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“The longest-lived and the shortest-lived man, when they come to die, lose one and the same thing.”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

II, 14
Meditations (c. 121–180 AD), Book II

“The other reason is that what happens to the individual is a cause of well-being in what directs the world--of its well-being, its fulfillment, or its very existence, even. Because the whole is damaged if you cut away anything--anything at all--from its continuity and its coherence. Not only its parts, but its purposes. And that's what you're doing when you complain: hacking and destroying.”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

Hays translation
V, 7
Meditations (c. 121–180 AD), Book V

World , Parting

“Mark how fleeting and paltry is the estate of man - yesterday in embryo, tomorrow a mummy or ashes. So for the hairsbreadth of time assigned to thee, live rationally, and part with life cheerfully, as drops the ripe olive, extolling the season that bore it and the tree that matured it.”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

IV, 48
Meditations (c. 121–180 AD), Book IV

Life , Tree , Time , Parting

“Live as on a mountain. …Let men see, let them know a real man who lives according to nature. If they cannot endure him, let them kill him. For that is better than to live thus.”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

X, 15
Meditations (c. 121–180 AD), Book X

Men , Mountain , Nature

“Look to the essence of a thing, whether it be a point of doctrine, of practice, or of interpretation.”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

Πρόσεχε τῷ ὑποκειμένῳ ἢ τῇ ἐνεργείᾳ ἢ τῷ δόγματι ἢ τῷ σημαινομένῳ.
VIII, 22
Meditations (c. 121–180 AD), Book VIII

“Hasten [to examine] thy own ruling faculty and that of the universe and that of thy neighbor: thy own, that thy may make it just; and that of the universe, that thou mayst remember of what thou art a part; and that of thy neighbor, that thy mayst know whether he has acted ignorantly or with knowledge, and that thou mayst also consider that his ruling faculty is akin to thine.”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

IX, 22
Meditations (c. 121–180 AD), Book IX

Art , Knowledge , Universe , Parting

“The lot assigned to every man is suited to him, and suits him to itself.”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

III, 4
Meditations (c. 121–180 AD), Book III

“How many together with whom I came into the world are already gone out of it.”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

VI, 56
Meditations (c. 121–180 AD), Book VI

World

“For a man can lose neither the past nor the future; for how can one take from him that which is not his? So remember these two points: first, that each thing is of like form from everlasting and comes round again in its cycle, and that it signifies not whether a man shall look upon the same things for a hundred years or two hundred, or for an infinity of time; second, that the longest lived and the shortest lived man, when they come to die, lose one and the same thing.”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

II, 14
Meditations (c. 121–180 AD), Book II

Time , Past , Future

“A man should be upright, not kept upright.”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

III, 5
Meditations (c. 121–180 AD), Book III

“Do what nature now requires. Set thyself in motion, if it is in thy power, and do not look about thee to see if any one will observe it; nor yet expect Plato's Republic: but be content if the smallest thing goes on well, and consider such an event to be no small matter.”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

Forward, as occasion offers. Never look round to see whether any shall note it…. Be satisfied with success in even the smallest matter, and think that even such a result is no trifle.
IX, 29
Meditations (c. 121–180 AD), Book IX

Nature

“How many, once lauded in song, are given over to the forgotten; and how many who sung their praises are clean gone long ago!”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

VII, 6
Meditations (c. 121–180 AD), Book VII

“Nothing happens to anyone that he can't endure. (Hays translation)”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

Nothing happens to anybody which he is not fitted by nature to bear.
Οὐδὲν οὐδενὶ συμβαίνει ὃ οὐχὶ ἐκεῖνο πέφυκε φέρειν.
V, 18
Meditations (c. 121–180 AD), Book V

“Live with the gods.”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

V, 27
Meditations (c. 121–180 AD), Book V

God

“What means all this?”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

III, 3
Meditations (c. 121–180 AD), Book III

“Of my grandfather Verus I have learned to be gentle and meek, and to refrain from all anger and passion... I have learned both shamefastness and manlike behaviour. Of my mother I have learned to be religious, and bountiful; and to forbear, not only to do, but to intend any evil; to content myself with a spare diet, and to fly all such excess as is incidental to great wealth.”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

I, 1
Meditations (c. 121–180 AD), Book I

Anger , Wealth , Learning , Flying

“From Apollonius, true liberty, and unvariable steadfastness, and not to regard anything at all, though never so little, but right and reason: and always..that it was possible for the same man to be both vehement and remiss: a man not subject to be vexed, and offended with the incapacity of his scholars and auditors in his lectures and expositions.”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

I, 5
Meditations (c. 121–180 AD), Book I

“Whensoever by some present hard occurrences thou art constrained to be in some sort troubled and vexed, return unto thyself as soon as may be, and be not out of tune longer than thou must needs. For so shalt thou be the better able to keep thy part another time, and to maintain the harmony, if thou dost use thyself to this continually; once out, presently to have recourse unto it, and to begin again.”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

VI, 9
Meditations (c. 121–180 AD), Book VI

Time , Parting , Art

“An angry countenance is much against nature, and it is oftentimes the proper countenance of them that are at the point of death. But were it so, that all anger and passion were so thoroughly quenched in thee, that it were altogether impossible to kindle it any more, yet herein must not thou rest satisfied, but further endeavour by good consequence of true ratiocination, perfectly to conceive and understand, that all anger and passion is against reason.”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

VII, 18
Meditations (c. 121–180 AD), Book VII

Anger , Understanding , Nature , Passion

“Consider that everything is opinion, and opinion is in thy power. Take away then, when thou choosest, thy opinion, and like a mariner, who has doubled the promontory, thou wilt find calm, everything stable, and a waveless bay.”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

Source: Meditations (c. 121–180 AD), Book XII, 22