Meditations: A New Translation (Modern Library Classics)

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Externalthings are not the problem. It’s your assessment of them… And if it’s that you’re not doingsomethingyou think you should be, why not just do it? 8.47 What is divinedeservesour respect because it is good; what is human deserves our affection because it is like us. 2.13 Then where is the harm to be found? In your capacity to see it. Stop doing that and everything will be fine. 4.39 Our duty is to exercise stringent control over the faculty of perception, with the aim of protecting our mind from error. Not to be driven this way and that, but to always behave with justice and to see things as they are. 4.22

It would be wrong for anything to stand between you and attaining goodness — as a rational being and a citizen. 3.6

Forget the future. When and if it comes, you’ll have the same resources to draw on–the same logos. 7.8

Today Iescapedfrom anxiety. Or no, I discarded it, because it was within me, in my own perceptions–not outside. 9.13Frightened of change? But what can exist without it? Can any process take place without something being changed? 7.18 And to those who complain and try to obstruct and thwart things–they help as much as anyone. The world needs them as well. 6.42 Wash yourself clean. With simplicity, with humility, with indifference to everything but right and wrong. Care for other human beings. Follow God. 7.31 The third discipline of will is in a sense the counterpart to the second, the discipline of action. Action governs our approach to the things in our control. The discipline of will governs our attitude to things that are not within our control

The body and its parts are a river, the soul is a dream and mist, life is warfare and a journey far from home, lasting reputation is oblivion. 2.17 To have that. Not a cistern but a perpetual spring. How? By working to win your freedom. Hour by hour. Throughpatience, honesty, and humility. 8.51 At dawn, when you have trouble getting out of bed, tell yourself: “I have to go to work–as a human being…I am going to what I was born for.” 5.1 Then what should you work for? Only this: proper understanding; unselfish action; truthful speech. A resolve to accept whatever happens as necessary and familiar, flowing like water from that same source and spring. 4.33

To move from one unselfish action to another with God in mind. Only there, delight and stillness. 6.7 But the man motivated by desire, who is mastered by pleasure, seems somehow more self-indulgent, less manly in his sins. 2.10

The things ordained for you–teach yourself to be at one with those. And to the people who share them with you–treat them with love. With real love. 6.39If you can cut free of impressions that cling to the mind, of future and past–then you can spend the time you have left in tranquility. And in kindness. And at peace with the spirit within you. 12.3 Humans were made to help others. And when we do help others–or help them do something–we’re doing what we weredesignedfor. We perform our function. 9.42 The mind without passion is a fortress. No place is more secure. Once we take refuge there we are safe forever. 8.48 It’s unfortunate that this has happened. No. It is fortunate that this has happened and I’ve remained unharmed by it–not shattered by the present or frightened of the future. 4.49 No matter what anyone says or does, my task is to be good. Like gold or emerald or purple repeating to itself, “No matter what anyone says or does, my task is to be emerald, my color undiminished.” 7.15