Marcus Aurelius · a new plain-English translation from the original language
1. The properties of the rational soul: it sees itself, it articulates itself, it makes itself whatever it wishes to be, it reaps the fruit it bears itself (whereas the fruits of plants, and the corresponding thing in animals, are reaped by others), it attains its own end wherever the limit of life is set upon it, unlike dancing or acting or the like, where the whole performance is left incomplete if something cuts it off - no, at every part, and wherever it may be overtaken, it renders what was set before it full and lacking nothing of itself, so that it can say: I have what is mine. Further, it ranges over the entire cosmos, the emptiness that surrounds it, and its form, and stretches out into the endlessness of time, and grasps and revolves in thought the cyclical renewal of all things, and sees that those who come after us will see nothing new, nor did those before us see anything more, but that in a way the man of forty, if he has any understanding at all, has seen all that has been and all that will be, by virtue of their likeness in kind. It is also a property of the rational soul to love one's neighbors, and truthfulness, and reverence, and to honor nothing above itself - which is also a property of law; and so it turns out that right reason and the reason of justice are no different from each other.
2. You will look down on delightful song and dancing and the pankration if you break the melodious voice down into each of its separate notes and ask yourself, note by note, whether you are its inferior - for you will recoil from it; and if you do the same for dancing, movement by movement or pose by pose, and likewise for the pankration. In general, then, apart from virtue and what comes from virtue, remember to run to the individual parts of a thing and, by dividing it up, to arrive at contempt for it - and transfer this same practice to your whole life.
3. What a soul it is that stands ready, if it must already be released from the body, either to be extinguished or scattered or to persist. But let this readiness come from one's own judgment, not out of sheer defiance as with the Christians, but reasoned through and dignified and, if it is to persuade another too, without theatrics.
4. I have done something for the common good - so I have benefited myself. Let this be ready at hand for you always, and never stop it.
5. What is your craft? To be good. And how is this achieved well, except by principles - some about the nature of the whole, others about the particular constitution of man?
6. Tragedies were first brought in as reminders of what happens, and that these things naturally come about this way, and that you should not be burdened on the greater stage by the very things that charm you on the stage - for you can see that these things must be brought to their end this way, and that even those who cry out "O Cithaeron!" must bear them. And some things are said usefully too by those who compose the plays - one saying above all is this: "But if I have been neglected by the gods, and my child too, even this has its reason" - and again: "we must not rage at events" - and: "to reap life as one reaps a fruitful ear of corn" - and other such lines. After tragedy the Old Comedy was brought in, having an educative frankness, and through its very plainness of speech reminding us, not uselessly, against puffed-up pride - it was for something of this sort that Diogenes too took such things up. After this consider for what purpose Middle Comedy, and then in turn New Comedy, was adopted, which gradually slid away into a mere artful pursuit of imitation. That some useful things are said even by these writers is not unknown - but toward what end did the whole aim of such poetry and playwriting look?
7. How clear it becomes: there is no other subject-matter for life so well suited to philosophizing as the one you happen to be in right now.
8. A branch severed from the branch beside it is thereby severed from the whole shrub as well. In the same way a man torn away from even one other man has fallen away from the whole community. Now a branch is cut off by someone else; but a man separates himself from his neighbor by his own hatred and turning away, and does not realize that in doing so he has cut himself off from the whole political body as well. Except that this much is a gift from Zeus, who established the community: it is possible for us to grow back together with the one next to us and once more become completing members of the whole. Still, if this kind of splitting happens too often, it makes the part that has withdrawn hard to reunite and hard to restore. And in any case the branch that grew up together from the start and kept breathing with the tree is not the same as the one grafted back on after being cut off, whatever the gardeners may say about it. Grow together on the same stem, yes — but do not share the same opinions.
9. Those who stand in your way as you go forward according to right reason will not be able to turn you aside from sound action — so do not let them knock you off course in your goodwill toward them either, but guard yourself equally on both fronts: not only in steady judgment and action, but also in gentleness toward those who try to obstruct you or are otherwise annoyed with you. For this too is a weakness — being harsh with them — just as much as abandoning the action and giving in, terrified. Both are equally deserters from their post: the one who shrinks back in fear, and the one who becomes estranged from the man who is by nature his kin and friend.
10. "No nature is inferior to art" — for the arts imitate nature. If so, then the nature that is most perfect and most all-embracing of all the others could hardly fall short of the resourcefulness of art. And every art produces the lesser things for the sake of the better; so too, then, does the common nature. And indeed from this arises the birth of justice, and from justice the rest of the virtues stand established; for the just will not be preserved if we are divided over indifferent things, or are easily deceived, hasty to fall in and hasty to fall out.
11. If it is not the things themselves that come at you — the ones whose pursuit and flight disturb you — but rather you in some way go out to them, then let your judgment about them be at rest, and they will remain still, and you will be seen neither pursuing nor fleeing.
12. The sphere of the soul keeps its own shape when it is neither stretched out toward anything nor drawn together inward, neither scattered nor collapsed in on itself, but shines with the light by which it sees the truth of all things and the truth within itself.
13. Will someone despise me? That is his business. But I will see to it that I am not found doing or saying anything deserving of contempt. Will someone hate me? That is his business. But I will be kind and well-disposed to everyone, and ready to show even this very person his mistake — not reproachfully, nor as though making a display of my patience, but genuinely and generously, like that Phocion, if indeed he was not merely pretending. For a man's inner state should be such, and be seen as such by the gods, that he is disposed toward nothing with resentment and suffers nothing as an outrage. What harm is there for you, if you yourself are now doing what is proper to your own nature, and welcoming what is timely now for the nature of the whole — a man stretched toward bringing about, by whatever means, what serves the common good?
14. Despising one another, they still flatter one another; and wanting to get the better of one another, they still grovel before one another.
15. How rotten and false is the man who says: "I have simply decided to deal with you plainly." What are you doing, man? There is no need to announce this beforehand. It will show itself. It ought to be written on your forehead; your voice should ring with it at once, it should show at once in your eyes, just as a beloved reads everything at once in the glance of the one who loves him. The good and simple man should be exactly like this — like someone with a certain smell about him — so that the person standing next to him perceives it the moment he comes near, whether he wants to or not. But the cultivated pose of simplicity is a knife in the back. Nothing is more shameful than the friendship of wolves; avoid that above all else. The good, simple, well-meaning man has all this in his eyes, and it does not go unnoticed.
16. To live the best life — this power lies in the soul, if one is indifferent toward the things that are indifferent. And one will be indifferent to them if one looks at each of them broken down into its parts and as a whole, and remembers that none of them creates any opinion about itself in us, nor comes at us on its own — rather the things themselves stay still, and it is we who generate the judgments about them and, as it were, write them into ourselves, when it is possible not to write them, and possible, even if one has let something slip in unnoticed, to erase it at once; and remembers too that this attentiveness will be needed only a short time, and then life will be over. What, after all, is so hard about keeping these things straight? If a thing is in accordance with nature, take pleasure in it and let it be easy for you; if it is against nature, seek out what is in accordance with your own nature and hasten toward that, even if it brings no glory — for everyone is forgiven for seeking his own good.
17. Where each thing has come from, out of what underlying substances each is composed, what it turns into next, what shape that transformation gives it, and that no harm at all comes to it from the process.
18. First, what relation do I have to them, and that we were born for one another; and, seen another way, that I was born to stand over them, as a ram stands over its flock or a bull over its herd. Go further back still, from this: if the world is not a mere scattering of atoms, then it is nature that governs the whole; and if that is so, the lesser things exist for the sake of the better, and these for the sake of one another. Second, what kind of people they are at table, in bed, and so on — and above all, under what compulsions of belief they act, and with what conceit they do even these very things. Third, that if they act rightly in this, there is no cause for irritation; and if not rightly, then clearly they do it unwillingly and in ignorance. For every soul is deprived unwillingly, both of the truth and of the ability to treat each person as he deserves. That is why men resent being called unjust, ungrateful, greedy — in short, wrongdoers toward their neighbors. Fourth, that you yourself commit many faults, and are the same sort of person as they are; and even if you abstain from certain faults, you still have the disposition that would produce them, even if cowardice, concern for reputation, or some other such fault keeps you from the like offenses. Fifth, that you have not even grasped for certain that they are at fault; for many things happen as part of a larger design, and one must learn a great deal before pronouncing with any certainty on another's action.
Sixth, that when you are especially indignant or impatient, remember that human life lasts only a moment, and soon all of us will be laid out flat. Seventh, that it is not their actions that disturb us — those belong to their own ruling faculties — but our own judgments about them. Cast off, then, and be willing to let go of the judgment that treats it as some terrible thing, and your anger is gone. How will you cast it off? By reasoning that there is nothing shameful in it; for if shame is not the only evil, then you too are bound to commit many faults, to become a thief, and anything else besides. Eighth, how much harsher are the effects of the anger and grief we feel over such things than the things themselves that provoke our anger and grief. Ninth, that goodwill is unconquerable, provided it is genuine and not a smirk or a pretense. For what will the most insolent man do to you if you go on being good-natured toward him, and, if the occasion allows, gently advise him and calmly set him right at the very moment he is trying to do you harm — 'No, child; we were made for something else. I will certainly not be harmed, but you are harming yourself, child.' And show him neatly and thoroughly that this is so, that not even bees do this, nor any creature built by nature to live in community.
But this must be done without irony and without reproach, but with affection and without any bitterness in the soul, and not as if in a lecture hall, nor so that some bystander will admire you, but either to him alone, even if others happen to be standing about. Remember these nine points as gifts received from the Muses, and begin at last, while you still live, to be a human being. But you must guard equally, alongside anger at them, against flattering them; for both are unsociable and lead to harm. Keep close at hand, in moments of anger, that raging is not manly, but that the gentle and mild is more human, and for that very reason more truly manly as well — it is this that has a share in strength and sinew and courage, not the man who is indignant and discontented. For the closer a thing is to freedom from passion, the closer it is to strength. Just as grief belongs to weakness, so does anger; both have been wounded and have given way. And, if you wish, take a tenth gift as well, from the leader of the Muses: that to expect the wicked not to do wrong is madness, for that is to wish for the impossible. But to allow that they be such toward others, and yet demand that they not wrong you, is unreasonable and tyrannical.
19. There are four particular turns of the ruling faculty that must be watched for constantly, and as soon as you catch one, it must be erased, saying to yourself of each in turn: this impression is not necessary; this is corrosive of community; this is not what you are really about to say, from yourself — for to speak what is not your own you should count among the most absurd of things. The fourth is when you will reproach yourself, because this means that the more divine part in you has been overcome and has bowed down to the less honorable, mortal part — the body — and to its rough or smooth motions.
20. Your little breath, and all the fiery element mixed within you, though by nature they tend upward, nevertheless obey the ordering of the whole and are held here in check within the compound. And likewise all the earthy and moist element within you, though it tends downward, has nonetheless been raised up and stands in a position not natural to it. In this way even the elements obey the whole, remaining stationed wherever they have been posted by force, until the signal for their release sounds again from that same source. Is it not strange, then, that only your intelligent part should be disobedient and resentful of its own station? And yet nothing violent is imposed on it, only what is in accordance with its nature; but it will not put up with this, and instead is carried the opposite way. For the movement toward injustice, toward wanton acts, toward anger, grief, and fear is nothing other than a falling away from nature. And whenever the ruling faculty is vexed at something that happens, it likewise abandons its own proper station; for it has been constituted for holiness and reverence toward the divine no less than for justice. Indeed these too belong to the class of right community with others — or rather they are even prior in rank to acts of justice.
21. "Whoever does not have one and the same aim throughout his life cannot himself remain one and the same throughout his life." What has been said is not enough unless you add what that aim ought to be. For just as the notion of what counts as good is not the same for everything that most people in whatever way suppose to be good, but only for certain things, namely the things held in common, so too the aim must be established as a communal and political one. For the man who directs all his personal impulses toward this will make all his actions alike, and by this will always remain the same.
22. The mountain mouse and the house mouse, and the fright and scurrying of the latter.
23. Socrates used to call the opinions of the many "Lamias," bogeys to frighten children.
24. The Spartans, at their festivals, set out seats in the shade for foreign visitors, but they themselves sat down wherever they happened to be.
25. Socrates, declining to go to Perdiccas, said: "So that I may not perish by the worst destruction" - that is, so that he might not receive a benefit and be unable to repay it.
26. In the writings of the Epicureans there was laid down a precept that one should continually recall some man of old who practiced virtue.
27. The Pythagoreans: look up at the sky at dawn, so that we may be reminded of those bodies that always keep their own work going in the same way, in the same manner, and of their order, their purity, their nakedness; for no star wears a covering.
28. Socrates, girded with a sheepskin, when Xanthippe took his cloak and went out with it, and what Socrates said to his companions, ashamed and drawing back, when they saw him dressed like that.
29. In writing and reading you will not be able to lead until you have first been led. Much more so in life.
30. "You were born a slave; reason is no share of yours."
31. "And my own dear heart laughed."
32. "They will find fault with virtue, speaking harsh words against it."
33. To look for a fig in winter is madness; such is the man who looks for his child when it is no longer given to him.
34. Epictetus said that when kissing your child, you should say quietly to yourself: tomorrow perhaps it will die. - "These are words of ill omen." - "Nothing is ill-omened," he said, "that signifies some natural process; or else it is also ill-omened for the ears of grain to be harvested."
35. Unripe grape, ripe cluster, raisin - all are changes, not into what does not exist, but into what does not yet exist now.
36. No one becomes a thief of another's moral choice - the saying of Epictetus.
37. He said one must find an art for giving assent, and in the area of impulses keep close watch, so that they are qualified, so that they serve the common good, so that they are in proportion to worth; and abstain entirely from desire, and use aversion toward nothing that is not up to us.
38. "The struggle," he said, "is not about some chance matter, but about whether we are to be mad or not."
39. Socrates used to say: what do you want, souls of rational beings or of irrational ones? - Of rational ones. - Rational of what kind, sound or corrupt? - Sound. - Then why do you not seek them? - Because we have them. - Then why do you fight and quarrel?