The Thoughts of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus |
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Common terms and phrases
able according to nature Aesculapius angry Antoninus Pius Arrian art thou blame body Carnuntum cause Christians Chrysippus Commodus consider constitution daemon death Deity Dion Cassius disposition divinity dost thou earth emperor endure Epictetus everything which happens evil exist external fame formed by nature give gods happen to thee harm Heraclitus human intelligence judgment justice kind live according look man's nature manner Marcomanni MARCUS AURELIUS ANTONINUS matter never observe opinion pain perish philosophy Plato pleasure praise Quadi rational animal reason remember respect Roman ruling faculty ruling principle social act Socrates soon soul speak Stoic substance things which happen thou art thou canst thou didst thou dost thou hast thou shalt thou shouldst thou wilt thy duty thy mind thy nature thy power thyself tion Trajan tranquillity trouble truth universal nature Verus vexed virtue whole wilt thou wrong Zeus
Popular passages
Page 58 - Such as are thy habitual thoughts, such also will be the character of thy mind ; for the soul is dyed by the thoughts. Dye it then with a continuous series of such thoughts as these : for instance, that where a man can live, there he can also live well.
Page 196 - For we are made for co-operation, like feet, like hands, like eyelids, like the rows of the upper and lower teeth. To act against one another then is contrary to nature; and it is acting against one another to be vexed and to turn away.
Page 71 - If any man is able to convince me and show me that I do not think or act right, I will gladly change; for I seek the truth by which no man was ever injured. But he is injured who abides in his error and ignorance.
Page 30 - No longer wander at hazard ; for neither wilt thou read thy own memoirs, nor the acts of the ancient Romans and Hellenes, and the selections from books which thou wast reserving for thy old age. Hasten then to the end which thou hast before thee, and, throwing away idle hopes, come to thine own aid, if thou carest at all for thyself, while it is in thy power.
Page 33 - ... choose to retire into thyself. For nowhere either with more quiet or more freedom from trouble does a man retire than into his own soul, particularly when he has within him such thoughts that by looking into them he is immediately in perfect tranquillity; and I affirm that tranquillity is nothing else than the good ordering of the mind.
Page 27 - Never value anything as profitable to thyself which shall compel thee to break thy promise, to lose thy self-respect, to hate any man, to suspect, to curse, to act the hypocrite, to desire anything which needs walls and curtains...
Page 63 - Soon, very soon, thou wilt be ashes, or a skeleton, and either a name or not even a name ; but name is sound and echo. And the things which are much valued in life are empty and rotten and trifling, and [like] little dogs biting one another, and little children quarrelling, laughing, and then straightway weeping. But fidelity and modesty and justice and truth are fled Up to Olympus from the wide-spread earth.
Page 39 - Everything harmonizes with me, which is harmonious to thee, O Universe. Nothing for me is too early nor too late, which is in due time for thee. Everything is fruit to me which thy seasons bring, O Nature: from thee are all things, in thee are all things, to thee all things return.
Page 181 - Make for thyself a definition or description of the thing which is presented to thee, so as to see distinctly what kind of a thing it is in its substance, in its nudity, in its complete entirety, and tell thyself its proper name, and the names of the things of which it has been compounded, and into which it will be resolved.
Page 140 - For it makes no difference whether a man lives there or here, if he lives everywhere in the world as in a state (political community). 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 as men do. 1 6. No longer talk at all about the kind of man that a good man ought to be, but be such.