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“Disturbance comes only from within—from our own perceptions.”

Hays translation
IV, 4
Meditations (c. AD 121–180), Book IV

“Self-control and resistance to distractions. Optimism in adversity—especially illness.”

Hays translation
I, 15
Meditations (c. AD 121–180), Book I

“Remember that what pulls the strings is the force hidden within; there lies the power to persuade, there the life,—there, if one must speak out, the real man.”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

Source: Meditations (c. AD 121–180), Book X, 38

“In the case of all things which have a certain constitution, whatever harm may happen to any of them, that which is affected becomes consequently worse; but in like case, a man becomes both better... and more worthy of praise, by making the right use of these accidents.”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

Source: Meditations (c. AD 121–180), Book X, 33

“Only to the rational animal is it given to follow voluntarily what happens; but simply to follow is a necessity imposed on all.”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

Source: Meditations (c. AD 121–180), Book X, 28

“What is my ruling faculty now to me? and of what nature am I now making it? and for what purpose am I now using it? is it void of understanding? is it loosed and rent asunder from social life? is it melted and mixed with the poor flesh so as to move together with it?”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

Source: Meditations (c. AD 121–180), Book X, 24

“Constantly contemplate the whole of time and the whole of substance, and consider that all individual things as to substance are a grain of a fig, and as to time the turning of a gimlet.”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

Source: Meditations (c. AD 121–180), Book X, 17

“To her who gives and takes back all, to nature, the man who is instructed and modest says, Give what thou wilt; take back what thou wilt. And he says this not proudly, but obediently and well pleased with her.”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

Source: Meditations (c. AD 121–180), Book X, 14

“Why dost thou not pray... to give thee the faculty of not fearing any of the things which thou fearest, or of not desiring any of the things which thou desirest, or not being pained at anything, rather than pray that any of these things should not happen or happen?”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

Source: Meditations (c. AD 121–180), Book IX, 40

“Let there be freedom from perturbations with respect to the things which come from the external cause; and let there be justice in the things done by virtue of the internal cause, that is, let there be movement and action terminating in this, in social acts, for this is according to thy nature.”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

Source: Meditations (c. AD 121–180), Book IX, 31

“The mind which is free from passions is a citadel, for man has nothing more secure to which he can fly for refuge and for the future be inexpugnable. He then who has not seen this is an ignorant man: but he who has seen it and does not fly to this refuge is unhappy.”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

Source: Meditations (c. AD 121–180), Book VIII, 48

“The things... which are proper to the understanding no other man is used to impede, for neither fire, nor iron, nor tyrant, nor abuse, touches it in any way. When it has been made a sphere, it continues a sphere.”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

Source: Meditations (c. AD 121–180), Book VIII, 41

“Remember that neither the future nor the past pains thee, but only the present. But this is reduced to a very little, if thou only circumscribest it, and chidest thy mind, if it is unable to hold out against even this.”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

Meditations (c. AD 121–180), Book VIII, 36

“There are three relations [between thee and other things]: the one to the body which surrounds thee; the second to the divine cause from which all things come to all; and the third to those who live with thee.”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

Source: Meditations (c. AD 121–180), Book VIII, 27

“Short-lived are both the praiser and the praised, and rememberer and the remembered: and all this in a nook of this part of the world; and not even here do all agree, no, not any one with himself: and the whole earth too is a point.”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

Source: Meditations (c. AD 121–180), Book VIII, 21

“Where any work can be done conformably to the reason which is common to gods and men, there we have nothing to fear; for where we are able to get profit by means of the activity which is successful and proceeds according to our constitution, there no harm is to be suspected.”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

Source: Meditations (c. AD 121–180), Book VII, 53

“That which had grown from the earth, to the earth, But that which has sprung from heavenly seed, Back to the heavenly realms returns. This is either a dissolution of the mutual involution of the atoms, or a similar dispersion of the unsentient elements.”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

Source: Meditations (c. AD 121–180), Book VII, 50

“Thou mayest foresee... the things which will be. For they will certainly be of like form, and it is not possible that they should deviate from the order of things now: accordingly to have contemplated human life for forty years is the same as to have contemplated it for ten thousand years.”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

Source: Meditations (c. AD 121–180), Book VII, 49

“Wipe out the imagination. Stop pulling the strings. Confine thyself to the present. ...Divide and distribute every object into the causal [formal] and the material. ...Let the wrong which is done by a man stay there where the wrong was done.”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

Source: Meditations (c. AD 121–180), Book VII, 29

“Remember that man lives only in the present, in this fleeting instant; all the rest of his life is either past and gone, or not yet revealed. Short, therefore, is man's life, and narrow is the corner of the earth wherein he dwells.”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

Source: Meditations (c. AD 121–180), Book III, 10