to avoid all softness and luxury. His body was trained to hardihood by wrestling, hunting, and outdoor games.
He erred in his civil administration by too much centralizing.
The strong point of his reign was the administration of justice. Marcus sought by-laws to protect the weak, to make the lot of slaves less hard, to stand in place of father to the fatherless.
He trod the path beaten by his predecessors, seeking only to do his duty as well as he could, and to keep out corruption.
In order to live in accord with nature, it is necessary to know what nature is; and to this end a threefold division of philosophy is made—
1). Into physics, dealing with the universe and its laws, the problems of divine government and teleology
2). Logic which trains the mind to discern true from false.
3). Ethics, which applies the knowledge thus gained and tested into practical life.
Virtue alone is happiness, and vice is unhappiness.
Meditations, like The Imitation of Christ, says it should be a man’s task to “overcome himself, and every day to be stronger than himself.”
“Let us set the axe to the root, that we being purged of our passions may have a peaceful mind.”
To this end there must be continual self examination.
“If thou may not continually gather thyself together, namely sometime do it, at least one a day, the morning or the evening. In the morning lay out, in the evening discuss the manner, what thou hast been this day, in word, in work, in thought.”
“At best suffer patiently, if thou canst not suffer joyfully.”
Give thyself leisure to learn some good thing, and cease roving and wandering to and fro.
2.VI These things thou must always have in mind: this unto that what relation it hath: what kind of part, of what kind of universe it is.
Those sins are greater which are committed through lust.
If there be gods, the gods will do thee no hurt, thou mayest be sure.
But if it be so that there are no gods, or that they take no care of the world, why should I desire to live in a world void of gods, and of all divine providence?
Consider the nature of all worldly things, those which ensnare by pleasure or for their irksomeness are dreadful, or for their outward luster are in great esteem and request, how vile and contemptible, how base, how destitute of all true life and being they are.
A man must keep himself pure from all violent passion and evil affection, from all rashness and vanity, and from all manner of discontent, either in regard of the gods or other men.
A man with a good understanding faculty must consider what it is to die. He can conceive of it as nothing other than a work of nature, and he that fears and work of nature is a very child.
Man can part with no life properly, save for that little part of life which he now lives: and that which he lives, is no other, than that which at every instant he parts with.
A man cannot truly part with the future or the past, for how should a man part with that which he hath not?
Nothing that is according to nature can be evil.
Thou must hasten because thou art every day nearer unto death than other, and also because that intellectual faculty in thee, whereby thou art enabled to know the true nature of things, and to order all thy actions by that knowledge, doth daily waste and decay.
Meddle not with many things, if thou wilt live cheerfully.
Wherever thou mayest live, there it is in thy power to live well and happy.
How many of them who came into the world at the same time when I did, are already gone out of it?
When thou art hard to be stirred up and awaked out of thy sleep admonish thyself and call to mind that to perform actions tending to the common good is what your nature requires.
Keep thyself to the first bare and naked apprehensions of things, as they present themselves unto thee, and add not unto them.
Keep to the first motions of things and do not add to them through your own conceit and opinion.
As a fountain if sweet and clear water, though she be cursed by some stander by, yet do her springs nevertheless still run as sweet and clear as before; yea though either dirt or dung be thrown in, yet is it no sooner thrown, than dispersed, and she is cleared.
She cannot be tarnished or infected by it.
What then must I do, that I have myself within an overflowing fountain, not a shallow well? Beget thyself by continual endeavors to true liberty and charity, and true simplicity and modesty.
All men are made for one another: teach them or suffer with them.
He that is unjust, hurts himself, in that he makes himself worse than he was before.
All things that are in the world are perpetually in the state of alteration.
Thou also art in a perpetual change...