---
type: article
status: Published
slug: "meditations"
title: "Meditations"
author: "Marcus Aurelius"
tradition: "roman"
language: "grc"
genre: "philosophy"
period: "c. 170–180 CE"
source_url: "https://el.wikisource.org/wiki/%CE%A4%CE%B1_%CE%B5%CE%B9%CF%82_%CE%B5%CE%B1%CF%85%CF%84%CF%8C%CE%BD"
certainty: observed
source: "https://el.wikisource.org/wiki/%CE%A4%CE%B1_%CE%B5%CE%B9%CF%82_%CE%B5%CE%B1%CF%85%CF%84%CF%8C%CE%BD"
unknowns: none known
---
# Meditations

## Original

### Book I
1. Παρὰ τοῦ πάππου Οὐήρου τὸ καλόηθες καὶ ἀόργητον.

2. Παρὰ τῆς δόξης καὶ μνήμης τῆς περὶ τοῦ γεννήσαντος τὸ αἰδῆμον καὶ ἀῤῥενικόν.

3. Παρὰ τῆς μητρὸς τὸ θεοσεβὲς καὶ μεταδοτικὸν καὶ ἀφεκτικὸν οὐ μόνον τοῦ κακοποιεῖν, ἀλλὰ καὶ τοῦ ἐπὶ ἐννοίας γίνεσθαι τοιαύτης˙ ἔτι δὲ τὸ λιτὸν κατὰ τὴν δίαιταν καὶ πόῤῥω τῆς πλουσιακῆς διαγωγῆς.

4. Παρὰ τοῦ προπάππου τὸ μὴ εἰς δημοσίας διατριβὰς φοιτῆσαι καὶ τὸ ἀγαθοῖς διδασκάλοις κατ οἶκον χρήσασθαι καὶ τὸ γνῶναι ὅτι εἰς τὰ τοιαῦτα δεῖ ἐκτενῶς ἀναλίσκειν.

5. Παρὰ τοῦ τροφέως τὸ μήτε Πρασιανὸς ἢ Βενετιανὸς μήτε Παλμουλάριος ἢ Σκουτάριος γενέσθαι˙ καὶ τὸ φερέπονον καὶ ὀλιγοδεές˙ καὶ τὸ αὐτουργικὸν καὶ ἀπολύπραγμον˙ καὶ τὸ δυσπρόσδεκτον διαβολῆς.

6. Παρὰ Διογνήτου τὸ ἀκενόσπουδον˙ καὶ τὸ ἀπιστητικὸν τοῖς ὑπὸ τῶν τερατευομένων καὶ γοήτων περὶ ἐπῳδῶν καὶ [περὶ] δαιμόνων ἀποπομπῆς καὶ τῶν τοιούτων λεγομένοις˙ καὶ τὸ μὴ ὀρτυγοκοπεῖν μηδὲ περὶ τὰ τοιαῦτα ἐπτοῆσθαι˙ καὶ τὸ ἀνέχεσθαι παῤῥησίας˙ καὶ τὸ οἰκειωθῆναι φιλοσοφίᾳ καὶ τὸ ἀκοῦσαι πρῶτον μὲν Βακχείου, εἶτα Τανδάσιδος καὶ Μαρκιανοῦ˙ καὶ τὸ γράψαι διαλόγους ἐν παιδί˙ καὶ τὸ σκίμποδος καὶ δορᾶς ἐπιθυμῆσαι καὶ ὅσα τοιαῦτα τῆς Ἑλληνικῆς ἀγωγῆς ἐχόμενα.

7. Παρὰ Ῥουστίκου τὸ λαβεῖν φαντασίαν τοῦ χρῄζειν διορθώσεως καὶ θεραπείας τοῦ ἤθους˙ καὶ τὸ μὴ ἐκτραπῆναι εἰς ζῆλον σοφιστικόν, μηδὲ τὸ συγγράφειν περὶ τῶν θεωρημάτων, ἢ προτρεπτικὰ λογάρια διαλέγεσθαι, ἢ φαντασιοπλήκτως τὸν ἀσκητικὸν ἢ τὸν εὐεργετικὸν ἄνδρα ἐπιδείκνυσθαι˙ καὶ τὸ ἀποστῆναι ῥητορικῆς καὶ ποιητικῆς καὶ ἀστειολογίας˙ καὶ τὸ μὴ ἐν στολίῳ κατ οἶκον περιπατεῖν μηδὲ τὰ τοιαῦτα ποιεῖν˙ καὶ τὸ τὰ ἐπιστόλια ἀφελῶς γράφειν, οἷον τὸ ὑπ αὐτοῦ τούτου ἀπὸ Σινοέσσης τῇ μητρί μου γραφέν˙ καὶ τὸ πρὸς τοὺς χαλεπήναντας καὶ πλημμελήσαντας εὐανακλήτως καὶ εὐδιαλλάκτως, ἐπειδὰν τάχιστα αὐτοὶ ἐπανελθεῖν ἐθελήσωσι, διακεῖσθαι˙ καὶ τὸ ἀκριβῶς ἀναγινώσκειν καὶ μὴ ἀρκεῖσθαι περινοοῦντα ὁλοσχερῶς μηδὲ τοῖς περιλαλοῦσι ταχέως συγκατατίθεσθαι˙ καὶ τὸ ἐντυχεῖν τοῖς Ἐπικτητείοις ὑπομνήμασιν, ὧν οἴκοθεν μετέδωκεν.

8. Παρὰ Ἀπολλωνίου τὸ ἐλεύθερον καὶ ἀναμφιβόλως ἀκύβευτον καὶ πρὸς μηδὲν ἄλλο ἀποβλέπειν μηδὲ ἐπ ὀλίγον ἢ πρὸς τὸν λόγον˙ καὶ τὸ ἀεὶ ὅμοιον, ἐν ἀλγηδόσιν ὀξείαις, ἐν ἀποβολῇ τέκνου, ἐν μακραῖς νόσοις˙ καὶ τὸ ἐπὶ παραδείγματος ζῶντος ἰδεῖν ἐναργῶς ὅτι δύναται ὁ αὐτὸς σφοδρότατος εἶναι καὶ ἀνειμένος˙ καὶ τὸ ἐν ταῖς ἐξηγήσεσι μὴ δυσχεραντικόν˙ καὶ τὸ ἰδεῖν ἄνθρωπον σαφῶς ἐλάχιστον τῶν ἑαυτοῦ καλῶν ἡγούμενον τὴν ἐμπειρίαν καὶ τὴν ἐντρέχειαν τὴν περὶ τὸ παραδιδόναι τὰ θεωρήματα˙ καὶ τὸ μαθεῖν πῶς δεῖ λαμβάνειν τὰς δοκούσας χάριτας παρὰ φίλων, μήτε ἐξηττώμενον διὰ ταῦτα μήτε ἀναισθήτως παραπέμποντα.

9. Παρὰ Σέξτου τὸ εὐμενές˙ καὶ τὸ παράδειγμα τοῦ οἴκου τοῦ πατρονομουμένου˙ καὶ τὴν ἔννοιαν τοῦ κατὰ φύσιν ζῆν˙ καὶ τὸ σεμνὸν ἀπλάστως˙ καὶ τὸ στοχαστικὸν τῶν φίλων κηδεμονικῶς˙ καὶ τὸ ἀνεκτικὸν τῶν ἰδιωτῶν καὶ τῶν ἀθεωρητὶ οἰομένων˙ καὶ τὸ πρὸς πάντας εὐάρμοστον, ὥστε κολακείας μὲν πάσης προσηνεστέραν εἶναι τὴν ὁμιλίαν αὐτοῦ, αἰδεσιμώτατον δὲ αὐτοῖς ἐκείνοις παῤ αὐτὸν ἐκεῖνον τὸν καιρὸν εἶναι˙ καὶ τὸ καταληπτικῶς καὶ ὁδῷ ἐξευρετικόν τε καὶ τακτικὸν τῶν εἰς βίον ἀναγκαίων δογμάτων˙ καὶ τὸ μηδὲ ἔμφασίν ποτε ὀργῆς ἢ ἄλλου τινὸς πάθους παρασχεῖν, ἀλλὰ ἅμα μὲν ἀπαθέστατον εἶναι, ἅμα δὲ φιλοστοργότατον˙ καὶ τὸ εὔφημον ἀψοφητὶ καὶ τὸ πολυμαθὲς ἀνεπιφάντως.

10. Παρὰ Ἀλεξάνδρου τοῦ γραμματικοῦ τὸ ἀνεπίπληκτον καὶ τὸ μὴ ὀνειδιστικῶς ἐπιλαμβάνεσθαι τῶν βάρβαρον ἢ σόλοικόν τι ἢ ἀπηχὲς προενεγκαμένων, ἀλλ ἐπιδεξίως αὐτὸ μόνον ἐκεῖνο ὃ ἔδει εἰρῆσθαι προφέρεσθαι ἐν τρόπῳ ἀποκρίσεως ἢ συνεπιμαρτυρήσεως ἢ συνδιαλήψεως περὶ αὐτοῦ τοῦ πράγματος, οὐχὶ περὶ τοῦ ῥήματος, ἢ δἰ ἑτέρας τινὸς τοιαύτης ἐμμελοῦς παρυπομνήσεως.

11. Παρὰ Φρόντωνος τὸ ἐπιστῆσαι οἵα ἡ τυραννικὴ βασκανία καὶ ποικιλία καὶ ὑπόκρισις, καὶ ὅτι ὡς ἐπίπαν οἱ καλούμενοι οǷτοι παῤ ἡμῖν εὐπατρίδαι ἀστοργότεροί πως εἰσί.

12. Παρὰ Ἀλεξάνδρου τοῦ Πλατωνικοῦ τὸ μὴ πολλάκις μηδὲ χωρὶς ἀνάγκης λέγειν πρός τινα ἢ ἐν ἐπιστολῇ γράφειν ὅτι ἄσχολός εἰμι, μηδὲ διὰ τοιούτου τρόπου συνεχῶς παραιτεῖσθαι τὰ κατὰ τὰς πρὸς τοὺς συμβιοῦντας σχέσεις καθήκοντα, προβαλλόμενον τὰ περιεστῶτα πράγματα.

13. Παρὰ Κατούλου τὸ μὴ ὀλιγώρως ἔχειν φίλου αἰτιωμένου τι, κἂν τύχῃ ἀλόγως αἰτιώμενος, ἀλλὰ πειρᾶσθαι [καὶ] ἀποκαθιστάναι ἐπὶ τὸ σύνηθες˙ καὶ τὸ περὶ τῶν διδασκάλων ἐκθύμως εὔφημον, οἷα τὰ περὶ Δομετίου καὶ Ἀθηνοδότου ἀπομνημονευόμενα˙ καὶ τὸ περὶ τὰ τέκνα ἀληθινῶς ἀγαπητικόν.

14. Παρὰ Σευήρου τὸ φιλοίκειον καὶ φιλάληθες καὶ φιλοδίκαιον˙ καὶ τὸ δἰ αὐτὸν γνῶναι Θρασέαν, Ἑλβίδιον, Κάτωνα, Δίωνα, Βροῦτον˙ καὶ φαντασίαν λαβεῖν πολιτείας ἰσονόμου, κατ ἰσότητα καὶ ἰσηγορίαν διοικουμένης, καὶ βασιλείας τιμώσης πάντων μάλιστα τὴν ἐλευθερίαν τῶν ἀρχομένων˙ καὶ ἔτι παῤ αὐτοῦ τὸ ὁμαλὲς καὶ εὔτονον ἐν τῇ τιμῇ τῆς φιλοσοφίας˙ καὶ τὸ εὐποιητικὸν καὶ τὸ εὐμετάδοτον ἐκτενῶς καὶ τὸ εὔελπι˙ καὶ τὸ πιστευτικὸν περὶ τοῦ ὑπὸ τῶν φίλων φιλεῖσθαι, καὶ τὸ ἀνεπίκρυπτον πρὸς τοὺς καταγνώσεως ὑπ αὐτοῦ τυγχάνοντας, καὶ τὸ μὴ δεῖσθαι στοχασμοῦ τοὺς φίλους αὐτοῦ περὶ τοῦ τί θέλει ἢ τί οὐ θέλει, ἀλλὰ δῆλον εἶναι.

15. Παρὰ Μαξίμου τὸ κρατεῖν ἑαυτοῦ καὶ κατὰ μηδὲν περίφορον εἶναι˙ καὶ τὸ εὔθυμον ἔν τε ταῖς ἄλλαις περιστάσεσι καὶ ἐν ταῖς νόσοις˙ καὶ τὸ εὔκρατον τοῦ ἤθους καὶ μειλίχιον καὶ γεραρόν˙ καὶ τὸ οὐ σχετλίως κατεργαστικὸν τῶν προκειμένων˙ καὶ τὸ πάντας αὐτῷ πιστεύειν περὶ ὧν λέγοι ὅτι οὕτως φρονεῖ, καὶ περὶ ὧν πράττοι ὅτι οὐ κακῶς πράττει. καὶ τὸ ἀθαύμαστον καὶ ἀνέκπληκτον καὶ μηδαμοῦ ἐπειγόμενον ἢ ὀκνοῦν ἢ ἀμηχανοῦν ἢ κατηφὲς ἢ προσσεσηρός, ἢ πάλιν θυμούμενον ἢ ὑφορώμενον˙ καὶ τὸ εὐεργετικὸν καὶ τὸ συγγνωμονικὸν καὶ τὸ ἀψευδές˙ καὶ τὸ ἀδιαστρόφου μᾶλλον ἢ διορθουμένου φαντασίαν παρέχειν˙ καὶ ὅτι οὔτε ᾠήθη ἄν ποτέ τις ὑπερορᾶσθαι ὑπ αὐτοῦ οὔτε ὑπέμεινεν ἂν κρείττονα αὐτοῦ αὑτὸν ὑπολαβεῖν˙ καὶ τὸ εὔχαρι ἐν τ..

16. Παρὰ τοῦ πατρὸς τὸ ἥμερον καὶ μενετικὸν ἀσαλεύτως ἐπὶ τῶν ἐξητασμένως κριθέντων˙ καὶ τὸ ἀκενόδοξον περὶ τὰς δοκούσας τιμάς˙ καὶ τὸ φιλόπονον καὶ ἐνδελεχές˙ καὶ τὸ ἀκουστικὸν τῶν ἐχόντων τι κοινωφελὲς εἰσφέρειν˙ καὶ τὸ ἀπαρατρέπτως [εἰς] τοῦ κατ ἀξίαν ἀπονεμητικὸν ἑκάστῳ˙ καὶ τὸ ἔμπειρον ποῦ μὲν χρεία ἐντάσεως, ποῦ δὲ ἀνέσεως˙ καὶ τὸ παῦσαι τὰ περὶ τοὺς ἔρωτας τῶν μειρακίων˙ καὶ ἡ κοινονοημοσύνη καὶ τὸ ἐφεῖσθαι τοῖς φίλοις μήτε συνδειπνεῖν αὐτῷ πάντως μήτε συναποδημεῖν ἐπάναγκες, ἀεὶ δὲ ὅμοιον αὐτὸν καταλαμβάνεσθαι ὑπὸ τῶν διὰ χρείας τινὰς ἀπολειφθέντων˙ καὶ τὸ ζητητικὸν ἀκριβῶς ἐν τοῖς συμβουλίοις καὶ ἐπίμονον, † ἀλλ οὐ τό˙ προαπέστη τῆς ἐρεύνης, ἀρκεσθεὶς ταῖς προχείροις φαντασίαις˙ καὶ τὸ διατηρητικὸν τῶν φίλων καὶ μηδαμοῦ ἁψίκορον μηδὲ ἐπιμανές˙ καὶ τὸ αὔταρκες ἐν παντὶ καὶ τὸ φαιδρόν˙ καὶ τὸ πόῤῥωθεν προνοητικὸν καὶ τῶν ἐλαχίστων προδιοικητικὸν ἀτραγῴδως˙ καὶ τὸ τὰς ἐπιβοήσεις καὶ πᾶσαν κολακείαν ἐπ αὐτοῦ ‹συ›σταλῆναι˙ καὶ τὸ φυλακτικὸν ἀεὶ τῶν ἀναγκαίων τῇ ἀρχῇ καὶ ταμιευτικὸν τῆς χορηγίας καὶ ὑπομενετικὸν τῆς ἐπὶ τῶν τοιούτων τινῶν καταιτιάσεως˙ καὶ τὸ μήτε περὶ θεοὺς δεισίδαιμον μήτε περὶ ἀνθρώπους δημοκοπικὸν ἢ ἀρεσκευτικὸν ἢ ὀχλοχαρές, ἀλλὰ νῆφον ἐν πᾶσι καὶ βέβαιον καὶ μηδαμοῦ ἀπειρόκαλον μηδὲ καινοτόμον˙ καὶ τὸ τοῖς εἰς εὐμάρειαν βίου φέρουσί τι, ὧν ἡ τύχη παρεῖχε δαψίλειαν, χρηστικὸν ἀτύφως ἅμα καὶ ἀπροφασίστως, ὥστε παρόντων μὲν ἀνεπιτηδεύτως ἅπτεσθαι, ἀπόντων δὲ μὴ δεῖσθαι˙ καὶ τὸ μηδὲ ἄν τινα εἰπεῖν μήτε ὅτι σοφιστὴς μήτε ὅτι οὐερνάκλος μήτε ὅτι σχολαστικός, ἀλλ ὅτι ἀνὴρ πέπειρος, τέλειος, ἀκολάκευτος, προεστάναι δυνάμενος καὶ τῶν ἑαυτοῦ καὶ ἄλλων. πρὸς τούτοις δὲ καὶ τὸ τιμητικὸν τῶν ἀληθῶς φιλοσοφούντων, τοῖς δὲ ἄλλοις οὐκ ἐξονειδιστικὸν οὐδὲ μὴν εὐπαράγωγον ὑπ αὐτῶν˙ ἔτι δὲ τὸ εὐόμιλον καὶ εὔχαρι οὐ κατακόρως˙ καὶ τὸ τοῦ ἰδίου σώματος ἐπιμελητικὸν ἐμμέτρως, οὔτε ὡς ἄν τις φιλόζωος οὔτε πρὸς καλλωπισμὸν οὔτε μὴν ὀλιγώρως, ἀλλ ὥστε διὰ τὴν ἰδίαν προσοχὴν εἰς ὀλίγιστα ἰατρικῆς χρῄζειν ἢ φαρμάκων καὶ ἐπιθεμάτων [ἐκτός]˙ μάλιστα δὲ τὸ παραχωρητικὸν ἀβασκάνως τοῖς δύναμίν τινα κεκτημένοις, οἷον τὴν φραστικὴν ἢ τὴν ἐξ ἱστορίας νόμων ἢ ἐθῶν ἢ ἄλλων τινῶν πραγμάτων, καὶ συσπουδαστικὸν αὐτοῖς, ἵνα ἕκαστοι κατὰ τὰ ἴδια προτερήματα εὐδοκιμῶσι˙ πάντα δὲ κατὰ τὰ πάτρια πράςσων, οὐδὲ αὐτὸ τοῦτο ἐπιτηδεύων φαίνεσθαι, τὸ τὰ πάτρια φυλάςσειν. ἔτι δὲ τὸ μὴ εὐμετακίνητον καὶ ῥιπταστικόν, ἀλλὰ καὶ τόποις καὶ πράγμασι τοῖς αὐτοῖς ἐνδιατριπτικόν˙ καὶ τὸ μετὰ τοὺς παροξυσμοὺς τῆς κεφαλαλγίας νεαρὸν εὐθὺς καὶ ἀκμαῖον πρὸς τὰ συνήθη ἔργα˙ καὶ τὸ μὴ εἶναι αὐτῷ πολλὰ τὰ ἀπόῤῥητα, ἀλλ ὀλίγιστα καὶ σπανιώτατα καὶ ταῦτα ὑπὲρ τῶν κοινῶν μόνον˙ καὶ τὸ ἔμφρον καὶ μεμετρημένον ἔν τε θεωριῶν ἐπιτελέσει καὶ ἔργων κατασκευαῖς καὶ διανομαῖς καὶ τοῖς τοιούτοις, ‹ὡς› ἀνθρώπου πρὸς αὐτὸ τὸ δέον πραχθῆναι δεδορκότος, οὐ πρὸς τὴν ἐπὶ τοῖς πραχθεῖσιν εὐδοξίαν. οὐκ ἦν ἀωρὶ λούστης, οὐχὶ φιλοικοδόμος, οὐ περὶ τὰς ἐδωδὰς ἐπινοητής, οὐ περὶ ἐσθήτων ὑφὰς καὶ χρόας, οὐ περὶ σωμάτων ὥρας. ἡ ἀπὸ Λωρίου στολὴ ἀνάγουσα ἀπὸ τῆς κάτω ἐπαύλεως˙ καὶ τῶν ἐν Λανουβίῳ τὰ πολλά˙ τῷ τελώνῃ ἐν Τούσκλοις παραιτουμένῳ ὡς ἐχρήσατο καὶ πᾶς ὁ τοιοῦτος τρόπος. οὐδὲν ἀπηνὲς οὐδὲ μὴν ἀδυσώπητον οὐδὲ λάβρον οὐδὲ ὥστ ἄν τινα εἰπεῖν ποτε˙ “ἕως ἱδρῶτοσ”˙ ἀλλὰ πάντα διειλημμένα λελογίσθαι ὡς ἐπὶ σχολῆς, ἀταράχως, τεταγμένως, ἐῤῥωμένως, συμφώνως ἑαυτοῖς. ἐφαρμόσειε δ ἂν αὐτῷ τὸ περὶ τοῦ Σωκράτους μνημονευόμενον, ὅτι καὶ ἀπέχεσθαι καὶ ἀπολαύειν ἐδύνατο τούτων, ὧν πολλοὶ πρός τε τὰς ἀποχὰς ἀσθενῶς καὶ πρὸς τὰς ἀπολαύσεις ἐνδοτικῶς ἔχουσι. τὸ δὲ ἰσχύειν καὶ ἔτι καρτερεῖν καὶ ἐννήφειν ἑκατέρῳ ἀνδρός ἐστιν ἄρτιον καὶ ἀήττητον ψυχὴν ἔχοντος, οἷον ἐν τῇ νόσῳ τὴν Μαξίμου.

17. Παρὰ τῶν θεῶν τὸ ἀγαθοὺς πάππους, ἀγαθοὺς γονέας, ἀγαθὴν ἀδελφήν, ἀγαθοὺς διδασκάλους, ἀγαθοὺς οἰκείους, συγγενεῖς, φίλους, σχεδὸν ἅπαντα ἔχειν˙ καὶ ὅτι περὶ οὐδένα αὐτῶν προέπεσον πλημμελῆσαί τι, καίτοι διάθεσιν ἔχων τοιαύτην, ἀφ ἧς, εἰ ἔτυχε, κἂν ἔπραξά τι τοιοῦτον˙ τῶν θεῶν δὲ εὐποιία τὸ μηδεμίαν συνδρομὴν πραγμάτων γενέσθαι, ἥτις ἔμελλέ με ἐλέγξειν. καὶ τὸ μὴ ἐπὶ πλέον τραφῆναι παρὰ τῇ παλλακῇ τοῦ πάππου καὶ τὸ τὴν ὥραν διασῶσαι καὶ τὸ μὴ πρὸ ὥρας ἀνδρωθῆναι, ἀλλ ἔτι καὶ ἐπιλαβεῖν τοῦ χρόνου. τὸ ἄρχοντι καὶ πατρὶ ὑποταχθῆναι, ὃς ἔμελλε πάντα τὸν τῦφον ἀφαιρήσειν μου καὶ εἰς ἔννοιαν ἄξειν τοῦ ὅτι δυνατόν ἐστιν ἐν αὐλῇ βιοῦντα μήτε δορυφορήσεων χρῄ ζειν μήτε ἐσθήτων σημειωδῶν μήτε λαμπάδων καὶ ἀνδριάντων ‹καὶ› τοιῶνδέ τινων [καὶ] τοῦ ὁμοίου κόμπου, ἀλλ ἔξεστιν ἐγγυτάτω ἰδιώτου συστέλλειν ἑαυτὸν καὶ μὴ διὰ τοῦτο ταπεινότερον ἢ ῥᾳ θυμότερον ἔχειν πρὸς τὰ ὑπὲρ τῶν κοινῶν ἡγεμονικῶς πραχθῆναι δέοντα. τὸ ἀδελφοῦ τοιούτου τυχεῖν, δυναμένου μὲν διὰ ἤθους ἐπεγεῖραί με πρὸς ἐπιμέλειαν ἐμαυτοῦ, ἅμα δὲ καὶ τιμῇ καὶ στοργῇ εὐφραίνοντός με˙ τὸ παιδία μοι ἀφυῆ μὴ γενέσθαι μηδὲ κατὰ τὸ σωμάτιον διάστροφα. τὸ μὴ ἐπὶ πλέον με προκόψαι ἐν ῥητορικῇ καὶ ποιητικῇ καὶ τοῖς ἄλλοις ἐπιτηδεύμασιν, ἐν οἷς ἴσως ἂν κατεσχέθην, εἰ ᾐσθόμην ἐμαυτὸν εὐόδως προϊόντα. τὸ φθάσαι τοὺς τροφέας ἐν ἀξιώματι καταστῆσαι, οὗ δὴ ἐδόκουν μοι ἐπιθυμεῖν, καὶ μὴ ἀναβαλέσθαι ἐλπίδι τοῦ με, ἐπεὶ νέοι ἔτι ἦσαν, ὕστερον αὐτὸ πράξειν. τὸ γνῶναι Ἀπολλώνιον, Ῥούστικον, Μάξιμον. τὸ φαντασθῆναι περὶ τοῦ κατὰ φύσιν βίου ἐναργῶς καὶ πολλάκις οἷός τίς ἐστιν, ὥστε, ὅσον ἐπὶ τοῖς θεοῖς καὶ ταῖς ἐκεῖθεν διαδόσεσι καὶ συλλήψεσι καὶ ἐπιπνοίαις, μηδὲν κωλύειν ἤδη κατὰ φύσιν ζῆν με, ἀπολείπεσθαι δέ τι ἔτι τούτου παρὰ τὴν ἐμὴν αἰτίαν καὶ παρὰ τὸ μὴ διατηρεῖν τὰς ἐκ τῶν θεῶν ὑπομνήσεις καὶ μονονουχὶ διδασκαλίας˙ τὸ ἀντισχεῖν μοι τὸ σῶμα ἐπὶ τοσοῦτον ἐν τοιούτῳ βίῳ˙ τὸ μήτε Βενεδίκτης ἅψασθαι μήτε Θεοδότου, ἀλλὰ καὶ ὕστερον ἐν ἐρωτικοῖς πάθεσι γενόμενον ὑγιᾶναι˙ τὸ χαλεπήναντα πολλάκις Ῥουστίκῳ μηδὲν πλέον πρᾶξαι, ἐφ ᾧ ἂν μετέγνων˙ τὸ μέλλουσαν νέαν τελευτᾶν τὴν τεκοῦσαν ὅμως οἰκῆσαι μετ ἐμοῦ τὰ τελευταῖα ἔτη. τὸ ὁσάκις ἐβουλήθην ἐπικουρῆσαί τινι πενομένῳ ἢ εἰς ἄλλο τι χρῄζοντι, μηδέποτε ἀκοῦσαί με ὅτι οὐκ ἔστι μοι χρήματα, ὅθεν γένηται, καὶ τὸ αὐτῷ ἐμοὶ χρείαν ὁμοίαν, ὡς παῤ ἑτέρου μεταλαβεῖν, μὴ συμπεσεῖν˙ τὸ τὴν γυναῖκα τοιαύτην εἶναι, οὑτωσὶ μὲν πειθήνιον, οὕτω δὲ φιλόστοργον, οὕτω δὲ ἀφελῆ˙ τὸ ἐπιτηδείων τροφέων εἰς τὰ παιδία εὐπορῆσαι. τὸ δἰ ὀνειράτων βοηθήματα δοθῆναι ἄλλα τε καὶ ὡς μὴ πτύειν αἷμα καὶ μὴ ἰλιγγιᾶν, καὶ τὸ τοῦ ἐν Καιήτῃ “ὥσπερ χρήσ”˙ ‹τὸ› ὅπως ἐπεθύμησα φιλοσοφίας, μὴ ἐμπεσεῖν εἴς τινα σοφιστὴν μηδὲ ἀποκαθίσαι ἐπὶ τοῦ συγγραφὰς ἢ συλλογισμοὺς ἀναλύειν ἢ περὶ τὰ μετεωρολογικὰ καταγίνεσθαι. πάντα γὰρ ταῦτα “θεῶν βοηθῶν καὶ τύχης δεῖτα”.

### Book II
1. Ἕωθεν προλέγειν ἑαυτῷ˙ συντεύξομαι περιέργῳ, ἀχαρίστῳ, ὑβριστῇ, δολερῷ, βασκάνῳ, ἀκοινωνήτῳ˙ πάντα ταῦτα συμβέβηκεν ἐκείνοις παρὰ τὴν ἄγνοιαν τῶν ἀγαθῶν καὶ κακῶν. ἐγὼ δὲ τεθεωρηκὼς τὴν φύσιν τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ ὅτι καλόν, καὶ τοῦ κακοῦ ὅτι αἰσχρόν, καὶ τὴν αὐτοῦ τοῦ ἁμαρτάνοντος φύσιν ὅτι μοι συγγενής, οὐχὶ αἵματος ἢ σπέρματος τοῦ αὐτοῦ ἀλλὰ νοῦ καὶ θείας ἀπομοίρας μέτοχος, οὔτε βλαβῆναι ὑπό τινος αὐτῶν δύναμαι˙ αἰσχρῷ γάρ με οὐδεὶς περιβαλεῖ˙ οὔτε ὀργίζεσθαι τῷ συγγενεῖ δύναμαι οὔτε ἀπέχθεσθαι αὐτῷ. γεγόναμεν γὰρ πρὸς συνεργίαν ὡς πόδες, ὡς χεῖρες, ὡς βλέφαρα, ὡς οἱ στοῖχοι τῶν ἄνω καὶ τῶν κάτω ὀδόντων. τὸ οὖν ἀντιπράσσειν ἀλλήλοις παρὰ φύσιν˙ ἀντιπρακτικὸν δὲ τὸ ἀγανακτεῖν καὶ ἀποστρέφεσθαι.

2. Ὅ τί ποτε τοῦτό εἰμι, σαρκία ἐστὶ καὶ πνευμάτιον καὶ τὸ ἡγεμονικόν. τῶν μὲν σαρκίων καταφρόνησον˙ λύθρος καὶ ὀστάρια καὶ κροκύφαντος, ἐκ νεύρων, φλεβίων, ἀρτηριῶν πλεγμάτιον. θέασαι δὲ καὶ τὸ πνεῦμα ὁποῖόν τί ἐστιν˙ ἄνεμος, οὐδὲ ἀεὶ τὸ αὐτό, ἀλλὰ πάσης ὥρας ἐξεμούμενον καὶ πάλιν ῥοφούμενον. τρίτον οὖν ἐστι τὸ ἡγεμονικόν. ἄφες τὰ βιβλία˙ μηκέτι σπῶ˙ οὐ δέδοται. ἀλλ ὡς ἤδη ἀποθνῄσκων ὧδε ἐπινοήθητι˙ γέρων εἶ˙ μηκέτι τοῦτο ἐάσῃς δουλεῦσαι, μηκέτι καθ ὁρμὴν ἀκοινώνητον νευροσπαστηθῆναι, μηκέτι τὸ εἱμαρμένον ἢ παρὸν δυσχερᾶναι ἢ μέλλον ὑπιδέσθαι.

3. Τὰ τῶν θεῶν προνοίας μεστά. τὰ τῆς τύχης οὐκ ἄνευ φύσεως ἢ συγκλώσεως καὶ ἐπιπλοκῆς τῶν προνοίᾳ διοικουμένων. πάντα ἐκεῖθεν ῥεῖ˙ πρόσεστι δὲ τὸ ἀναγκαῖον καὶ τὸ τῷ ὅλῳ κόσμῳ συμφέρον, οǷ μέρος εἶ. παντὶ δὲ φύσεως μέρει ἀγαθόν, ὃ φέρει ἡ τοῦ ὅλου φύσις καὶ ὃ ἐκείνης ἐστὶ σωστικόν. σῴζουσι δὲ κόσμον, ὥσπερ αἱ τῶν στοιχείων, οὕτως καὶ αἱ τῶν συγκριμάτων μεταβολαί. ταῦτά σοι ἀρκείτω˙ ἀεὶ δόγματα ἔστω. τὴν δὲ τῶν βιβλίων δίψαν ῥῖψον, ἵνα μὴ γογγύζων ἀποθάνῃς, ἀλλὰ ἵλεως ἀληθῶς καὶ ἀπὸ καρδίας εὐχάριστος τοῖς θεοῖς.

4. Μέμνησο ἐκ πόσου ταῦτα ἀναβάλλῃ καὶ ὁποσάκις προθεσμίας λαβὼν παρὰ τῶν θεῶν οὐ χρᾷ αὐταῖς. δεῖ δὲ ἤδη ποτὲ αἰσθέσθαι τίνος κόσμου μέρος εἶ καὶ τίνος διοικοῦντος τὸν κόσμον ἀπόῤῥοια ὑπέστης καὶ ὅτι ὅρος ἐστί σοι περιγεγραμμένος τοῦ χρόνου, ᾧ ἐὰν εἰς τὸ ἀπαιθριάσαι μὴ χρήσῃ, οἰχήσεται καὶ οἰχήσῃ καὶ αὖθις οὐκ ἐξέσται.

5. Πάσης ὥρας φρόντιζε στιβαρῶς ὡς Ῥωμαῖος καὶ ἄῤῥην τὸ ἐν χερσὶ μετὰ τῆς ἀκριβοῦς.. καὶ ἀπλάστου σεμνότητος καὶ φιλοστοργίας καὶ ἐλευθερίας καὶ δικαιότητος πράσσειν καὶ σχολὴν ἑαυτῷ ἀπὸ πασῶν τῶν ἄλλων φαντασιῶν πορίζειν. ποριεῖς δέ, ἂν ὡς ἐσχάτην τοῦ βίου ἑκάστην πρᾶξιν ἐνεργῇς, ἀπηλλαγμένος πάσης εἰκαιότητος καὶ ἐμπαθοῦς ἀποστροφῆς ἀπὸ τοῦ αἱροῦντος λόγου καὶ ὑποκρίσεως καὶ φιλαυτίας καὶ δυσαρεστήσεως πρὸς τὰ συμμεμοιραμένα. ὁρᾷς πῶς ὀλίγα ἐστίν, ὧν κρατήσας τις δύναται εὔρουν καὶ θεουδῆ βιῶσαι βίον˙ καὶ γὰρ οἱ θεοὶ πλέον οὐδὲν ἀπαιτήσουσι παρὰ τοῦ ταῦτα φυλάσσοντος.

6. Ὑβρίζεις, ὑβρίζεις ἑαυτήν, ὦ ψυχή˙ τοῦ δὲ τιμῆσαι σεαυτὴν οὐκέτι καιρὸν ἕξεις˙ ἀκαριαῖος ὁ βίος ἑκάστῳ, οὗτος δέ σοι σχεδὸν διήνυσται, μὴ αἰδουμένῃ σεαυτήν, ἀλλ ἐν ταῖς ἄλλων ψυχαῖς τιθεμένῃ τὴν σὴν εὐμοιρίαν.

7. Περισπᾷ τί σε τὰ ἔξωθεν ἐμπίπτοντα; καὶ σχολὴν πάρεχε σεαυτῷ τοῦ προσμανθάνειν ἀγαθόν τι καὶ παῦσαι ῥεμβόμενος. ἤδη δὲ καὶ τὴν ἑτέραν περιφορὰν φυλακτέον˙ ληροῦσι γὰρ καὶ διὰ πράξεων οἱ κεκμηκότες τῷ βίῳ καὶ μὴ ἔχοντες σκοπόν, ἐφ ὃν πᾶσαν ὁρμὴν καὶ καθάπαξ φαντασίαν ἀπευθύνουσιν.

8. Παρὰ μὲν τὸ μὴ ἐφιστάνειν, τί ἐν τῇ ἄλλου ψυχῇ γίνεται, οὐ ῥᾳδίως τις ὤφθη κακοδαιμονῶν˙ τοὺς δὲ τοῖς τῆς ἰδίας ψυχῆς κινήμασι μὴ παρακολουθοῦντας ἀνάγκη κακοδαιμονεῖν.

9. Τούτων ἀεὶ μεμνῆσθαι, τίς ἡ τῶν ὅλων φύσις καὶ τίς ἡ ἐμὴ καὶ πῶς αὕτη πρὸς ἐκείνην ἔχουσα καὶ ὁποῖόν τι μέρος ὁποίου τοῦ ὅλου οὖσα καὶ ὅτι οὐδεὶς ὁ κωλύων τὰ ἀκόλουθα τῇ φύσει, ἧς μέρος εἶ, πράσσειν τε ἀεὶ καὶ λέγειν.

10. Φιλοσόφως ὁ Θεόφραστος ἐν τῇ συγκρίσει τῶν ἁμαρτημάτων, ὡς ἄν τις κοινότερον τὰ τοιαῦτα συγκρίνειε, φησὶ βαρύτερα εἶναι τὰ κατ ἐπιθυμίαν πλημμελούμενα τῶν κατὰ θυμόν. ὁ γὰρ θυμούμενος μετά τινος λύπης καὶ λεληθυίας συστολῆς φαίνεται τὸν λόγον ἀποστρεφόμενος˙ ὁ δὲ κατ ἐπιθυμίαν ἁμαρτάνων, ὑφ ἡδονῆς ἡττώμενος ἀκολαστότερός πως φαίνεται καὶ θηλύτερος ἐν ταῖς ἁμαρτίαις. ὀρθῶς οὖν καὶ φιλοσοφίας ἀξίως ἔφη μείζονος ἐγκλή ματος ἔχεσθαι τὸ μεθ ἡδονῆς ἁμαρτανόμενον ἤπερ τὸ μετὰ λύπης˙ ὅλως τε ὁ μὲν προηδικημένῳ μᾶλλον ἔοικε καὶ διὰ λύπης ἠναγκασμένῳ θυμωθῆναι˙ ὁ δὲ αὐτόθεν πρὸς τὸ ἀδικεῖν ὥρμηται, φερόμενος ἐπὶ τὸ πρᾶξαί τι κατ ἐπιθυμίαν.

11. Ὡς ἤδη δυνατοῦ ὄντος ἐξιέναι τοῦ βίου, οὕτως ἕκαστα ποιεῖν καὶ λέγειν καὶ διανοεῖσθαι. τὸ δὲ ἐξ ἀνθρώπων ἀπελθεῖν, εἰ μὲν θεοὶ εἰσίν, οὐδὲν δεινόν˙ κακῷ γάρ σε οὐκ ἂν περιβάλοιεν˙ εἰ δὲ ἤτοι οὐκ εἰσὶν ἢ οὐ μέλει αὐτοῖς τῶν ἀνθρωπείων, τί μοι ζῆν ἐν κόσμῳ κενῷ θεῶν ἢ προνοίας κενῷ; ἀλλὰ καὶ εἰσὶ καὶ μέλει αὐτοῖς τῶν ἀνθρωπείων καὶ τοῖς μὲν κατ ἀλήθειαν κακοῖς ἵνα μὴ περιπίπτῃ ὁ ἄνθρωπος, ἐπ αὐτῷ τὸ πᾶν ἔθεντο˙ τῶν δὲ λοιπῶν εἴ τι κακὸν ἦν, καὶ τοῦτο ἂν προείδοντο, ἵνα ἐπὶ παντὶ ᾖ τὸ μὴ περιπίπτειν αὐτῷ. (ὃ δὲ χείρω μὴ ποιεῖ ἄνθρωπον, πῶς ἂν τοῦτο βίον ἀνθρώπου χείρω ποιήσειεν;) οὔτε δὲ κατ ἄγνοιαν οὔτε εἰδυῖα μέν, μὴ δυναμένη δὲ προφυλάξασθαι ἢ διορθώσασθαι ταῦτα ἡ τῶν ὅλων φύσις παρεῖδεν ἄν, οὔτ ἂν τηλικοῦτον ἥμαρτεν ἤτοι παῤ ἀδυναμίαν ἢ παῤ ἀτεχνίαν, ἵνα τὰ ἀγαθὰ καὶ τὰ κακὰ ἐπίσης τοῖς τε ἀγαθοῖς ἀνθρώποις καὶ τοῖς κακοῖς πεφυρμένως συμβαίνῃ. θάνατος δέ γε καὶ ζωή, δόξα καὶ ἀδοξία, πόνος καὶ ἡδονή, πλοῦτος καὶ πενία, πάντα ταῦτα ἐπίσης συμβαίνει ἀνθρώπων τοῖς τε ἀγαθοῖς καὶ τοῖς κακοῖς, οὔτε καλὰ ὄντα οὔτε αἰσχρά. οὔτ ἄῤ ἀγαθὰ οὔτε κακά ἐστι.

12. Πῶς πάντα ταχέως ἐναφανίζεται, τῷ μὲν κόσμῳ αὐτὰ τὰ σώματα, τῷ δὲ αἰῶνι αἱ μνῆμαι αὐτῶν˙ οἷά ἐστι τὰ αἰσθητὰ πάντα καὶ μάλιστα τὰ ἡδονῇ δελεάζοντα ἢ τῷ πόνῳ φοβοῦντα ἢ τῷ τύφῳ διαβεβοημένα, πῶς εὐτελῆ καὶ εὐκαταφρόνητα καὶ ῥυπαρὰ καὶ εὔφθαρτα καὶ νεκρά˙ - νοερᾶς δυνάμεως ἐφιστάναι. τί εἰσιν οὗτοι, ὧν αἱ ὑπολήψεις καὶ αἱ φωναὶ τὴν εὐδοξίαν ‹καὶ τὴν ἀδοξίαν παρέχουσι›. τί ἐστι τὸ ἀποθανεῖν, καὶ ὅτι, ἐάν τις αὐτὸ μόνον ἴδῃ καὶ τῷ μερισμῷ τῆς ἐννοίας διαλύσῃ τὰ ἐμφανταζόμενα αὐτῷ, οὐκέτι ἄλλο τι ὑπολήψεται αὐτὸ εἶναι ἢ φύσεως ἔργον˙ φύσεως δὲ ἔργον εἴ τις φοβεῖται, παιδίον ἐστί˙ τοῦτο μέντοι οὐ μόνον φύσεως ἔργον ἐστίν, ἀλλὰ καὶ συμφέρον αὐτῇ. πῶς ἅπτεται θεοῦ ἄνθρωπος καὶ κατὰ τί ἑαυτοῦ μέρος καὶ ὅταν πῶς [ἔχῃ] διακέηται τὸ τοῦ ἀνθρώπου τοῦτο μόριον.

13. Οὐδὲν ἀθλιώτερον τοῦ πάντα κύκλῳ ἐκπεριερχομένου καὶ “τὰ νέρθεν γᾶς (φησὶν) ἐρευνῶντος” καὶ τὰ ἐν ταῖς ψυχαῖς τῶν πλησίον διὰ τεκμάρσεως ζητοῦντος, μὴ αἰσθομένου δέ, ὅτι ἀρκεῖ πρὸς μόνῳ τῷ ἔνδον ἑαυτοῦ δαίμονι εἶναι καὶ τοῦτον γνησίως θεραπεύειν. θεραπεία δὲ αὐτοῦ, καθαρὸν πάθους διατηρεῖν καὶ εἰκαιότητος καὶ δυσαρεστήσεως τῆς πρὸς τὰ ἐκ θεῶν καὶ ἀνθρώπων γινόμενα. τὰ μὲν γὰρ ἐκ θεῶν αἰδέσιμα δἰ ἀρετήν˙ τὰ δὲ ἐξ ἀνθρώπων φίλα διὰ συγγένειαν, ἔστι δὲ ὅτε καὶ τρόπον τινὰ ἐλεεινὰ δἰ ἄγνοιαν ἀγαθῶν καὶ κακῶν˙ οὐκ ἐλάττων ἡ πήρωσις αὕτη τῆς στερισκούσης τοῦ διακρίνειν τὰ λευκὰ καὶ μέλανα.

14. Κἂν τρὶς χίλια ἔτη βιώσεσθαι μέλλῃς, καὶ τοσαυτάκις μύρια, ὅμως μέμνησο ὅτι οὐδεὶς ἄλλον ἀποβάλλει βίον ἢ τοῦτον ὃν ζῇ, οὐδὲ ἄλλον ζῇ ἢ ὃν ἀποβάλλει. εἰς ταὐτὸν οὖν καθίσταται τὸ μήκιστον τῷ βραχυτάτῳ. τὸ γὰρ παρὸν πᾶσιν ἴσον καὶ τὸ ἀπολλύμενον οὖν ἴσον καὶ τὸ ἀποβαλλόμενον οὕτως ἀκαριαῖον ἀναφαίνεται. οὔτε γὰρ τὸ παρῳχηκὸς οὔτε τὸ μέλλον ἀποβάλοι ἄν τις˙ ὃ γὰρ οὐκ ἔχει, πῶς ἄν τις τοῦτο αὐτοῦ ἀφέλοιτο; τούτων οὖν τῶν δύο ἀεὶ μεμνῆσθαι˙ ἑνὸς μέν, ὅτι πάντα ἐξ ἀιδίου ὁμοειδῆ καὶ ἀνακυκλούμενα καὶ οὐδὲν διαφέρει, πότερον ἐν ἑκατὸν ἔτεσιν ἢ ἐν διακοσίοις ἢ ἐν τῷ ἀπείρῳ χρόνῳ τὰ αὐτά τις ὄψεται˙ ἑτέρου δέ, ὅτι καὶ ὁ πολυχρονιώτατος καὶ ὁ τάχιστα τεθνηξόμενος τὸ ἴσον ἀποβάλλει. τὸ γὰρ παρόν ἐστι μόνον οǷ στερίσκεσθαι μέλλει, εἴπερ γε ἔχει καὶ τοῦτο μόνον καὶ ὃ μὴ ἔχει τις οὐκ ἀποβάλλει.

15. Ὅτι πᾶν ὑπόληψις. δῆλα μὲν γὰρ τὰ πρὸς τὸν Κυνικὸν Μόνιμον λεγόμενα˙ δῆλον δὲ καὶ τὸ χρήσιμον τοῦ λεγομένου, ἐάν τις αὐτοῦ τὸ νόστιμον μέχρι τοῦ ἀληθοῦς δέχηται.

16. Ὑβρίζει ἑαυτὴν ἡ τοῦ ἀνθρώπου ψυχὴ μάλιστα μέν, ὅταν ἀπόστημα καὶ οἷον φῦμα τοῦ κόσμου, ὅσον ἐφ ἑαυτῇ, γένηται˙ τὸ γὰρ δυσχεραίνειν τινὶ τῶν γινομένων ἀπόστασίς ἐστι τῆς φύσεως, ‹ὑφ› ἧς ἐν μέρει ἕκασται τῶν λοιπῶν φύσεις περιέχονται. ἔπειτα δέ, ὅταν ἄνθρωπόν τινα ἀποστραφῇ ἢ καὶ ἐναντία φέρηται ὡς βλάψουσα, οἷαί εἰσιν αἱ τῶν ὀργιζομένων. τρίτον ὑβρίζει ἑαυτήν, ὅταν ἡσσᾶται ἡδονῆς ἢ πόνου. τέταρτον, ὅταν ὑποκρίνηται καὶ ἐπιπλάστως καὶ ἀναλήθως τι ποιῇ ἢ λέγῃ. πέμπτον, ὅταν πρᾶξίν τινα ἑαυτῆς καὶ ὁρμὴν ἐπ οὐδένα σκοπὸν ἀφιῇ, ἀλλ εἰκῇ καὶ ἀπαρακολουθήτως ὁτιοῦν ἐνεργῇ, δέον καὶ τὰ μικρότατα κατὰ τὴν ἐπὶ τὸ τέλος ἀναφορὰν γίνεσθαι˙ τέλος δὲ λογικῶν ζῴων τὸ ἕπεσθαι τῷ τῆς πόλεως καὶ πολιτείας τῆς πρεσβυτάτης λόγῳ καὶ θεσμῷ.

17. Τοῦ ἀνθρωπίνου βίου ὁ μὲν χρόνος στιγμή, ἡ δὲ οὐσία ῥέουσα, ἡ δὲ αἴσθησις ἀμυδρά, ἡ δὲ ὅλου τοῦ σώματος σύγκρισις εὔσηπτος, ἡ δὲ ψυχὴ ῥεμβός, ἡ δὲ τύχη δυστέκμαρτον, ἡ δὲ φήμη ἄκριτον˙ συνελόντι δὲ εἰπεῖν, πάντα τὰ μὲν τοῦ σώματος ποταμός, τὰ δὲ τῆς ψυχῆς ὄνειρος καὶ τῦφος, ὁ δὲ βίος πόλεμος καὶ ξένου ἐπιδημία, ἡ δὲ ὑστεροφημία λήθη. τί οὖν τὸ παραπέμψαι δυνάμενον; ἓν καὶ μόνον φιλοσοφία˙ τοῦτο δὲ ἐν τῷ τηρεῖν τὸν ἔνδον δαίμονα ἀνύβριστον καὶ ἀσινῆ, ἡδονῶν καὶ πόνων κρείττονα, μηδὲν εἰκῇ ποιοῦντα μηδὲ διεψευσμένως καὶ μεθ ὑποκρίσεως, ἀνενδεῆ τοῦ ἄλλον ποιῆσαί τι ἢ μὴ ποιῆσαι˙ ἔτι δὲ τὰ συμβαίνοντα καὶ ἀπονεμόμενα δεχόμενον ὡς ἐκεῖθέν ποθεν ἐρχόμενα, ὅθεν αὐτὸς ἦλθεν˙ ἐπὶ πᾶσι δὲ τὸν θάνατον ἵλεῳ τῇ γνώμῃ περιμένοντα ὡς οὐδὲν ἄλλο ἢ λύσιν τῶν στοιχείων, ἐξ ὧν ἕκαστον ζῷον συγκρίνεται. εἰ δὲ αὐτοῖς τοῖς στοιχείοις μηδὲν δεινὸν ἐν τῷ ἕκαστον διηνεκῶς εἰς ἕτερον μεταβάλλειν, διὰ τί ὑπίδηταί τις τὴν πάντων μεταβολὴν καὶ διάλυσιν; κατὰ φύσιν γάρ˙ οὐδὲν δὲ κακὸν κατὰ φύσιν.

### Book III
1. Οὐχὶ τοῦτο μόνον δεῖ λογίζεσθαι, ὅτι καθ ἑκάστην ἡμέραν ἀπαναλίσκεται ὁ βίος καὶ μέρος ἔλαττον αὐτοῦ καταλείπεται, ἀλλὰ κἀκεῖνο λογιστέον, ὅτι, εἰ ἐπὶ πλέον βιῴη τις, ἐκεῖνό γε ἄδηλον, εἰ ἐξαρκέσει ὁμοία αὖθις ἡ διάνοια πρὸς τὴν σύνεσιν τῶν πραγμάτων καὶ τῆς θεωρίας τῆς συντεινούσης εἰς τὴν ἐμπειρίαν τῶν τε θείων καὶ τῶν ἀνθρωπείων. ἐὰν γὰρ παραληρεῖν ἄρξηται, τὸ μὲν διαπνεῖσθαι καὶ τρέφεσθαι καὶ φαντάζεσθαι καὶ ὁρμᾶν καὶ ὅσα ἄλλα τοιαῦτα, οὐκ ἐνδεήσει˙ τὸ δὲ ἑαυτῷ χρῆσθαι καὶ τοὺς τοῦ καθήκοντος ἀριθμοὺς ἀκριβοῦν καὶ τὰ προφαινόμενα διαρθροῦν καὶ περὶ αὐτοῦ τοῦ εἰ ἤδη ἐξακτέον αὑτὸν ἐφιστάνειν καὶ ὅσα τοιαῦτα λογισμοῦ συγγεγυμνασμένου πάνυ χρῄζει, προαποσβέννυται. χρὴ οὖν ἐπείγεσθαι οὐ μόνον τῷ ἐγγυτέρω τοῦ θανάτου ἑκάστοτε γίνεσθαι, ἀλλὰ καὶ διὰ τὸ τὴν ἐννόησιν τῶν πραγμάτων καὶ τὴν παρακολούθησιν προαπολήγειν.

2. Χρὴ καὶ τὰ τοιαῦτα παραφυλάσσειν, ὅτι καὶ τὰ ἐπιγινόμενα τοῖς φύσει γινομένοις ἔχει τι εὔχαρι καὶ ἐπαγωγόν. οἷον ἄρτου ὀπτωμένου παραῤῥήγνυταί τινα μέρη˙ καὶ ταῦτα οὖν τὰ διέχοντα οὕτως καὶ τρόπον τινὰ παρὰ τὸ ἐπάγγελμα τῆς ἀρτοποιίας ἔχοντα ἐπιπρέπει πως καὶ προθυμίαν πρὸς τὴν τροφὴν ἰδίως ἀνακινεῖ. πάλιν τε τὰ σῦκα, ὁπότε ὡραιότατά ἐστι, κέχηνεν˙ καὶ ἐν ταῖς δρυπεπέσιν ἐλαίαις αὐτὸ τὸ ἐγγὺς τῇ σήψει ἴδιόν τι κάλλος τῷ καρπῷ προστίθησιν. καὶ οἱ στάχυες δὲ κάτω νεύοντες καὶ τὸ τοῦ λέοντος ἐπισκύνιον καὶ ὁ τῶν συῶν ἐκ τοῦ στόματος ῥέων ἀφρὸς καὶ πολλὰ ἕτερα, κατ ἰδίαν εἴ τις σκοποίη, πόῤῥω ὄντα τοῦ εὐειδοῦς ὅμως διὰ τὸ τοῖς φύσει γινομένοις ἐπακολουθεῖν συνεπικοσμεῖ καὶ ψυχαγωγεῖ˙ ὥστε, εἴ τις ἔχει πάθος καὶ ἔννοιαν βαθυτέραν πρὸς τὰ ἐν τῷ ὅλῳ γινόμενα, σχεδὸν οὐδὲν οὐχὶ δόξει αὐτῷ καὶ τῶν κατ ἐπακολούθησιν συμβαινόντων ἡδέως πως διασυνίστασθαι. οǷτος δὲ καὶ θηρίων ἀληθῆ χάσματα οὐχ ἧσσον ἡδέως ὄψεται ἢ ὅσα γραφεῖς καὶ πλάσται μιμούμενοι δεικνύουσιν, καὶ γραὸς καὶ γέροντος ἀκμήν τινα καὶ ὥραν.. καὶ τὸ ἐν παισὶν ἐπαφρόδιτον τοῖς ἑαυτοῦ, σώφροσιν ὀφθαλμοῖς ὁρᾶν δυνήσεται˙ καὶ πολλὰ τοιαῦτα οὐ παντὶ πιθανά, μόνῳ δὲ τῷ πρὸς τὴν φύσιν καὶ τὰ ταύτης ἔργα γνησίως ᾠκειωμένῳ προσπεσεῖται.

3. Ἱπποκράτης πολλὰς νόσους ἰασάμενος αὐτὸς νοσήσας ἀπέθανεν. οἱ Χαλδαῖοι πολλῶν θανάτους προηγόρευσαν, εἶτα καὶ αὐτοὺς τὸ πεπρωμένον κατέλαβεν. Ἀλέξανδρος καὶ Πομπήιος καὶ Γάιος Καῖσαρ, ὅλας πόλεις ἄρδην τοσαυτάκις ἀνελόντες καὶ ἐν παρατάξει πολλὰς μυριάδας ἱππέων καὶ πεζῶν κατακόψαντες, καί αὐτοί ποτε ἐξῆλθον τοῦ βίου. Ἡράκλειτος περὶ τῆς τοῦ κόσμου ἐκπυρώσεως τοσαῦτα φυσιολογήσας, ὕδατος τὰ ἐντὸς πληρωθείς, βολβίτῳ κατακεχρισμένος ἀπέθανεν. Δημόκριτον δὲ οἱ φθεῖρες, Σωκράτην δὲ ἄλλοι φθεῖρες ἀπέκτειναν. τί ταῦτα; ἐνέβης, ἔπλευσας, κατήχθης˙ ἔκβηθι. εἰ μὲν ἐφ ἕτερον βίον, οὐδὲν θεῶν κενὸν οὐδὲ ἐκεῖ˙ εἰ δὲ ἐν ἀναισθησίᾳ, παύσῃ πόνων καὶ ἡδονῶν ἀνεχόμενος καὶ λατρεύων τοσούτῳ χείρονι τῷ ἀγγείῳ ὅσῳ περίεστι τὸ ὑπηρετοῦν˙ τὸ μὲν γὰρ νοῦς καὶ δαίμων, τὸ δὲ γῆ καὶ λύθρος.

4. Μὴ κατατρίψῃς τὸ ὑπολειπόμενον τοῦ βίου μέρος ἐν ταῖς περὶ ἑτέρων φαντασίαις, ὁπόταν μὴ τὴν ἀναφορὰν ἐπί τι κοινωφελὲς ποιῇ˙ τί γὰρ ἄλλου ἔργου στέρῃ.., τουτέστι φανταζόμενος τί ὁ δεῖνα πράσσει καὶ τίνος ἕνεκεν καὶ τί λέγει καὶ τί ἐνθυμεῖται καὶ τί τεχνάζεται καὶ ὅσα τοιαῦτα ποιεῖ ἀποῤῥέμβεσθαι τῆς τοῦ ἰδίου ἡγεμονικοῦ παρατηρήσεως. χρὴ μὲν οὖν καὶ τὸ εἰκῇ καὶ μάτην ἐν τῷ εἱρμῷ τῶν φαντασιῶν περιίστασθαι, πολὺ δὲ μάλιστα τὸ περίεργον καὶ κακόηθες, καὶ ἐθιστέον ἑαυτὸν μόνα φαντάζεσθαι, περὶ ὧν εἴ τις ἄφνω ἐπανέροιτο˙ τί νῦν διανοῇ; μετὰ παῤῥησίας παραχρῆμα ἂν ἀποκρίναιο ὅτι τὸ καὶ τό˙ ὡς ἐξ αὐτῶν εὐθὺς δῆλα εἶναι ὅτι πάντα ἁπλᾶ καὶ εὐμενῆ καὶ ζῴου κοινωνικοῦ καὶ ἀμελοῦντος ἡδονικῶν ἢ καθάπαξ ἀπολαυστικῶν φαντασμάτων ἢ φιλονεικίας τινὸς ἢ βασκανίας καὶ ὑποψίας ἢ ἄλλου τινός ἐφ ᾧ ἂν ἐρυθριάσειας ἐξηγούμενος, ὅτι ἐν νῷ αὐτὸ εἶχες. ὁ γάρ τοι ἀνὴρ ὁ τοιοῦτος, οὐκ ἔτι ὑπερτιθέμενος τὸ ὡς ἐν ἀρίστοις ἤδη εἶναι, ἱερεύς τίς ἐστι καὶ ὑπουργὸς θεῶν, χρώμενος καὶ τῷ ἔνδον ἱδρυμένῳ αὐτοῦ, ὃ παρέχεται τὸν ἄνθρωπον ἄχραντον ἡδονῶν, ἄτρωτον ὑπὸ παντὸς πόνου, πάσης ὕβρεως ἀνέπαφον, πάσης ἀναίσθητον πονηρίας, ἀθλητὴν ἄθλου τοῦ μεγίστου, τοῦ ὑπὸ μηδενὸς πάθους καταβληθῆναι, δικαιοσύνῃ βεβαμμένον εἰς βάθος, ἀσπαζόμενον μὲν ἐξ ὅλης τῆς ψυχῆς τὰ συμβαίνοντα καὶ ἀπονεμόμενα πάντα, μὴ πολλάκις δὲ μηδὲ χωρὶς μεγάλης καὶ κοινωφελοῦς ἀνάγκης φανταζόμενον τί ποτε ἄλλος λέγει ἢ πράσσει ἢ διανοεῖται. μόνα γὰρ τὰ ἑαυτοῦ πρὸς ἐνέργειαν † ἔχει καὶ τὰ ἑαυτῷ ἐκ τῶν ὅλων συγκλωθόμενα διηνεκῶς ἐννοεῖ κἀκεῖνα μὲν καλὰ παρέχεται, ταῦτα δὲ ἀγαθὰ εἶναι πέπεισται˙ ἡ γὰρ ἑκάστῳ νεμομένη μοῖρα συνεμφέρεταί τε καὶ συνεμφέρει. μέμνηται δὲ καὶ ὅτι συγγενὲς πᾶν τὸ λογικόν, καὶ ὅτι κήδεσθαι μὲν πάντων ἀνθρώπων κατὰ τὴν τοῦ ἀνθρώπου φύσιν ἐστί, δόξης δὲ οὐχὶ τῆς παρὰ πάντων ἀνθεκτέον, ἀλλὰ τῶν ὁμολογουμένως τῇ φύσει βιούντων μόνων. οἱ δὲ μὴ οὕτως βιοῦντες ὁποῖοί τινες οἴκοι τε καὶ ἔξω τῆς οἰκίας καὶ νύκτωρ καὶ μεθ ἡμέραν, οἷοι μεθ οἵων φύρονται, μεμνημένος διατελεῖ. οὐ τοίνυν οὐδὲ τὸν παρὰ τῶν τοιούτων ἔπαινον ἐν λόγῳ τίθεται, οἵγε οὐδὲ αὐτοὶ ἑαυτοῖς ἀρέσκονται.

5. Μήτε ἀκούσιος ἐνέργει μήτε ἀκοινώνητος μήτε ἀνεξέταστος μήτε ἀνθελκόμενος˙ μήτε κομψεία τὴν διάνοιάν σου καλλωπιζέτω˙ μήτε πολυῤῥήμων μήτε πολυπράγμων ἔσο. ἔτι δὲ ὁ ἐν σοὶ θεὸς ἔστω προστάτης ζῴου ἄῤῥενος καὶ πρεσβύτου καὶ πολιτικοῦ καὶ Ῥωμαίου καὶ ἄρχοντος, ἀνατεταχότος ἑαυτόν, οἷος ἂν εἴη τις περιμένων τὸ ἀνακλητικὸν ἐκ τοῦ βίου εὔλυτος, μήτε ὅρκου δεόμενος μήτε ἀνθρώπου τινὸς μάρτυρος. ἐνέστω δὲ τὸ φαιδρὸν καὶ τὸ ἀπροσδεὲς τῆς ἔξωθεν ὑπηρεσίας καὶ τὸ ἀπροσδεὲς ἡσυχίας, ἣν ἄλλοι παρέχουσιν. ὀρθὸν οὖν εἶναι χρή, οὐχὶ ὀρθούμενον.

6. Εἰ μὲν κρεῖττον εὑρίσκεις ἐν τῷ ἀνθρωπίνῳ βίῳ δικαιοσύνης, ἀληθείας, σωφροσύνης, ἀνδρείας καὶ καθάπαξ τοῦ ἀρκεῖσθαι ἑαυτῇ τὴν διάνοιάν σου, ἐν οἷς κατὰ τὸν λόγον τὸν ὀρθὸν πράσσοντά σε παρέχεται, καὶ [ἐν] τῇ εἱμαρμένῃ ἐν τοῖς ἀπροαιρέτως ἀπονεμομένοις˙ εἰ τούτου, φημί, κρεῖττόν τι ὁρᾷς, ἐπ ἐκεῖνο ἐξ ὅλης τῆς ψυχῆς τραπόμενος τοῦ ἀρίστου εὑρισκομένου ἀπόλαυε. εἰ δὲ μηδὲν κρεῖττον φαίνεται αὐτοῦ τοῦ ἐνιδρυμένου ἐν σοὶ δαίμονος, τάς τε ἰδίας ὁρμὰς ὑποτεταχότος ἑαυτῷ καὶ τὰς φαντασίας ἐξετάζοντος καὶ τῶν αἰσθητικῶν πείσεων, ὡς ὁ Σωκράτης ἔλεγεν, ἑαυτὸν ἀφειλκυκότος καὶ τοῖς θεοῖς ὑποτεταχότος ἑαυτὸν καὶ τῶν ἀνθρώπων προκηδομένου˙ εἰ τούτου πάντα τὰ ἄλλα μικρότερα καὶ εὐτελέστερα εὑρίσκεις, μηδενὶ χώραν δίδου ἑτέρῳ, πρὸς ὃ ῥέψας ἅπαξ καὶ ἀποκλίνας οὐκέτι ἀπερισπάστως τὸ ἀγαθὸν ἐκεῖνο, τὸ ἴδιον καὶ τὸ σόν, προτιμᾶν δυνήσῃ. ἀντικαθῆσθαι γὰρ τῷ λογικῷ καὶ πολιτικῷ ἀγαθῷ οὐ θέμις οὐδ ὁτιοῦν ἑτερογενές, οἷον τὸν παρὰ τῶν πολλῶν ἔπαινον ἢ ἀρχὰς ἢ πλοῦτον ἢ ἀπολαύσεις ἡδονῶν˙ πάντα ταῦτα, κἂν πρὸς ὀλίγον ἐναρμόζειν δόξῃ, κατεκράτησεν ἄφνω καὶ παρήνεγκεν. σὺ δέ, φημί, ἁπλῶς καὶ ἐλευθέρως ἑλοῦ τὸ κρεῖττον καὶ τούτου ἀντέχου˙ “κρεῖττον δὲ τὸ συμφέρον.” εἰ μὲν τὸ ὡς λογικῷ, τοῦτο τήρει˙ εἰ δὲ τὸ ὡς ζῴῳ, ἀπόφηναι, καὶ ἀτύφως φύλασσε τὴν κρίσιν˙ μόνον ὅπως ἀσφαλῶς τὴν ἐξέτασιν ποιήσῃ.

7. Μὴ τιμήσῃς ποτὲ ὡς συμφέρον σεαυτοῦ, ὃ ἀναγκάσει σέ ποτε τὴν πίστιν παραβῆναι, τὴν αἰδῶ ἐγκαταλιπεῖν, μισῆσαί τινα, ὑποπτεῦσαι, καταράσασθαι, ὑποκρίνασθαι, ἐπιθυμῆσαί τινος τοίχων καὶ παραπετασμάτων δεομένου. ὁ γὰρ τὸν ἑαυτοῦ νοῦν καὶ δαίμονα καὶ τὰ ὄργια τῆς τούτου ἀρετῆς προελόμενος τραγῳ δίαν οὐ ποιεῖ, οὐ στενάζει, οὐκ ἐρημίας, οὐ πολυπληθείας δεήσεται˙ τὸ μέγιστον, ζήσει μήτε διώκων μήτε φεύγων, πότερον δὲ ἐπὶ πλέον διάστημα χρόνου τῷ σώματι περιεχομένῃ τῇ ψυχῇ ἢ ἐπ ἔλασσον χρήσεται, οὐδ ὁτιοῦν αὐτῷ μέλει˙ κἂν γὰρ ἤδη ἀπαλλάσσεσθαι δέῃ, οὕτως εὔλυτος ἄπεισιν, ὡς ‹ἂν› ἄλλο τι τῶν αἰδημόνως καὶ κοσμίως ἐνεργεῖσθαι δυναμένων ἐνεργήσειεν, τοῦτο μόνον παῤ ὅλον τὸν βίον εὐλαβούμενος, τὸ τὴν διάνοιαν ἔν τινι ἀνοικείῳ νοεροῦ πολιτικοῦ ζῴου τροπῇ γενέσθαι.

8. Οὐδὲν ἂν ἐν τῇ διανοίᾳ τοῦ κεκολασμένου καὶ ἐκκεκαθαρμένου πυῶδες οὐδὲ μὴν μεμωλυσμένον οὐδὲ ὕπουλον εὕροις˙ οὐδὲ ἀσυντελῆ τὸν βίον αὐτοῦ ἡ πεπρωμένη καταλαμβάνει, ὡς ἄν τις εἴποι τὸν τραγῳδὸν πρὸ τοῦ τελέσαι καὶ διαδραματίσαι ἀπαλλάσσεσθαι˙ ἔτι δὲ οὐδὲν δοῦλον οὐδὲ κομψὸν οὐδὲ προσδεδεμένον οὐδὲ ἀπεσχισμένον οὐδὲ ὑπεύθυνον οὐδὲ ἐμφωλεῦον.

9. Τὴν ὑποληπτικὴν δύναμιν σέβε. ἐν ταύτῃ τὸ πᾶν, ἵνα ὑπόληψις τῷ ἡγεμονικῷ σου μηκέτι ἐγγένηται ἀνακόλουθος τῇ φύσει καὶ τῇ τοῦ λογικοῦ ζῴου κατασκευῇ˙ αὕτη δὲ ἐπαγγέλλεται ἀπροπτωσίαν καὶ τὴν πρὸς ἀνθρώπους οἰκείωσιν καὶ τὴν τοῖς θεοῖς ἀκολουθίαν.

10. Πάντα οὖν ῥίψας ταῦτα μόνα τὰ ὀλίγα σύνεχε καὶ ἔτι συμμνημόνευε, ὅτι μόνον ζῇ ἕκαστος τὸ παρὸν τοῦτο, τὸ ἀκαριαῖον˙ τὰ δὲ ἄλλα ἢ βεβίωται ἢ ἐν ἀδήλῳ. μικρὸν μὲν οὖν ὃ ζῇ ἕκαστος˙ μικρὸν δὲ τὸ τῆς γῆς γωνίδιον ὅπου ζῇ˙ μικρὸν δὲ καὶ ἡ μηκίστη ὑστεροφημία καὶ αὕτη δὲ κατὰ διαδοχὴν ἀνθρωπαρίων τάχιστα τεθνηξομένων καὶ οὐκ εἰδότων οὐδὲ ἑαυτούς, οὔτι γε τὸν πρόπαλαι τεθνηκότα.

11. Τοῖς δὲ εἰρημένοις παραστήμασιν ἓν ἔτι προσέστω, τὸ ὅρον ἢ ὑπογραφὴν ἀεὶ ποιεῖσθαι τοῦ ὑποπίπτοντος φανταστοῦ, ὥστε αὐτὸ ὁποῖόν ἐστι κατ οὐσίαν, γυμνόν, ὅλον δἰ ὅλων διῃρημένως βλέπειν καὶ τὸ ἴδιον ὄνομα αὐτοῦ καὶ τὰ ὀνόματα ἐκείνων, ἐξ ὧν συνεκρίθη καὶ εἰς ἃ ἀναλυθήσεται, λέγειν παῤ ἑαυτῷ. οὐδὲν γὰρ οὕτως μεγαλοφροσύνης ποιητικόν, ὡς τὸ ἐλέγχειν ὁδῷ καὶ ἀληθείᾳ ἕκαστον τῶν τῷ βίῳ ὑποπιπτόντων δύνασθαι καὶ τὸ ἀεὶ οὕτως εἰς αὐτὰ ὁρᾶν, ὥστε συνεπιβάλλειν ὁποίῳ τινὶ τῷ κόσμῳ ὁποίαν τινὰ τοῦτο χρείαν παρεχόμενον τίνα μὲν ἔχει ἀξίαν ὡς πρὸς τὸ ὅλον, τίνα δὲ ὡς πρὸς τὸν ἄνθρωπον, πολίτην ὄντα πόλεως τῆς ἀνωτάτης, ἧς αἱ λοιπαὶ πόλεις ὥσπερ οἰκίαι εἰσίν. τί ἐστὶ καὶ ἐκ τίνων συγκέκριται καὶ πόσον χρόνον πέφυκε παραμένειν τοῦτο τὸ τὴν φαντασίαν μοι νῦν ποιοῦν καὶ τίνος ἀρετῆς πρὸς αὐτὸ χρεία, οἷον ἡμερότητος, ἀνδρείας, ἀληθείας, πίστεως, ἀφελείας, αὐταρκείας, τῶν λοιπῶν. διὸ δεῖ ἐφ ἑκάστου λέγειν˙ τοῦτο μὲν παρὰ θεοῦ ἥκει, τοῦτο δὲ κατὰ τὴν σύλληξιν καὶ τὴν συμμηρυομένην σύγκλωσιν καὶ τὴν τοιαύτην σύντευξίν τε καὶ τύχην, τοῦτο δὲ παρὰ τοῦ συμφύλου καὶ συγγενοῦς καὶ κοινωνοῦ, ἀγνοοῦντος μέντοι ὅ τι αὐτῷ κατὰ φύσιν ἐστίν. ἀλλ ἐγὼ οὐκ ἀγνοῶ˙ διὰ τοῦτο˙ χρῶμαι αὐτῷ κατὰ τὸν τῆς κοινωνίας φυσικὸν νόμον εὔνως καὶ δικαίως, ἅμα μέντοι τοῦ κατ ἀξίαν ἐν τοῖς μέσοις συστοχάζομαι.

12. Ἐὰν τὸ παρὸν ἐνεργῇς ἑπόμενος τῷ ὀρθῷ λόγῳ, ἐσπουδασμένως, ἐῤῥωμένως, εὐμενῶς, καὶ μηδὲν ‹παρίῃς› παρεμπόρευμα, ἀλλὰ τὸν ἑαυτοῦ δαίμονα καθαρὸν ἑστῶτα τηρῇς, ὡς εἰ καὶ ἤδη ἀποδοῦναι δέοι˙ ἐὰν τοῦτο συνάπτῃς μηδὲν περιμένων μηδὲ φεύγων, ἀλλὰ τῇ παρούσῃ κατὰ φύσιν ἐνεργείᾳ καὶ τῇ ὧν λέγεις καὶ φθέγγῃ ἡρωικῇ ἀληθείᾳ ἀρκούμενος, εὐζωήσεις. ἔστι δὲ οὐδεὶς ὁ τοῦτο κωλῦσαι δυνάμενος.

13. Ὥσπερ οἱ ἰατροὶ ἀεὶ τὰ ὄργανα καὶ σιδήρια πρόχειρα ἔχουσι πρὸς τὰ αἰφνίδια τῶν θεραπευμάτων, οὕτω τὰ δόγματα σὺ ἕτοιμα ἔχε πρὸς τὸ τὰ θεῖα καὶ ἀνθρώπινα εἰδέναι, καὶ πᾶν καὶ τὸ μικρότατον οὕτω ποιεῖν ὡς τῆς ἀμφοτέρων πρὸς ἄλληλα συνδέσεως μεμνημένον˙ οὔτε γὰρ ἀνθρώπινόν τι ἄνευ τῆς ἐπὶ τὰ θεῖα συναναφορᾶς εὖ πράξεις οὔτ ἔμπαλιν. Μηκέτι πλανῶ˙ οὔτε γὰρ τὰ ὑπομνημάτιά σου μέλλεις ἀνα γινώσκειν οὔτε τὰς τῶν ἀρχαίων Ῥωμαίων καὶ Ἑλλήνων πράξεις καὶ τὰς ἐκ τῶν συγγραμμάτων ἐκλογάς, ἃς εἰς τὸ γῆρας ἑαυτῷ ἀπετίθεσο. σπεῦδε οὖν εἰς τέλος καὶ τὰς κενὰς ἐλπίδας ἀφεὶς σαυτῷ βοήθει, εἴ τί σοι μέλει σεαυτοῦ, ἕως ἔξεστιν.

14. Μηκέτι πλανῶ· οὔτε γὰρ τὰ ὑπομνημάτιά σου μέλλεις ἀνα γινώσκειν οὔτε τὰς τῶν ἀρχαίων Ῥωμαίων καὶ Ἑλλήνων πράξεις καὶ τὰς ἐκ τῶν συγγραμμάτων ἐκλογάς, ἃς εἰς τὸ γῆρας ἑαυτῷ ἀπετίθεσο. Σπεῦδε οὖν εἰς τέλος καὶ τὰς κενὰς ἐλπίδας ἀφεὶς σαυτῷ βοήθει, εἴ τί σοι μέλει σεαυτοῦ, ἕως ἔξεστιν.

15. Οὐκ ἴσασι, πόσα σημαίνει τὸ κλέπτειν, τὸ σπείρειν, τὸ ὠνεῖσθαι, τὸ ἡσυχάζειν, τὸ ὁρᾶν τὰ πρακτέα, ὃ οὐκ ὀφθαλμοῖς γίνεται ἀλλ ἑτέρᾳ τινὶ ὄψει.

16. Σῶμα, ψυχή, νοῦς˙ σώματος αἰσθήσεις, ψυχῆς ὁρμαί, νοῦ δόγματα. τὸ μὲν τυποῦσθαι φανταστικῶς καὶ τῶν βοσκημάτων˙ τὸ δὲ νευροσπαστεῖσθαι ὁρμητικῶς καὶ τῶν θηρίων καὶ τῶν ἀνδρογύνων καὶ Φαλάριδος καὶ Νέρωνος˙ τὸ δὲ τὸν νοῦν ἡγεμόνα ἔχειν ἐπὶ τὰ φαινόμενα καθήκοντα καὶ τῶν θεοὺς μὴ νομιζόντων καὶ τῶν τὴν πατρίδα ἐγκαταλειπόντων καὶ τῶν ‹ὁτιοῦν› ποιούντων, ἐπειδὰν κλείσωσι τὰς θύρας. εἰ οὖν τὰ λοιπὰ κοινά ἐστι πρὸς τὰ εἰρημένα, λοιπὸν τὸ ἴδιόν ἐστι τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ φιλεῖν μὲν καὶ ἀσπάζεσθαι τὰ συμβαίνοντα καὶ συγκλωθόμενα αὐτῷ, τὸν δὲ ἔνδον ἐν τῷ στήθει ἱδρυμένον δαίμονα μὴ φύρειν μηδὲ θορυβεῖν ὄχλῳ φαντασιῶν, ἀλλὰ ἵλεων διατηρεῖν, κοσμίως ἑπόμενον θεῷ, μήτε φθεγγόμενόν τι παρὰ τὰ ἀληθῆ μήτε ἐνεργοῦντα παρὰ τὰ δίκαια. εἰ δὲ ἀπιστοῦσιν αὐτῷ πάντες ἄνθρωποι, ὅτι ἁπλῶς καὶ αἰδημόνως καὶ εὐθύμως βιοῖ, οὔτε χαλεπαίνει τινὶ τούτων οὔτε παρατρέπεται τῆς ὁδοῦ τῆς ἀγούσης ἐπὶ τὸ τέλος τοῦ βίου, ἐφ ὃ δεῖ ἐλθεῖν καθαρόν, ἡσύχιον, εὔλυτον, ἀβιάστως τῇ ἑαυτοῦ μοίρᾳ συνηρμοσμένον.

### Book IV
1. Τὸ ἔνδον κυριεῦον, ὅταν κατὰ φύσιν ἔχῃ, οὕτως ἕστηκε πρὸς τὰ συμβαίνοντα, ὥστε ἀεὶ πρὸς τὸ δυνατὸν καὶ διδόμενον μετατίθεσθαι ῥᾳδίως. ὕλην γὰρ ἀποτεταγμένην οὐδεμίαν φιλεῖ, ἀλλὰ ὁρμᾷ μὲν πρὸς τὰ ‹προ›ηγούμενα μεθ ὑπεξαιρέσεως, τὸ δὲ ἀντεισαγόμενον ὕλην ἑαυτῷ ποιεῖ, ὥσπερ τὸ πῦρ, ὅταν ἐπικρατῇ τῶν ἐπεμπιπτόντων, ὑφ ὧν ἂν μικρός τις λύχνος ἐσβέσθη˙ τὸ δὲ λαμπρὸν πῦρ τάχιστα ἐξῳκείωσεν ἑαυτῷ τὰ ἐπιφορούμενα καὶ κατηνάλωσε καὶ ἐξ αὐτῶν ἐκείνων ἐπὶ μεῖζον ἤρθη.

2. Μηδὲν ἐνέργημα εἰκῇ μηδὲ ἄλλως ἢ κατὰ θεώρημα συμπληρωτικὸν τῆς τέχνης ἐνεργείσθω.

3. Ἀναχωρήσεις αὑτοῖς ζητοῦσιν ἀγροικίας καὶ αἰγιαλοὺς καὶ ὄρη, εἴωθας δὲ καὶ σὺ τὰ τοιαῦτα μάλιστα ποθεῖν. ὅλον δὲ τοῦτο ἰδιωτικώτατόν ἐστιν, ἐξόν, ἧς ἂν ὥρας ἐθελήσῃς, εἰς ἑαυτὸν ἀναχωρεῖν. οὐδαμοῦ γὰρ οὔτε ἡσυχιώτερον οὔτε ἀπραγμονέστερον ἄνθρωπος ἀναχωρεῖ ἢ εἰς τὴν ἑαυτοῦ ψυχήν, μάλισθ ὅστις ἔχει ἔνδον τοιαῦτα, εἰς ἃ ἐγκύψας ἐν πάσῃ εὐμαρείᾳ εὐθὺς γίνεται˙ τὴν δὲ εὐμάρειαν οὐδὲν ἄλλο λέγω ἢ εὐκοσμίαν. συνεχῶς οὖν δίδου σεαυτῷ ταύτην τὴν ἀναχώρησιν καὶ ἀνανέου σεαυτόν˙ βραχέα δὲ ἔστω καὶ στοιχειώδη ἃ εὐθὺς ἀπαντήσαντα ἀρκέσει εἰς τὸ πᾶσαν λύπην ἀποκλύσαι καὶ ἀποπέμψαι σε μὴ δυσχεραίνοντα ἐκείνοις ἐφ ἃ ἐπανέρχῃ. τίνι γὰρ δυσχερανεῖς; τῇ τῶν ἀνθρώπων κακίᾳ; ἀναλογισάμενος τὸ κρῖμα, ὅτι τὰ λογικὰ ζῷα ἀλλήλων ἕνεκεν γέγονε καὶ ὅτι τὸ ἀνέχεσθαι μέρος τῆς δικαιοσύνης καὶ ὅτι ἄκοντες ἁμαρτάνουσι καὶ πόσοι ἤδη διεχθρεύσαντες, ὑποπτεύσαντες, μισήσαντες, διαδορατισθέντες ἐκτέτανται, τετέφρωνται, παύου ποτέ. ἀλλὰ καὶ τοῖς ἐκ τῶν ὅλων ἀπονεμομένοις δυσχερανεῖς; ἀνανεωσάμενος τὸ διεζευγμένον τό˙ ἤτοι πρόνοια ἢ ἄτομοι, καὶ ἐξ ὅσων ἀπεδείχθη ὅτι ὁ κόσμος ὡσανεὶ πόλις. ἀλλὰ τὰ σωματικά σου ἅψεται ἔτι; ἐννοήσας ὅτι οὐκ ἐπιμίγνυται λείως ἢ τραχέως κινουμένῳ πνεύματι ἡ διάνοια, ἐπειδὰν ἅπαξ ἑαυτὴν ἀπολάβῃ καὶ γνωρίσῃ τὴν ἰδίαν ἐξουσίαν, καὶ λοιπὸν ὅσα περὶ πόνου καὶ ἡδονῆς ἀκήκοας καὶ συγκατέθου. ἀλλὰ τὸ δοξάριόν σε περισπάσει; ἀπιδὼν εἰς τὸ τάχος τῆς πάντων λήθης καὶ τὸ χάος τοῦ ἐφ ἑκάτερα ἀπείρου αἰῶνος καὶ τὸ κενὸν τῆς ἀπηχήσεως καὶ τὸ εὐμετάβολον καὶ ἄκριτον τῶν εὐφημεῖν δοκούντων καὶ τὸ στενὸν τοῦ τόπου, ἐν ᾧ περιγράφεται˙ ὅλη τε γὰρ ἡ γῆ στιγμὴ καὶ ταύτης πόστον γωνίδιον ἡ κατοίκησις αὕτη; καὶ ἐνταῦθα πόσοι καὶ οἷοί τινες οἱ ἐπαινεσόμενοι; λοιπὸν οὖν μέμνησο τῆς ὑποχωρήσεως τῆς εἰς τοῦτο τὸ ἀγρίδιον ἑαυτοῦ καὶ πρὸ παντὸς μὴ σπῶ μηδὲ κατεντείνου, ἀλλὰ ἐλεύθερος ἔσο καὶ ὅρα τὰ πράγματα ὡς ἀνήρ, ὡς ἄνθρωπος, ὡς πολίτης, ὡς θνητὸν ζῷον. ἐν δὲ τοῖς προχειροτάτοις, εἰς ἃ ἐγκύψεις, ταῦτα ἔστω τὰ δύο˙ ἕν μέν, ὅτι τὰ πράγματα οὐχ ἅπτεται τῆς ψυχῆς, ἀλλ ἔξω ἕστηκεν ἀτρεμοῦντα, αἱ δὲ ὀχλήσεις ἐκ μόνης τῆς ἔνδον ὑπολήψεως˙ ἕτερον δέ, ὅτι πάντα ταῦτα, ὅσα ὁρᾷς, ὅσον οὐδέπω μεταβαλεῖ καὶ οὐκ ἔτι ἔσται˙ καὶ ὅσων ἤδη μεταβολαῖς αὐτὸς παρατετύχηκας, συνεχῶς διανοοῦ. ὁ κόσμος ἀλλοίωσις, ὁ βίος ὑπόληψις.

4. Εἰ τὸ νοερὸν ἡμῖν κοινόν, καὶ ὁ λόγος, καθ ὃν λογικοί ἐσμεν, κοινός˙ εἰ τοῦτο, καὶ ὁ προστακτικὸς τῶν ποιητέων ἢ μὴ λόγος κοινός˙ εἰ τοῦτο, καὶ ὁ νόμος κοινός˙ εἰ τοῦτο, πολῖταί ἐσμεν˙ εἰ τοῦτο, πολιτεύματός τινος μετέχομεν˙ εἰ τοῦτο, ὁ κόσμος ὡσανεὶ πόλις ἐστί˙ τίνος γὰρ ἄλλου φήσει τις τὸ τῶν ἀνθρώπων πᾶν γένος κοινοῦ πολιτεύματος μετέχειν; ἐκεῖθεν δέ, ἐκ τῆς κοινῆς ταύτης πόλεως, καὶ αὐτὸ τὸ νοερὸν καὶ λογικὸν καὶ νομικὸν ἡμῖν ἢ πόθεν; ὥσπερ γὰρ τὸ γεῶδές μοι ἀπό τινος γῆς ἀπομεμέρισται καὶ τὸ ὑγρὸν ἀφ ἑτέρου στοιχείου καὶ τὸ πνευματικὸν ἀπὸ πηγῆς τινος καὶ τὸ θερμὸν καὶ πυρῶδες ἔκ τινος ἰδίας πηγῆς (οὐδὲν γὰρ ἐκ τοῦ μηδενὸς ἔρχεται, ὥσπερ μηδ εἰς τὸ οὐκ ὂν ἀπέρχεται), οὕτω δὴ καὶ τὸ νοερὸν ἥκει ποθέν.

5. Ὁ θάνατος τοιοῦτον, οἷον γένεσις, φύσεως μυστήριον˙ σύγκρισις ἐκ τῶν αὐτῶν στοιχείων, εἰς ταὐτὰ ‹λύσις›. ὅλως δὲ οὐκ ἐφ ᾧ ἄν τις αἰσχυνθείη˙ οὐ γὰρ παρὰ τὸ ἑξῆς τῷ νοερῷ ζῴῳ οὐδὲ παρὰ τὸν λόγον τῆς κατασκευῆς.

6. Ταῦτα οὕτως ὑπὸ τῶν τοιούτων πέφυκε γίνεσθαι ἐξ ἀνάγκης, ὁ δὲ τοῦτο μὴ θέλων θέλει τὴν συκῆν ὀπὸν μὴ ἔχειν. ὅλως δὲ ἐκείνου μέμνησο, ὅτι ἐντὸς ὀλιγίστου χρόνου καὶ σὺ καὶ οǷτος τεθνήξεσθε, μετὰ βραχὺ δὲ οὐδὲ ὄνομα ὑμῶν ὑπολειφθήσεται.

7. Ἂρον τὴν ὑπόληψιν, ἦρται τὸ βέβλαμμαι˙ ἆρον τὸ βέβλαμμαι, ἦρται ἡ βλάβη.

8. Ὂ χείρω αὐτὸν ἑαυτοῦ ἄνθρωπον οὐ ποιεῖ, τοῦτο οὐδὲ τὸν βίον αὐτοῦ χείρω ποιεῖ οὐδὲ βλάπτει οὔτε ἔξωθεν οὔτε ἔνδοθεν. Ἠνάγκασται ἡ τοῦ συμφέροντος φύσις τοῦτο ποιεῖν.

9. Ὅτι “πᾶν τὸ συμβαῖνον δικαίως συμβαίνε”˙ ὃ ἐὰν ἀκριβῶς παραφυλάσσῃς, εὑρήσεις˙ οὐ λέγω μόνον κατὰ τὸ ἑξῆς, ἀλλ ὅτι κατὰ τὸ δίκαιον καὶ ὡς ἂν ὑπό τινος ἀπονέμοντος τὸ κατ ἀξίαν. παραφύλασσε οὖν ὡς ἤρξω, καί, ὅ τι ἂν ποιῇς, σὺν τούτῳ ποίει, σὺν τῷ ἀγαθὸς εἶναι, καθὸ νενόηται ἰδίως ὁ ἀγαθός. τοῦτο ἐπὶ πάσης ἐνεργείας σῷζε.

10. Μὴ τοιαῦτα ὑπολάμβανε, οἷα ὁ ὑβρίζων κρίνει ἢ οἷά σε κρίνειν βούλεται, ἀλλὰ ἴδε αὐτά, ὁποῖα κατ ἀλήθειάν ἐστιν.

11. Δύο ταύτας ἑτοιμότητας ἔχειν ἀεὶ δεῖ˙ τὴν μὲν πρὸς τὸ πρᾶξαι μόνον ὅπερ ἂν ὁ τῆς βασιλικῆς καὶ νομοθετικῆς λόγος ὑποβάλλῃ ἐπ ὠφελείᾳ ἀνθρώπων˙ τὴν δὲ πρὸς τὸ μεταθέσθαι, ἐὰν ἄρα τις παρῇ διορθῶν καὶ μετάγων ἀπό τινος οἰήσεως. τὴν μέντοι μεταγωγὴν ἀεὶ ἀπό τινος πιθανότητος, ὡς δικαίου ἢ κοινωφελοῦς, γίνεσθαι καὶ τὰ προηγμένα τοιαῦτα μόνον εἶναι δεῖ, οὐχ ὅτι ἡδὺ ἢ ἔνδοξον ἐφάνη.

12. “Λόγον ἔχεις;” “ἔχω.” “τί οὖν οὐ χρᾷ; τούτου γὰρ τὸ ἑαυτοῦ ποιοῦντος τί ἄλλο θέλεις;”

13. Ἐνυπέστης ὡς μέρος. ἐναφανισθήσῃ τῷ γεννήσαντι˙ μᾶλλον δὲ ἀναληφθήσῃ εἰς τὸν λόγον αὐτοῦ τὸν σπερματικὸν κατὰ μεταβολήν.

14. Πολλὰ λιβανωτοῦ βωλάρια ἐπὶ τοῦ αὐτοῦ βωμοῦ˙ τὸ μὲν προκατέπεσεν, τὸ δ ὕστερον, διαφέρει δ οὐδέν.

15. Ἐντὸς δέκα ἡμερῶν θεὸς αὐτοῖς ‹τούτοις› δόξεις οἷς νῦν θηρίον καὶ πίθηκος, ἐὰν ἀνακάμψῃς ἐπὶ τὰ δόγματα καὶ τὸν σεβασμὸν τοῦ λόγου.

16. Μὴ ὡς μύρια μέλλων ἔτη ζῆν. τὸ χρεὼν ἐπήρτηται˙ ἕως ζῇς, ἕως ἔξεστιν, ἀγαθὸς γενοῦ.

17. Ὅσην εὐσχολίαν κερδαίνει ὁ μὴ βλέπων τί ὁ πλησίον εἶπεν ἢ ἔπραξεν ἢ διενοήθη, ἀλλὰ μόνον τί αὐτὸς ποιεῖ, ἵνα αὐτὸ τοῦτο δίκαιον ᾖ καὶ ὅσιον ἢ † κατὰ τὸν ἀγαθὸν˙ μὴ μέλαν ἦθος περιβλέπεσθαι, ἀλλ ἐπὶ τῆς γραμμῆς τρέχειν ὀρθόν, μὴ διεῤῥιμμένον.

18. Ὁ περὶ τὴν ὑστεροφημίαν ἐπτοημένος οὐ φαντάζεται ὅτι ἕκαστος τῶν μεμνημένων αὐτοῦ τάχιστα καὶ αὐτὸς ἀποθανεῖται˙ εἶτα πάλιν ὁ ἐκεῖνον διαδεξάμενος, μέχρι καὶ πᾶσα ἡ μνήμη ἀποσβῇ διὰ ἁπτομένων καὶ σβεννυμένων προιοῦσα. ὑπόθου δ, ὅτι καὶ ἀθάνατοι μὲν οἱ μεμνησόμενοι, ἀθάνατος δὲ ἡ μνήμη˙ τί οὖν τοῦτο πρὸς σέ; καὶ οὐ λέγω, ὅτι οὐδὲν πρὸς τὸν τεθνηκότα, ἀλλὰ πρὸς τὸν ζῶντα τί ὁ ἔπαινος, πλὴν ἄρα δἰ οἰκονομίαν τινά; παρίης γὰρ νῦν ἀκαίρως τὴν φυσικὴν δόσιν ἄλλου τινὸς ‹οὐκ› ἐχομένην λόγου. λοιπόν..

19. Πᾶν τὸ καὶ ὁπωσοῦν καλὸν ἐξ ἑαυτοῦ καλόν ἐστι καὶ ἐφ ἑαυτὸ καταλήγει, οὐκ ἔχον μέρος ἑαυτοῦ τὸν ἔπαινον˙ οὔτε γοῦν χεῖρον οὔτε κρεῖττον γίνεται τὸ ἐπαινούμενον. τοῦτό φημι καὶ ἐπὶ τῶν κοινότερον καλῶν λεγομένων, οἷον ἐπὶ τῶν ὑλικῶν καὶ ἐπὶ τῶν τεχνικῶν κατασκευασμάτων˙ τὸ δὲ δὴ ὄντως καλὸν τίνος χρείαν ἔχει; οὐ μᾶλλον ἢ νόμος, οὐ μᾶλλον ἢ ἀλήθεια, οὐ μᾶλλον ἢ εὔνοια ἢ αἰδώς˙ τί τούτων διὰ τὸ ἐπαινεῖσθαι καλόν ἐστιν ἢ ψεγόμενον φθείρεται; σμαράγδιον γὰρ ἑαυτοῦ χεῖρον γίνεται, ἐὰν μὴ ἐπαινῆται; τί δὲ χρυσός, ἐλέφας, πορφύρα, λύρα, μαχαίριον, ἀνθύλλιον, δενδρύφιον;

20. Εἰ διαμένουσιν αἱ ψυχαί, πῶς αὐτὰς ἐξ ἀιδίου χωρεῖ ὁ ἀήρ; πῶς δὲ ἡ γῆ χωρεῖ τὰ τῶν ἐκ τοσούτου αἰῶνος θαπτομένων σώματα; ὥσπερ γὰρ ἐνθάδε ἡ τούτων ‹μετὰ› ποσήν τινα ἐπιδιαμονὴν μεταβολὴ καὶ διάλυσις χώραν ἄλλοις νεκροῖς ποιεῖ, οὕτως αἱ εἰς τὸν ἀέρα μεθιστάμεναι ψυχαί, ἐπὶ ποσὸν συμμείνασαι, μεταβάλλουσι καὶ χέονται καὶ ἐξάπτονται εἰς τὸν τῶν ὅλων σπερματικὸν λόγον ἀναλαμβανόμεναι καὶ τοῦτον τὸν τρόπον χώραν ταῖς προσσυνοικιζομέναις παρέχουσι. τοῦτο δ ἄν τις ἀποκρίναιτο ἐφ ὑποθέσει τοῦ τὰς ψυχὰς διαμένειν. χρὴ δὲ μὴ μόνον ἐνθυμεῖσθαι τὸ πλῆθος τῶν θαπτομένων οὑτωσὶ σωμάτων, ἀλλὰ καὶ τὸ τῶν ἑκάστης ἡμέρας ἐσθιομένων ζῴων ὑφ ἡμῶν τε καὶ τῶν ἄλλων ζῴων. ὅσος γὰρ ἀριθμὸς καταναλίσκεται καὶ οὑτωσί πως θάπτεται ἐν τοῖς τῶν τρεφομένων σώμασι, καὶ ὅμως δέχεται ἡ χώρα αὐτὰ διὰ τὰς ἐξαιματώσεις, διὰ τὰς εἰς τὸ ἀερῶδες ἢ πυρῶδες ἀλλοιώσεις. Τίς ἐπὶ τούτου ἡ ἱστορία τῆς ἀληθείας; διαίρεσις εἰς τὸ ὑλικὸν καὶ εἰς τὸ αἰτιῶδες.

21. Μὴ ἀποῤῥέμβεσθαι, ἀλλ ἐπὶ πάσης ὁρμῆς τὸ δίκαιον ἀποδιδόναι καὶ ἐπὶ πάσης φαντασίας σῴζειν τὸ καταληπτικόν.

22. Πᾶν μοι συναρμόζει ὃ σοὶ εὐάρμοστόν ἐστιν, ὦ κόσμε˙ οὐδέν μοι πρόωρον οὐδὲ ὄψιμον ὃ σοὶ εὔκαιρον. πᾶν μοι καρπὸς ὃ φέρουσιν αἱ σαὶ ὧραι, ὦ φύσις˙ ἐκ σοῦ πάντα, ἐν σοὶ πάντα, εἰς σὲ πάντα. ἐκεῖνος μέν φησιν˙ “‹ὦ› πόλι φίλη Κέκροπος”˙ σὺ δὲ οὐκ ἐρεῖς˙ “ὦ πόλι φίλη Διός”;

23. “Ὀλίγα πρῆσσε, φησίν, εἰ μέλλεις εὐθυμήσειν.” μήποτε ἄμεινον τἀναγκαῖα πράσσειν καὶ ὅσα ὁ τοῦ φύσει πολιτικοῦ ζῴου λόγος αἱρεῖ καὶ ὡς αἱρεῖ; τοῦτο γὰρ οὐ μόνον τὴν ἀπὸ τοῦ καλῶς πράςσειν εὐθυμίαν φέρει, ἀλλὰ καὶ τὴν ἀπὸ τοῦ ὀλίγα πράσσειν. τὰ πλεῖστα γὰρ ὧν λέγομεν καὶ πράσσομεν οὐκ ἀναγκαῖα ὄντα ἐάν τις περιέλῃ, εὐσχολώτερος καὶ ἀταρακτότερος ἔσται. ὅθεν δεῖ καὶ παῤ ἕκαστα ἑαυτὸν ὑπομιμνῄσκειν˙ μήτι τοῦτο οὐ τῶν ἀναγκαίων; δεῖ δὲ μὴ μόνον πράξεις τὰς μὴ ἀναγκαίας περιαιρεῖν, ἀλλὰ καὶ φαντασίας˙ οὕτως γὰρ οὐδὲ πράξεις παρέλκουσαι ἐπακολουθήσουσιν.

24. Πείρασον πῶς σοι χωρεῖ καὶ ὁ τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ ἀνθρώπου βίος τοῦ ἀρεσκομένου μὲν τοῖς ἐκ τῶν ὅλων ἀπονεμομένοις, ἀρκουμένου δὲ τῇ ἰδίᾳ πράξει δικαίᾳ καὶ διαθέσει εὐμενεῖ.

25. Ἑώρακας ἐκεῖνα, ἴδε καὶ ταῦτα. σεαυτὸν μὴ τάρασσε˙ ἅπλωσον σεαυτόν. ἁμαρτάνει τις; ἑαυτῷ ἁμαρτάνει. συμβέβηκέ σοί τι; καλῶς˙ ἐκ τῶν ὅλων ἀπ ἀρχῆς σοι συγκαθείμαρτο καὶ συνεκλώθετο πᾶν τὸ συμβαῖνον. τὸ δ ὅλον, βραχὺς ὁ βίος˙ κερδαντέον τὸ παρὸν σὺν εὐλογιστίᾳ καὶ δίκῃ. νῆφε ἀνειμένος.

26. Ἤτοι κόσμος διατεταγμένος ἢ κυκεὼν συμπεφορημένος μέν, ἀλλὰ κόσμος˙ ἢ ἐν σοὶ μέν τις κόσμος ὑφίστασθαι δύναται, ἐν δὲ τῷ παντὶ ἀκοσμία; καὶ ταῦτα οὕτως πάντων διακεκριμένων καὶ διακεχυμένων καὶ συμπαθῶν.

27. Μέλαν ἦθος, θῆλυ ἦθος, περισκελὲς ἦθος, θηριῶδες, βοσκηματῶδες, παιδαριῶδες, βλακικόν, κίβδηλον, βωμολόχον, καπηλικόν, τυραννικόν.

28. Εἰ ξένος κόσμου ὁ μὴ γνωρίζων τὰ ἐν αὐτῷ ὄντα, οὐχ ἧττον ξένος καὶ ὁ μὴ γνωρίζων τὰ γινόμενα. φυγὰς ὁ φεύγων τὸν πολιτικὸν λόγον˙ τυφλὸς ὁ καταμύων τῷ νοερῷ ὄμματι˙ πτωχὸς ὁ ἐνδεὴς ἑτέρου καὶ μὴ πάντα ἔχων παῤ ἑαυτοῦ τὰ εἰς τὸν βίον χρήσιμα˙ ἀπόστημα κόσμου ὁ ἀφιστάμενος καὶ χωρίζων ἑαυτὸν τοῦ τῆς κοινῆς φύσεως λόγου διὰ τοῦ δυσαρεστεῖν τοῖς συμβαίνουσιν˙ ἐκείνη γὰρ φέρει τοῦτο, ἣ καὶ σὲ ἤνεγκεν˙ ἀπόσχισμα πόλεως ὁ τὴν ἰδίαν ψυχὴν τῆς τῶν λογικῶν ἀποσχίζων, μιᾶς οὔσης.

29. Ὁ μὲν χωρὶς χιτῶνος φιλοσοφεῖ, ὁ δὲ χωρὶς βιβλίου. ἄλλος οǷτος ἡμίγυμνος˙ ἄρτους οὐκ ἔχω, φησί, καὶ ἐμμένω τῷ λόγῳ. - ἐγὼ δὲ τροφὰς τὰς ἐκ τῶν μαθημάτων ἔχω καὶ οὐκ ἐμμένω.

30. Τὸ τεχνίον ὃ ἔμαθες φίλει, τούτῳ προσαναπαύου˙ τὸ δὲ ὑπόλοιπον τοῦ βίου διέξελθε ὡς θεοῖς μὲν ἐπιτετροφὼς τὰ σεαυτοῦ πάντα ἐξ ὅλης τῆς ψυχῆς, ἀνθρώπων δὲ μηδενὸς μήτε τύραννον μήτε δοῦλον σεαυτὸν καθιστάς.

31. Ἐπινόησον λόγου χάριν τοὺς ἐπὶ Οὐεσπασιανοῦ καιρούς, ὄψει τὰ αὐτὰ πάντα˙ γαμοῦντας, παιδοτροφοῦντας, νοσοῦντας, ἀποθνῄ σκοντας, πολεμοῦντας, ἑορτάζοντας, ἐμπορευομένους, γεωργοῦντας, κολακεύοντας, αὐθαδιζομένους, ὑποπτεύοντας, ἐπιβουλεύοντας, ἀποθανεῖν τινας εὐχομένους, γογγύζοντας ἐπὶ τοῖς παροῦσιν, ἐρῶντας, θησαυρίζοντας, ὑπατείας, βασιλείας ἐπιθυμοῦντας˙ οὐκοῦν ἐκεῖνος μὲν ὁ τούτων βίος οὐκ ἔτι οὐδαμοῦ. πάλιν ἐπὶ τοὺς καιροὺς τοὺς Τραιανοῦ μετάβηθι˙ πάλιν τὰ αὐτὰ πάντα˙ τέθνηκε κἀκεῖνος ὁ βίος. ὁμοίως καὶ τὰς ἄλλας ἐπιγραφὰς χρόνων καὶ ὅλων ἐθνῶν ἐπιθεώρει καὶ βλέπε, πόσοι κατενταθέντες μετὰ μικρὸν ἔπεσον καὶ ἀνελύθησαν εἰς τὰ στοιχεῖα˙ μάλιστα δὲ ἀναπολητέον ἐκείνους, οὓς αὐτὸς ἔγνως κενὰ σπωμένους, ἀφέντας ποιεῖν τὸ κατὰ τὴν ἰδίαν κατασκευὴν καὶ τούτου ἀπρὶξ ἔχεσθαι καὶ τούτῳ ἀρκεῖσθαι. ἀναγκαῖον δὲ ὧδε τὸ μεμνῆσθαι, ὅτι καὶ ἡ ἐπιστροφὴ καθ ἑκάστην πρᾶξιν ἰδίαν ἀξίαν ἔχει καὶ συμμετρίαν˙ οὕτως γὰρ οὐκ ἀποδυςπετήσεις, ἐὰν μὴ ἐπὶ πλέον ἢ προσῆκε περὶ τὰ ἐλάσσω καταγίνῃ.

32. Αἱ πάλαι συνήθεις λέξεις γλωσσήματα νῦν˙ οὕτως οὖν καὶ τὰ ὀνόματα τῶν πάλαι πολυυμνήτων νῦν τρόπον τινὰ γλωσσήματά ἐστιν˙ Κάμιλλος, Καίσων, Οὐόλεσος, Δεντάτος, κατ ὀλίγον δὲ καὶ Σκιπίων καὶ Κάτων, εἶτα καὶ Αὔγουστος, εἶτα καὶ Ἁδριανὸς καὶ Ἀντωνῖνος˙ ἐξίτηλα γὰρ πάντα καὶ μυθώδη ταχὺ γίνεται, ταχὺ δὲ καὶ παντελὴς λήθη κατέχωσεν. καὶ ταῦτα λέγω ἐπὶ τῶν θαυμαστῶς πως λαμψάντων˙ οἱ γὰρ λοιποὶ ἅμα τῷ ἐκπνεῦσαι “ἄιστοι, ἄπυστο”. τί δὲ καὶ ἔστιν ὅλως τὸ ἀείμνηστον; ὅλον κενόν. τί οὖν ἐστι περὶ ὃ δεῖ σπουδὴν εἰσφέρεσθαι; ἓν τοῦτο˙ - διάνοια δικαία καὶ πράξεις κοινωνικαὶ καὶ λόγος, οἷος μήποτε διαψεύσασθαι, καὶ διάθεσις ἀσπαζομένη πᾶν τὸ συμβαῖνον ὡς ἀναγκαῖον, ὡς γνώριμον, ὡς ἀπ ἀρχῆς τοιαύτης καὶ πηγῆς ῥέον.

33. Ἑκὼν σεαυτὸν τῇ Κλωθοῖ συνεπιδίδου παρέχων συννῆσαι οἷστισί ποτε πράγμασι βούλεται.

34. Πᾶν ἐφήμερον, καὶ τὸ μνημονεῦον καὶ τὸ μνημονευόμενον.

35. Θεώρει διηνεκῶς πάντα κατὰ μεταβολὴν γινόμενα καὶ ἐθίζου ἐννοεῖν, ὅτι οὐδὲν οὕτως φιλεῖ ἡ τῶν ὅλων φύσις ὡς τὸ τὰ ὄντα μεταβάλλειν καὶ ποιεῖν νέα ὅμοια. σπέρμα γὰρ τρόπον τινὰ πᾶν τὸ ὂν τοῦ ἐξ αὐτοῦ ἐσομένου, σὺ δὲ μόνα σπέρματα φαντάζῃ τὰ εἰς γῆν ἢ μήτραν καταβαλλόμενα, τοῦτο δὲ λίαν ἰδιωτικόν.

36. Ἤδη τεθνήξῃ καὶ οὔπω οὔτε ἁπλοῦς οὔτε ἀτάραχος οὔτε ἀνύποπτος τοῦ βλαβῆναι ἂν ἔξωθεν οὔτε ἵλεως πρὸς πάντας οὔτε τὸ φρονεῖν ἐν μόνῳ τῷ δικαιοπραγεῖν τιθέμενος.

37. Τὰ ἡγεμονικὰ αὐτῶν διάβλεπε καὶ τοὺς φρονίμους, οἷα μὲν φεύγουσιν, οἷα δὲ διώκουσιν.

38. Ἐν ἀλλοτρίῳ ἡγεμονικῷ κακὸν σὸν οὐχ ὑφίσταται οὐδὲ μὴν ἔν τινι τροπῇ καὶ ἑτεροιώσει τοῦ περιέχοντος. ποῦ οὖν; ὅπου τὸ περὶ κακῶν ὑπολαμβάνον σοί ἐστι. τοῦτο οὖν μὴ ὑπολαμβανέτω καὶ πάντα εὖ ἔχει. κἂν τὸ ἐγγυτάτω αὐτοῦ, τὸ σωμάτιον, τέμνηται, καίηται, διαπυίσκηται, σήπηται, ὅμως τὸ ὑπολαμβάνον περὶ τούτων μόριον ἡσυχαζέτω˙ τουτέστι, κρινέτω μήτε κακόν τι εἶναι μήτε ἀγαθόν, ὃ ἐπίσης δύναται κακῷ ἀνδρὶ καὶ ἀγαθῷ συμβαίνειν. ὃ γὰρ ‹καὶ τῷ παρὰ φύσιν› καὶ τῷ κατὰ φύσιν βιοῦντι ἐπίσης συμβαίνει, τοῦτο οὔτε κατὰ φύσιν ἐστὶν οὔτε παρὰ φύσιν.

39. Ὡς ἓν ζῷον τὸν κόσμον, μίαν οὐσίαν καὶ ψυχὴν μίαν ἐπέχον, συνεχῶς ἐπινοεῖν καὶ πῶς εἰς αἴσθησιν μίαν τὴν τούτου πάντα ἀναδίδοται καὶ πῶς ὁρμῇ μιᾷ πάντα πράσσει καὶ πῶς πάντα πάντων τῶν γινομένων συναίτια καὶ οἵα τις ἡ σύννησις καὶ συμμήρυσις.

40. Ψυχάριον εἶ βαστάζον νεκρόν, ὡς Ἐπίκτητος ἔλεγεν.

41. Τοῖς ἐν μεταβολῇ γινομένοις οὐδέν ἐστι κακόν, ὡς οὐδὲ ἀγαθὸν ‹τοῖς› ἐκ μεταβολῆς ὑφισταμένοις.

42. Ποταμός τίς ἐστι τῶν γινομένων καὶ ῥεῦμα βίαιον ὁ αἰών˙ ἅμα τε γὰρ ὤφθη ἕκαστον, καὶ παρενήνεκται καὶ ἄλλο παραφέρεται, τὸ δὲ ἐνεχθήσεται.

43. Πᾶν τὸ συμβαῖνον οὕτως σύνηθες καὶ γνώριμον ὡς τὸ ῥόδον ἐν τῷ ἔαρι καὶ ὀπώρα ἐν τῷ θέρει˙ τοιοῦτον γὰρ καὶ νόσος καὶ θάνατος καὶ βλασφημία καὶ ἐπιβουλὴ καὶ ὅσα τοὺς μωροὺς εὐφραίνει ἢ λυπεῖ.

44. Τὰ ἑξῆς ἀεὶ τοῖς προηγησαμένοις οἰκείως ἐπιγίνεται˙ οὐ γὰρ οἷον καταρίθμησίς τίς ἐστιν ἀπηρτημένων καὶ μόνον τὸ κατηναγκασμένον ἔχουσα, ἀλλὰ συνάφεια εὔλογος˙ καὶ ὥσπερ συντέτακται συνηρμοσμένως τὰ ὄντα, οὕτως τὰ γινόμενα οὐ διαδοχὴν ψιλήν, ἀλλὰ θαυμαστήν τινα οἰκειότητα ἐμφαίνει.

45. Ἀεὶ τοῦ Ἡρακλειτείου μεμνῆσθαι, ὅτι γῆς θάνατος ὕδωρ γενέσθαι καὶ ὕδατος θάνατος ἀέρα γενέσθαι καὶ ἀέρος πῦρ καὶ ἔμπαλιν. μεμνῆσθαι δὲ καὶ τοῦ ἐπιλανθανομένου, ᾗ ἡ ὁδὸς ἄγει˙ καὶ ὅτι, ᾧ μάλιστα διηνεκῶς ὁμιλοῦσι, λόγῳ τῷ τὰ ὅλα διοικοῦντι, τούτῳ διαφέρονται˙ καὶ οἷς καθ ἡμέραν ἐγκυροῦσι, ταῦτα αὐτοῖς ξένα φαίνεται˙ καὶ ὅτι οὐ δεῖ ὥσπερ καθεύδοντας ποιεῖν καὶ λέγειν, καὶ γὰρ καὶ τότε δοκοῦμεν ποιεῖν καὶ λέγειν˙ καὶ ὅτι οὐ δεῖ ‹ὡς› παῖδας τοκεώνων, τουτέστι κατὰ ψιλόν, καθότι παρειλήφαμεν.

46. Ὥσπερ εἴ τίς σοι θεῶν εἶπεν, ὅτι αὔριον τεθνήξῃ ἢ πάντως γε εἰς τρίτην, οὐκέτ ἂν παρὰ μέγα ἐποιοῦ τὸ εἰς τρίτην μᾶλλον ἢ αὔριον, εἴ γε μὴ ἐσχάτως ἀγεννὴς εἶ˙ (πόσον γάρ ἐστι τὸ μεταξύ;) οὕτως καὶ τὸ εἰς πολλοστὸν ἔτος μᾶλλον ἢ αὔριον μηδὲν μέγα εἶναι νόμιζε.

47. Ἐννοεῖν συνεχῶς πόσοι μὲν ἰατροὶ ἀποτεθνήκασι, πολλάκις τὰς ὀφρῦς ὑπὲρ τῶν ἀῤῥώστων συσπάσαντες˙ πόσοι δὲ μαθηματικοί, ἄλλων θανάτους ὥς τι μέγα προειπόντες˙ πόσοι δὲ φιλόσοφοι, περὶ θανάτου ἢ ἀθανασίας μυρία διατεινάμενοι˙ πόσοι δὲ ἀριστεῖς, πολλοὺς ἀποκτείναντες˙ πόσοι δὲ τύραννοι, ἐξουσίᾳ ψυχῶν μετὰ δεινοῦ φρυάγματος ὡς ἀθάνατοι κεχρημένοι˙ πόσαι δὲ πόλεις ὅλαι, ἵν οὕτως εἴπω, τεθνήκασιν, Ἑλίκη καὶ Πομπήιοι καὶ Ἡρκλᾶνον καὶ ἄλλαι ἀναρίθμητοι. ἔπιθι δὲ καὶ ὅσους οἶδας, ἄλλον ἐπ ἄλλῳ˙ ὁ μὲν τοῦτον κηδεύσας εἶτα ἐξετάθη, ὁ δὲ ἐκεῖνον, πάντα δὲ ἐν βραχεῖ. τὸ γὰρ ὅλον, κατιδεῖν ἀεὶ τὰ ἀνθρώπινα ὡς ἐφήμερα καὶ εὐτελῆ καὶ ἐχθὲς μὲν μυξάριον, αὔριον δὲ τάριχος ἢ τέφρα. τὸ ἀκαριαῖον οὖν τοῦτο τοῦ χρόνου κατὰ φύσιν διελθεῖν καὶ ἵλεων καταλῦσαι, ὡς ἂν εἰ ἐλαία πέπειρος γενομένη ἔπιπτεν, εὐφημοῦσα τὴν ἐνεγκοῦσαν καὶ χάριν εἰδυῖα τῷ φύσαντι δένδρῳ.

48. Ὅμοιον εἶναι τῇ ἄκρᾳ, ᾗ διηνεκῶς τὰ κύματα προσρήσσεται˙ ἡ δὲ ἕστηκε καὶ περὶ αὐτὴν κοιμίζεται τὰ φλεγμήναντα τοῦ ὕδατος. “Ἀτυχὴς ἐγώ, ὅτι τοῦτό μοι συνέβη.” οὐμενοῦν ἀλλ εὐτυχὴς ἐγώ, ὅτι τούτου μοι συμβεβηκότος ἄλυπος διατελῶ, οὔτε ὑπὸ παρόντος θραυόμενος οὔτε ἐπιὸν φοβούμενος. συμβῆναι μὲν γὰρ τὸ τοιοῦτο παντὶ ἐδύνατο, ἄλυπος δὲ οὐ πᾶς ἐπὶ τούτῳ ἂν διετέλεσε. διὰ τί οὖν ἐκεῖνο μᾶλλον ἀτύχημα ἢ τοῦτο εὐτύχημα; λέγεις δὲ ὅλως ἀτύχημα ἀνθρώπου, ὃ οὐκ ἔστιν ἀπότευγμα τῆς φύσεως τοῦ ἀνθρώπου; ἀπότευγμα δὲ τῆς φύσεως τοῦ ἀνθρώπου εἶναι δοκεῖ σοι, ὃ μὴ παρὰ τὸ βούλημα τῆς φύσεως αὐτοῦ ἐστι; τί οὖν; τὸ βούλημα μεμάθηκας˙ μήτι οὖν τὸ συμβεβηκὸς τοῦτο κωλύει σε δίκαιον εἶναι, μεγαλόψυχον, σώφρονα, ἔμφρονα, ἀπρόπτωτον, ἀδιάψευστον, αἰδήμονα, ἐλεύθερον, τἆλλα, ὧν συμπαρόντων ἡ φύσις ἡ τοῦ ἀνθρώπου ἀπέχει τὰ ἴδια; μέμνησο λοιπὸν ἐπὶ παντὸς τοῦ εἰς λύπην σε προαγομένου τούτῳ χρῆσθαι τῷ δόγματι˙ ὅτι οὐχὶ τοῦτο ἀτύχημα, ἀλλὰ τὸ φέρειν αὐτὸ γενναίως εὐτύχημα.

49. Ἰδιωτικὸν μέν, ὅμως δὲ ἀνυστικὸν βοήθημα πρὸς θανάτου καταφρόνησιν ἡ ἀναπόλησις τῶν γλίσχρως ἐνδιατριψάντων τῷ ζῆν. τί οὖν αὐτοῖς πλέον ἢ τοῖς ἀώροις; πάντως πού ποτε κεῖνται, Καιδικιανός, Φάβιος, Ἰουλιανός, Λέπιδος ἢ εἴ τις τοιοῦτος, οἳ πολλοὺς ἐξήνεγκαν, εἶτα ἐξηνέχθησαν˙ ὅλον, μικρόν ἐστι τὸ διάστημα καὶ τοῦτο δἰ ὅσων καὶ μεθ οἵων ἐξαντλούμενον καὶ ἐν οἵῳ σωματίῳ; μὴ οὖν ὡς πρᾶγμα..˙ βλέπε γὰρ ὀπίσω τὸ ἀχανὲς τοῦ αἰῶνος καὶ τὸ πρόσω ἄλλο ἄπειρον. ἐν δὴ τούτῳ τί διαφέρει ὁ τριήμερος τοῦ τριγερηνίου;

50. Ἐπὶ τὴν σύντομον ἀεὶ τρέχε˙ σύντομος δὲ ἡ κατὰ φύσιν. ὥστε κατὰ τὸ ὑγιέστατον πᾶν λέγειν καὶ πράσσειν, ἀπαλλάσσει γὰρ ἡ τοιαύτη πρόθεσις κόπων καὶ στρατείας καὶ πάσης οἰκονομίας καὶ κομψείας.

### Book V
1. Ὄρθρου, ὅταν δυσόκνως ἐξεγείρῃ, πρόχειρον ἔστω ὅτι ἐπὶ ἀνθρώπου ἔργον ἐγείρομαι˙ ἔτι οὖν δυσκολαίνω, εἰ πορεύομαι ἐπὶ τὸ ποιεῖν ὧν ἕνεκεν γέγονα καὶ ὧν χάριν προῆγμαι εἰς τὸν κόσμον; ἢ ἐπὶ τοῦτο κατεσκεύασμαι, ἵνα κατακείμενος ἐν στρωματίοις ἐμαυτὸν θάλπω; “ἀλλὰ τοῦτο ἥδιον.” πρὸς τὸ ἥδεσθαι οὖν γέγονας, ὅλως δὲ πρὸς πεῖσιν, οὐ πρὸς ἐνέργειαν; οὐ βλέπεις τὰ φυτάρια, τὰ στρουθάρια, τοὺς μύρμηκας, τοὺς ἀράχνας, τὰς μελίσσας τὸ ἴδιον ποιούσας, τὸ καθ αὑτὰς συγκοσμούσας κόσμον; ἔπειτα σὺ οὐ θέλεις τὰ ἀνθρωπικὰ ποιεῖν˙ οὐ τρέχεις ἐπὶ τὸ κατὰ τὴν σὴν φύσιν˙ “ἀλλὰ δεῖ καὶ ἀναπαύεσθαι.” δεῖ˙ φημὶ κἀγώ˙ ἔδωκε μέντοι καὶ τούτου μέτρα ἡ φύσις, ἔδωκε μέντοι καὶ τοῦ ἐσθίειν καὶ πίνειν, καὶ ὅμως σὺ ὑπὲρ τὰ μέτρα, ὑπὲρ τὰ ἀρκοῦντα προχωρεῖς, ἐν δὲ ταῖς πράξεσιν οὐκ ἔτι, ἀλλ ἐντὸς τοῦ δυνατοῦ. οὐ γὰρ φιλεῖς ἑαυτόν, ἐπεί τοι καὶ τὴν φύσιν ἄν σου καὶ τὸ βούλημα ταύτης ἐφίλεις. ἄλλοι δὲ τὰς τέχνας ἑαυτῶν φιλοῦντες συγκατατήκονται τοῖς κατ αὐτὰς ἔργοις ἄλουτοι καὶ ἄσιτοι˙ σὺ τὴν φύσιν τὴν σαυτοῦ ἔλασσον τιμᾷς ἢ ὁ τορευτὴς τὴν τορευτικὴν ἢ ὁ ὀρχηστὴς τὴν ὀρχηστικὴν ἢ ὁ φιλάργυρος τὸ ἀργύριον ἢ ὁ κενόδοξος τὸ δοξάριον. καὶ οὗτοι, ὅταν προσπαθῶσιν, οὔτε φαγεῖν οὔτε κοιμηθῆναι θέλουσι μᾶλλον ἢ ταῦτα συναύξειν, πρὸς ἃ διαφέρονται˙ σοὶ δὲ αἱ κοινωνικαὶ πράξεις εὐτελέστεραι φαίνονται καὶ ἥσσονος σπουδῆς ἄξιαι.

2. Ὡς εὔκολον ἀπώσασθαι καὶ ἀπαλεῖψαι πᾶσαν φαντασίαν [τὴν] ὀχληρὰν ἢ ἀνοίκειον καὶ εὐθὺς ἐν πάσῃ γαλήνῃ εἶναι.

3. Ἄξιον ἑαυτὸν κρῖνε παντὸς λόγου καὶ ἔργου τοῦ κατὰ φύσιν καὶ μή σε παρειπάτω ἡ ἐπακολουθοῦσά τινων μέμψις ἢ λόγος, ἀλλά, εἰ καλὸν πεπρᾶχθαι ἢ εἰρῆσθαι, μὴ σεαυτὸν ἀπαξίου. ἐκεῖνοι μὲν γὰρ ἴδιον ἡγεμονικὸν ἔχουσι καὶ ἰδίᾳ ὁρμῇ χρῶνται˙ ἃ σὺ μὴ περιβλέπου, ἀλλ εὐθεῖαν πέραινε ἀκολουθῶν τῇ φύσει τῇ ἰδίᾳ καὶ τῇ κοινῇ, μία δὲ ἀμφοτέρων τούτων ἡ ὁδός.

4. Πορεύομαι διὰ τῶν κατὰ φύσιν, μέχρι πεσὼν ἀναπαύσωμαι ἐναποπνεύσας μὲν τούτῳ, ἐξ οὗ καθ ἡμέραν ἀναπνέω, πεσὼν δὲ ἐπὶ τοῦτο, ἐξ οὗ καὶ τὸ σπερμάτιον ὁ πατήρ μου συνέλεξε καὶ τὸ αἱμάτιον ἡ μήτηρ καὶ τὸ γαλάκτιον ἡ τροφός˙ ἐξ οὗ καθ ἡμέραν τοσούτοις ἔτεσι βόσκομαι καὶ ἀρδεύομαι˙ ὃ φέρει με πατοῦντα καὶ εἰς τοσαῦτα ἀποχρώμενον ἑαυτῷ.

5. Δριμύτητά σου οὐκ ἔχουσι θαυμάσαι˙ ἔστω, ἀλλὰ ἕτερα πολλά, ἐφ ὧν οὐκ ἔχεις εἰπεῖν˙ οὐ γὰρ πέφυκα. ἐκεῖνα οὖν παρέχου, ἅπερ ὅλα ἐστὶν ἐπὶ σοί, τὸ ἀκίβδηλον, τὸ σεμνόν, τὸ φερέπονον, τὸ ἀφιλήδονον, τὸ ἀμεμψίμοιρον, τὸ ὀλιγοδεές, τὸ εὐμενές, τὸ ἐλεύθερον, τὸ ἀπέρισσον, τὸ ἀφλύαρον, τὸ μεγαλεῖον. οὐκ αἰσθάνῃ πόσα ἤδη παρέχεσθαι δυνάμενος, ἐφ ὧν οὐδεμία ἀφυίας καὶ ἀνεπιτηδειότητος πρόφασις, ὅμως ἔτι κάτω μένεις ἑκών; ἢ καὶ γογγύζειν καὶ γλισχρεύεσθαι καὶ κολακεύειν καὶ τὸ σωμάτιον καταιτιᾶσθαι καὶ ἀρεσκεύεσθαι καὶ περπερεύεσθαι καὶ τοσαῦτα ῥιπτάζεσθαι τῇ ψυχῇ διὰ τὸ ἀφυῶς κατεσκευάσθαι ἀναγκάζῃ; οὐ μὰ τοὺς θεούς, ἀλλὰ τούτων μὲν πάλαι ἀπηλλάχθαι ἐδύνασο, μόνον δέ, εἰ ἄρα, ὡς βραδύτερος καὶ δυσπαρακολουθητότερος καταγινώσκεσθαι. καὶ τοῦτο δὲ ἀσκητέον μὴ παρενθυμουμένῳ μηδὲ ἐμφιληδοῦντι τῇ νωθείᾳ.

6. Ὁ μέν τίς ἐστιν, ὅταν τι δεξιὸν περί τινα πράξῃ, πρόχειρος καὶ λογίσασθαι αὐτῷ τὴν χάριν. ὁ δὲ πρὸς μὲν τοῦτο οὐ πρόχειρος, ἀλλὰ μέντοι παῤ ἑαυτῷ ὡς περὶ χρεώστου διανοεῖται καὶ οἶδεν ὃ πεποίηκεν. ὁ δέ τις τρόπον τινὰ οὐδὲ οἶδεν ὃ πεποίηκεν, ἀλλὰ ὅμοιός ἐστιν ἀμπέλῳ βότρυν ἐνεγκούσῃ καὶ μηδὲν ἄλλο προσεπιζητούσῃ μετὰ τὸ ἅπαξ τὸν ἴδιον καρπὸν ἐνηνοχέναι. ἵππος δραμών, κύων ἰχνεύσας, μέλισσα μέλι ποιήσασα, ἄνθρωπος δ εὖ ποιήσας οὐκ ἐπίσταται, ἀλλὰ μεταβαίνει ἐφ ἕτερον, ὡς ἄμπελος ἐπὶ τὸ πάλιν ἐν τῇ ὥρᾳ τὸν βότρυν ἐνεγκεῖν. ἐν τούτοις οὖν δεῖ εἶναι τοῖς τρόπον τινὰ ἀπαρακολουθήτως αὐτὸ ποιοῦσι. “ναί˙ ἀλλ αὐτὸ τοῦτο δεῖ παρακολουθεῖν˙ ἴδιον γάρ,” φησί, “τοῦ κοινωνικοῦ τὸ αἰσθάνεσθαι ὅτι κοινωνικῶς ἐνεργεῖ, καὶ νὴ Δία βούλεσθαι καὶ τὸν κοινωνὸν αἰσθέσθαι.” “ἀληθὲς μέν ἐστιν ὃ λέγεις, τὸ δὲ νῦν λεγόμενον παρεκδέχῃ˙ διὰ τοῦτο ἔσῃ εἷς ἐκείνων ὧν πρότερον ἐπεμνήσθην˙ καὶ γὰρ ἐκεῖνοι λογικῇ τινι πιθανότητι παράγονται. ἐὰν δὲ θελήσῃς συνεῖναι τί ποτέ ἐστι τὸ λεγόμενον, μὴ φοβοῦ, μὴ παρὰ τοῦτο παραλίπῃς τι ἔργον κοινωνικόν.”

7. Εὐχὴ Ἀθηναίων˙ ὗσον, ὗσον, ὦ φίλε Ζεῦ, κατὰ τῆς ἀρούρας τῆς Ἀθηναίων καὶ τῶν πεδίων. ἤτοι οὐ δεῖ εὔχεσθαι ἢ οὕτως ἁπλῶς καὶ ἐλευθέρως.

8. Ὁποῖόν τί ἐστι τὸ λεγόμενον, ὅτι˙ συνέταξεν ὁ Ἀσκληπιὸς τούτῳ ἱππασίαν ἢ ψυχρολουσίαν ἢ ἀνυποδησίαν, τοιοῦτόν ἐστι καὶ τό˙ συνέταξε τούτῳ ἡ τῶν ὅλων φύσις νόσον ἢ πήρωσιν ἢ ἀποβολὴν ἢ ἄλλο τι τῶν τοιούτων. καὶ γὰρ ἐκεῖ τὸ συνέταξε τοιοῦτόν τι σημαίνει˙ ἔταξε τούτῳ τοῦτο ὡς κατάλληλον εἰς ὑγίειαν, καὶ ἐνταῦθα τὸ συμβαῖνον ἑκάστῳ τέτακταί πως αὐτῷ ‹ὡς› κατάλληλον εἰς τὴν εἱμαρμένην. οὕτως γὰρ καὶ συμβαίνειν αὐτὰ ἡμῖν λέγομεν ὡς καὶ τοὺς τετραγώνους λίθους ἐν τοῖς τείχεσιν ἢ ἐν ταῖς πυραμίσι συμβαίνειν οἱ τεχνῖται λέγουσι, συναρμόζοντας ἀλλήλοις τῇ ποιᾷ συνθέσει. ὅλως γὰρ ἁρμονία ἐστὶ μία καὶ ὥσπερ ἐκ πάντων τῶν σωμάτων ὁ κόσμος τοιοῦτον σῶμα συμπληροῦται, οὕτως ἐκ πάντων τῶν αἰτίων ἡ εἱμαρμένη τοιαύτη αἰτία συμπληροῦται. νοοῦσι δὲ ὃ λέγω καὶ οἱ τέλεον ἰδιῶται˙ φασὶ γάρ˙ “τοῦτο ἔφερεν αὐτ”. οὐκοῦν τοῦτο τούτῳ ἐφέρετο καὶ τοῦτο τούτῳ συνετάττετο˙ δεχώμεθα οὖν αὐτὰ ὡς ἐκεῖνα ‹ἃ› ὁ Ἀσκληπιὸς συντάττει. πολλὰ γοῦν καὶ ἐν ἐκείνοις ἐστὶ τραχέα, ἀλλὰ ἀσπαζόμεθα τῇ ἐλπίδι τῆς ὑγιείας. τοιοῦτόν τί σοι δοκείτω ἄνυσις καὶ συντέλεια τῶν τῇ κοινῇ φύσει δοκούντων, οἷον ἡ σὴ ὑγίεια, καὶ οὕτως ἀσπάζου πᾶν τὸ γινόμενον, κἂν ἀπηνέστερον δοκῇ, διὰ τὸ ἐκεῖσε ἄγειν, ἐπὶ τὴν τοῦ κόσμου ὑγίειαν καὶ τὴν τοῦ Διὸς εὐοδίαν καὶ εὐπραγίαν. οὐ γὰρ ἂν τοῦτό τινι ἔφερεν, εἰ μὴ τῷ ὅλῳ συνέφερεν˙ οὐδὲ γὰρ ἡ τυχοῦσα φύσις φέρει τι, ὃ μὴ τῷ διοικουμένῳ ὑπ αὐτῆς κατάλληλόν ἐστιν. οὐκοῦν κατὰ δύο λόγους στέργειν χρὴ τὸ συμβαῖνόν σοι˙ καθ ἕνα μέν, ὅτι σοὶ ἐγίνετο καὶ σοὶ συνετάττετο καὶ πρὸς σέ πως εἶχεν, ἄνωθεν ἐκ τῶν πρεσβυτάτων αἰτίων συγκλωθόμενον˙ καθ ἕτερον δέ, ὅτι τῷ τὸ ὅλον διοικοῦντι τῆς εὐοδίας καὶ τῆς συντελείας καὶ νὴ Δία τῆς συμμονῆς αὐτῆς καὶ τὸ ἰδίᾳ εἰς ἕκαστον ἧκον αἴτιόν ἐστι. πηροῦται γὰρ τὸ ὁλόκληρον, ἐὰν καὶ ὁτιοῦν διακόψῃ ς τῆς συναφείας καὶ συνεχείας ὥσπερ τῶν μορίων, οὕτω δὴ καὶ τῶν αἰτίων˙ διακόπτεις δέ, ὅσον ἐπὶ σοί, ὅταν δυσαρεστῇς, καὶ τρόπον τινὰ ἀναιρεῖς.

9. Μὴ σικχαίνειν μηδὲ ἀπαυδᾶν μηδὲ ἀποδυσπετεῖν, εἰ μὴ καταπυκνοῦταί σοι τὸ ἀπὸ δογμάτων ὀρθῶν ἕκαστα πράσσειν, ἀλλὰ ἐκκρουσθέντα πάλιν ἐπανιέναι καὶ ἀσμενίζειν, εἰ ‹σοὶ› τὰ πλείω ἀνθρωπικώτερα, καὶ φιλεῖν τοῦτο, ἐφ ὃ ἐπανέρχῃ, καὶ μὴ ὡς πρὸς παιδαγωγὸν τὴν φιλοσοφίαν ἐπανιέναι, ἀλλ ὡς οἱ ὀφθαλμιῶντες πρὸς τὸ σπογγάριον καὶ τὸ ᾠόν, ὡς ἄλλος πρὸς κατάπλασμα, ὡς πρὸς καταιόνησιν. οὕτως γὰρ οὐδὲν ἐπιδείξῃ τὸ πειθαρχεῖν τῷ λόγῳ, ἀλλὰ προσαναπαύσῃ αὐτῷ. μέμνησο δὲ ὅτι φιλοσοφία μόνα, ἃ θέλει ἡ φύσις σου, θέλει˙ σὺ δὲ ἄλλο ἤθελες οὐ κατὰ φύσιν. τί γὰρ τούτων προσηνέστερον; ἡ γὰρ ἡδονὴ οὐχὶ διὰ τοῦτο σφάλλει; ἀλλὰ θέασαι, εἰ προσηνέστερον μεγαλοψυχία, ἐλευθερία, ἁπλότης, εὐγνωμοσύνη, ὁσιότης. αὐτῆς γὰρ φρονήσεως τί προσηνέστερον, ὅταν τὸ ἄπταιστον καὶ εὔρουν ἐν πᾶσι τῆς παρακολουθητικῆς καὶ ἐπιστημονικῆς δυνάμεως ἐνθυμηθῇς;

10. Τὰ μὲν πράγματα ἐν τοιαύτῃ τρόπον τινὰ ἐγκαλύψει ἐστίν, ὥστε φιλοσόφοις οὐκ ὀλίγοις οὐδὲ τοῖς τυχοῦσιν ἔδοξε παντάπασιν ἀκατάληπτα εἶναι, πλὴν αὐτοῖς γε τοῖς Στωικοῖς δυσκατάληπτα δοκεῖ˙ καὶ πᾶσα ἡ ἡμετέρα συγκατάθεσις μεταπτώτη˙ ποῦ γὰρ ὁ ἀμετάπτωτος; μέτιθι τοίνυν ἐπ αὐτὰ τὰ ὑποκείμενα ὡς ὀλιγοχρόνια καὶ εὐτελῆ καὶ δυνάμενα ἐν κτήσει κιναίδου ἢ πόρνης ἢ λῃστοῦ εἶναι. μετὰ τοῦτο ἔπιθι ἐπὶ τὰ τῶν συμβιούντων ἤθη, ὧν μόλις ἐστὶ καὶ τοῦ χαριεστάτου ἀνασχέσθαι, ἵνα μὴ λέγω, ὅτι καὶ ἑαυτόν τις μόγις ὑπομένει. ἐν τοιούτῳ οὖν ζόφῳ καὶ ῥύπῳ καὶ τοσαύτῃ ῥύσει τῆς τε οὐσίας καὶ τοῦ χρόνου καὶ τῆς κινήσεως καὶ τῶν κινουμένων τί ποτέ ἐστι τὸ ἐκτιμηθῆναι ἢ τὸ ὅλως σπουδασθῆναι δυνάμενον, οὐδ ἐπινοῶ. τοὐναντίον γὰρ δεῖ παραμυθούμενον ἑαυτὸν περιμένειν τὴν φυσικὴν λύσιν καὶ μὴ ἀσχάλλειν τῇ διατριβῇ, ἀλλὰ τούτοις μόνοις προσαναπαύεσθαι˙ ἑνὶ μὲν τῷ, ὅτι οὐδὲν συμβήσεταί μοι ὃ οὐχὶ κατὰ τὴν τῶν ὅλων φύσιν ἐστίν˙ ἑτέρῳ δέ, ὅτι ἔξεστί μοι μηδὲν πράσσειν παρὰ τὸν ἐμὸν θεὸν καὶ δαίμονα˙ οὐδεὶς γὰρ ὁ ἀναγκάσων τοῦτον παραβῆναι.

11. Πρὸς τί ποτε ἄρα νῦν χρῶμαι τῇ ἐμαυτοῦ ψυχῇ; παῤ ἕκαστα τοῦτο ἐπανερωτᾶν ἑαυτὸν καὶ ἐξετάζειν τί μοί ἐστι νῦν ἐν τούτῳ τῷ μορίῳ, ὃ δὴ ἡγεμονικὸν καλοῦσι, καὶ τίνος ἄρα νῦν ἔχω ψυχήν; μήτι παιδίου; μήτι μειρακίου; μήτι γυναικαρίου; μήτι τυράννου; μήτι κτήνους; μήτι θηρίου;

12. Ὁποῖά τινά ἐστι τὰ τοῖς πολλοῖς δοκοῦντα ἀγαθά, κἂν ἐντεῦθεν λάβοις. εἰ γάρ τις ἐπινοήσειεν ὑπάρχοντά τινα ὡς ἀληθῶς ἀγαθά, οἷον φρόνησιν, σωφροσύνην, δικαιοσύνην, ἀνδρείαν, οὐκ ἂν ταῦτα προεπινοήσας ἔτι ἀκοῦσαι δυνηθείη τό˙ “ὑπὸ τῶν ἀγαθῶν”, ‹οὐ› γὰρ ἐφαρμόσει. τὰ δέ γε τοῖς πολλοῖς φαινόμενα ἀγαθὰ προεπινοήσας τις ἐξακούσεται καὶ ῥᾳδίως δέξεται ὡς οἰκείως ἐπιλεγόμενον τὸ ὑπὸ τοῦ κωμικοῦ εἰρημένον. οὕτως καὶ οἱ πολλοὶ φαντάζονται τὴν διαφοράν˙ οὐ γὰρ ἂν τοῦτο μὲν [οὐ] προσέκοπτε καὶ ἀπηξιοῦτο, τὸ δὲ ἐπὶ τοῦ πλούτου καὶ τῶν πρὸς τρυφὴν ἢ δόξαν εὐκληρημάτων παρεδεχόμεθα ὡς ἱκνουμένως καὶ ἀστείως εἰρημένον. πρόιθι οὖν καὶ ἐρώτα, εἰ τιμητέον καὶ ἀγαθὰ ὑποληπτέον τὰ τοιαῦτα, ὧν προεπινοηθέντων οἰκείως ἂν ἐπιφέροιτο τὸ τὸν κεκτημένον αὐτὰ ὑπὸ τῆς εὐπορίας “οὐκ ἔχειν ὅποι χέσ”.

13. Ἐξ αἰτιώδους καὶ ὑλικοῦ συνέστηκα, οὐδέτερον δὲ τούτων εἰς τὸ μὴ ὂν φθαρήσεται, ὥσπερ οὐδὲ ἐκ τοῦ μὴ ὄντος ὑπέστη. οὐκοῦν καταταχθήσεται πᾶν μέρος ἐμὸν κατὰ μεταβολὴν εἰς μέρος τι τοῦ κόσμου καὶ πάλιν ἐκεῖνο εἰς ἕτερον μέρος τι τοῦ κόσμου μεταβαλεῖ καὶ ἤδη εἰς ἄπειρον. κατὰ τοιαύτην δὲ μεταβολὴν κἀγὼ ὑπέστην καὶ οἱ ἐμὲ γεννήσαντες καὶ ἐπανιόντι εἰς ἄλλο ἄπειρον. οὐδὲν γὰρ κωλύει οὕτως φάναι, κἂν κατὰ περιόδους πεπερασμένας ὁ κόσμος διοικῆται.

14. Ὁ λόγος καὶ ἡ λογικὴ τέχνη δυνάμεις εἰσὶν ἑαυταῖς ἀρκούμεναι καὶ τοῖς καθ αὑτὰς ἔργοις. ὁρμῶνται μὲν οὖν ἀπὸ τῆς οἰκείας ἀρχῆς, ὁδεύουσι δὲ εἰς τὸ προκείμενον τέλος, καθὸ κατορθώσεις αἱ τοιαῦται πράξεις ὀνομάζονται τὴν ὀρθότητα τῆς ὁδοῦ σημαίνουσαι.

15. Οὐδὲν τούτων τηρητέον ἀνθρώπῳ, ἃ ἀνθρώπῳ, καθὸ ἄνθρωπός ἐστιν, οὐκ ἐπιβάλλει. οὐκ ἔστιν ἀπαιτήματα ἀνθρώπου οὐδὲ ἐπαγγέλλεται αὐτὰ ἡ τοῦ ἀνθρώπου φύσις οὐδὲ τελειότητές εἰσι τῆς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου φύσεως. οὐ τοίνυν οὐδὲ τὸ τέλος ἐν αὐτοῖς ἐστι τῷ ἀνθρώπῳ κείμενον οὐδέ γε τὸ συμπληρωτικὸν τοῦ τέλους, τὸ ἀγαθόν. ἔτι, εἴ τι τούτων ἦν ἐπιβάλλον τῷ ἀνθρώπῳ, οὐκ ἂν τὸ ὑπερφρονεῖν αὐτῶν καὶ κατεξανίστασθαι ἐπιβάλλον ἦν οὐδὲ ἐπαινετὸς ἦν ὁ ἀπροσδεῆ τούτων ἑαυτὸν παρεχόμενος, οὐδ ἂν ὁ ἐλαττωτικὸς ἑαυτοῦ ἔν τινι τούτων ἀγαθὸς ἦν, εἴπερ ταῦτα ἀγαθὰ ἦν. νῦν δ, ὅσῳπερ πλείω τις ἀφαιρῶν ἑαυτοῦ τούτων ἢ τοιούτων ἑτέρων ἢ καὶ ἀφαιρούμενός τι τούτων ἀνέχεται, τοσῷδε μᾶλλον ἀγαθός ἐστιν.

16. Οἷα ἂν πολλάκις φαντασθῇς, τοιαύτη σοι ἔσται ἡ διάνοια˙ βάπτεται γὰρ ὑπὸ τῶν φαντασιῶν ἡ ψυχή. βάπτε οὖν αὐτὴν τῇ συνεχείᾳ τῶν τοιούτων φαντασιῶν˙ οἷον, ὅτι ὅπου ζῆν ἐστιν, ἐκεῖ καὶ εὖ ζῆν˙ ἐν αὐλῇ δὲ ζῆν ἐστιν˙ ἔστιν ἄρα καὶ εὖ ζῆν ἐν αὐλῇ. καὶ πάλιν, ὅτι οὗπερ ἕνεκεν ἕκαστον κατεσκεύασται, ‹πρὸς τοῦτο κατεσκεύασται˙› πρὸς ὃ δὲ κατεσκεύασται, πρὸς τοῦτο φέρεται˙ πρὸς ὃ φέρεται δέ, ἐν τούτῳ τὸ τέλος αὐτοῦ˙ ὅπου δὲ τὸ τέλος, ἐκεῖ καὶ τὸ συμφέρον καὶ τὸ ἀγαθὸν ἑκάστου˙ τὸ ἄρα ἀγαθὸν τοῦ λογικοῦ ζῴου κοινωνία. ὅτι γὰρ πρὸς κοινωνίαν γεγόναμεν, πάλαι δέδεικται˙ ἢ οὐκ ἦν ἐναργὲς ὅτι τὰ χείρω τῶν κρειττόνων ἕνεκεν, τὰ δὲ κρείττω ἀλλήλων; κρείττω δὲ τῶν μὲν ἀψύχων τὰ ἔμψυχα, τῶν δὲ ἐμψύχων τὰ λογικά.

17. Τὸ τὰ ἀδύνατα διώκειν μανικόν˙ ἀδύνατον δὲ τὸ τοὺς φαύλους μὴ τοιαῦτά τινα ποιεῖν.

18. Οὐδὲν οὐδενὶ συμβαίνει ὃ οὐχὶ ἐκεῖνο πέφυκε φέρειν. ἄλλῳ τὰ αὐτὰ συμβαίνει καὶ ἤτοι ἀγνοῶν ὅτι συμβέβηκεν, ἢ ἐπιδεικνύμενος μεγαλοφροσύνην, εὐσταθεῖ καὶ ἀκάκωτος μένει. ‹οὐ› δεινὸν οὖν ἄγνοιαν καὶ ἀρέσκειαν ἰσχυροτέρας εἶναι φρονήσεως..;

19. Τὰ πράγματα αὐτὰ οὐδ ὁπωστιοῦν ψυχῆς ἅπτεται οὐδὲ ἔχει εἴσοδον πρὸς ψυχὴν οὐδὲ τρέψαι οὐδὲ κινῆσαι ψυχὴν δύναται, τρέπει δὲ καὶ κινεῖ αὐτὴ ἑαυτὴν μόνη καὶ οἵων ἂν κριμάτων καταξιώσῃ ἑαυτήν, τοιαῦτα ἑαυτῇ ποιεῖ τὰ προσυφεστῶτα.

20. Καθ ἕτερον μὲν λόγον ἡμῖν ἐστιν οἰκειότατον ἄνθρωπος, καθ ὅσον εὖ ποιητέον αὐτοὺς καὶ ἀνεκτέον˙ καθ ὅσον δὲ ἐνίστανταί τινες εἰς τὰ οἰκεῖα ἔργα, ἕν τι τῶν ἀδιαφόρων μοι γίνεται ὁ ἄνθρωπος οὐχ ἧσσον ἢ ἥλιος ἢ ἄνεμος ἢ θηρίον. ὑπὸ τούτων δὲ ἐνέργεια μέν τις ἐμποδισθείη ἄν, ὁρμῆς δὲ καὶ διαθέσεως οὐ γίνεται ἐμπόδια διὰ τὴν ὑπεξαίρεσιν καὶ τὴν περιτροπήν. περιτρέπει γὰρ καὶ μεθίστησι πᾶν τὸ τῆς ἐνεργείας κώλυμα ἡ διάνοια εἰς τὸ προηγούμενον καὶ πρὸ ἔργου γίνεται τὸ τοῦ ἔργου τούτου ἐφεκτικὸν καὶ πρὸ ὁδοῦ τὸ τῆς ὁδοῦ ταύτης ἐνστατικόν.

21. Τῶν ἐν τῷ κόσμῳ τὸ κράτιστον τίμα˙ ἔστι δὲ τοῦτο τὸ πᾶσι χρώμενον καὶ πάντα διέπον. ὁμοίως δὲ καὶ τῶν ἐν σοὶ τὸ κράτιστον τίμα˙ ἔστι δὲ τοῦτο τὸ ἐκείνῳ ὁμογενές. καὶ γὰρ ἐπὶ σοῦ τὸ τοῖς ἄλλοις χρώμενον τοῦτό ἐστι, καὶ ὁ σὸς βίος ὑπὸ τούτου διοικεῖται.

22. Ὂ τῇ πόλει οὐκ ἔστι βλαβερόν, οὐδὲ τὸν πολίτην βλάπτει. ἐπὶ πάσης τῆς τοῦ βεβλάφθαι φαντασίας τοῦτον ἔπαγε τὸν κανόνα˙ εἰ ἡ πόλις ὑπὸ τούτου μὴ βλάπτεται, οὐδὲ ἐγὼ βέβλαμμαι˙ εἰ δὲ ἡ πόλις βλάπτεται, οὐκ ὀργιστέον, ‹ἀλλὰ δεικτέον› τῷ βλάπτοντι τὴν πόλιν τί τὸ παρορώμενον.

23. Πολλάκις ἐνθυμοῦ τὸ τάχος τῆς παραφορᾶς καὶ ὑπεξαγωγῆςτῶν ὄντων τε καὶ γινομένων. ἥ τε γὰρ οὐσία οἷον ποταμὸς ἐνδιηνεκεῖ ῥύσει καὶ αἱ ἐνέργειαι ἐν συνεχέσι μεταβολαῖς καὶ τὰ αἴτια ἐν μυρίαις τροπαῖς καὶ σχεδὸν οὐδὲν ἑστὼς καὶ τὸ πάρεγγυς˙ τὸ δὲ ἄπειρον τοῦ τε παρῳχηκότος καὶ μέλλοντος ἀχανές, ᾧ πάντα ἐναφανίζεται. πῶς οὖν οὐ μωρὸς ὁ ἐν τούτοις φυσώμενος ἢ σπώμενος ἢ σχετλιάζων ὡς ἔν τινι χρονίῳ καὶ ἐπὶ μακρὸν ἐνοχλήσαντι;

24. Μέμνησο τῆς συμπάσης οὐσίας, ἧς ὀλίγιστον μετέχεις, καὶ τοῦ σύμπαντος αἰῶνος, οὗ βραχὺ καὶ ἀκαριαῖόν σοι διάστημα ἀφώρισται, καὶ τῆς εἱμαρμένης, ἧς πόστον εἶ μέρος;

25. Ἄλλος ἁμαρτάνει. τί εἰς ἐμέ; ὄψεται˙ ἰδίαν ἔχει διάθεσιν, ἰδίαν ἐνέργειαν. ἐγὼ νῦν ἔχω, ὅ με θέλει νῦν ἔχειν ἡ κοινὴ φύσις, καὶ πράσσω, ὅ με νῦν πράσσειν θέλει ἡ ἐμὴ φύσις.

26. Τὸ ἡγεμονικὸν καὶ κυριεῦον τῆς ψυχῆς σου μέρος ἄτρεπτον ἔστω ὑπὸ τῆς ἐν τῇ σαρκὶ λείας ἢ τραχείας κινήσεως καὶ μὴ συγκιρνάσθω, ἀλλὰ περιγραφέτω αὑτὸ καὶ περιοριζέτω τὰς πείσεις ἐκείνας ἐν τοῖς μορίοις. ὅταν δὲ ἀναδιδῶνται κατὰ τὴν ἑτέραν συμπάθειαν εἰς τὴν διάνοιαν ὡς ἐν σώματι ἡνωμένῳ, τότε πρὸς μὲν τὴν αἴσθησιν φυσικὴν οὖσαν οὐ πειρατέον ἀντιβαίνειν, τὴν δὲ ὑπόληψιν τὴν ὡς περὶ ἀγαθοῦ ἢ κακοῦ μὴ προστιθέτω τὸ ἡγεμονικὸν ἐξ ἑαυτοῦ.

27. “Συζῆν θεοῖς.” συζῇ δὲ θεοῖς ὁ συνεχῶς δεικνὺς αὐτοῖς τὴν ἑαυτοῦ ψυχὴν ἀρεσκομένην μὲν τοῖς ἀπονεμομένοις, ποιοῦσαν δὲ ὅσα βούλεται ὁ δαίμων, ὃν ἑκάστῳ προστάτην καὶ ἡγεμόνα ὁ Ζεὺς ἔδωκεν, ἀπόσπασμα ἑαυτοῦ. οὗτος δέ ἐστιν ὁ ἑκάστου νοῦς καὶ λόγος.

28. Τῷ γράσωνι μήτι ὀργίζῃ, μήτι τῷ ὀζοστόμῳ ὀργίζῃ; τί σοι ποιήσει; τοιοῦτον στόμα ἔχει, τοιαύτας μάλας ἔχει, ἀνάγκη τοιαύτην ἀποφορὰν ἀπὸ τοιούτων γίνεσθαι. “ἀλλ ὁ ἄνθρωπος λόγον ἔχει,” φησί, “καὶ δύναται συννοεῖν ἐφιστάνων τί πλημμελεῖ.” εὖ σοι γένοιτο˙ τοιγαροῦν καὶ σὺ λόγον ἔχεις, κίνησον λογικῇ διαθέσει λογικὴν διάθεσιν, δεῖξον, ὑπόμνησον˙ εἰ γὰρ ἐπαΐει, θεραπεύσεις καὶ οὐ χρεία ὀργῆς. Οὔτε τραγῳδὸς οὔτε πόρνη.

29. Ὡς ἐξελθὼν ζῆν διανοῇ, οὕτως ἐνταῦθα ζῆν ἔξεστιν˙ ἐὰν δὲ μὴ ἐπιτρέπωσι, τότε καὶ τοῦ ζῆν ἔξιθι, οὕτως μέντοι ὡς μηδὲν κακὸν πάσχων. καπνὸς καὶ ἀπέρχομαι˙ τί αὐτὸ πρᾶγμα δοκεῖς; μέχρι δέ με τοιοῦτον οὐδὲν ἐξάγει, μένω ἐλεύθερος καὶ οὐδείς με κωλύσει ποιεῖν ἃ θέλω˙ θέλω δὲ ‹ἃ› κατὰ φύσιν τοῦ λογικοῦ καὶ κοινωνικοῦ ζῴου.

30. Ὁ τοῦ ὅλου νοῦς κοινωνικός. πεποίηκε γοῦν τὰ χείρω τῶν κρειττόνων ἕνεκεν καὶ τὰ κρείττω ἀλλήλοις συνήρμοσεν. ὁρᾷς πῶς ὑπέταξε, συνέταξε, καὶ τὸ κατ ἀξίαν ἀπένειμεν ἑκάστοις καὶ τὰ κρατιστεύοντα εἰς ὁμόνοιαν ἀλλήλων συνήγαγεν.

31. Πῶς προσενήνεξαι μέχρι νῦν θεοῖς, γονεῦσιν, ἀδελφῷ, γυναικί, τέκνοις, διδασκάλοις, τροφεῦσι, φίλοις, οἰκείοις, οἰκέταις; εἰ πρὸς πάντας σοι μέχρι νῦν ἐστι τό˙ μήτε τινὰ ῥέξαι ἐξαίσιον μήτε εἰπεῖν. ἀναμιμνῄσκου δὲ καὶ δἰ οἵων διελήλυθας καὶ οἷα ἤρκεσας ὑπομεῖναι καὶ ὅτι πλήρης ἤδη σοι ἡ ἱστορία τοῦ βίου καὶ τελεία ἡ λειτουργία καὶ πόσα ὦπται καλὰ καὶ πόσων μὲν ἡδονῶν καὶ πόνων ὑπερεῖδες, πόσα δὲ ἔνδοξα παρεῖδες, εἰς ὅσους δὲ ἀγνώμονας εὐγνώμων ἐγένου.

32. Διὰ τί συγχέουσιν ἄτεχνοι καὶ ἀμαθεῖς ψυχαὶ ἔντεχνον καὶ ἐπιστήμονα; τίς οὖν ψυχὴ ἔντεχνος καὶ ἐπιστήμων; ἡ εἰδυῖα ἀρχὴν καὶ τέλος καὶ τὸν δἰ ὅλης τῆς οὐσίας διήκοντα λόγον καὶ διὰ παντὸς τοῦ αἰῶνος κατὰ περιόδους τεταγμένας οἰκονομοῦντα τὸ πᾶν.

33. Ὅσον οὐδέπω σποδὸς ἢ σκελετὸς καὶ ἤτοι ὄνομα ἢ οὐδὲ ὄνομα, τὸ δὲ ὄνομα ψόφος καὶ ἀπήχημα. τὰ δὲ ἐν τῷ βίῳ πολυτίμητα κενὰ καὶ σαπρὰ καὶ μικρά˙ καὶ κυνίδια διαδακνόμενα καὶ παιδία φιλόνεικα, γελῶντα εἶτα εὐθὺς κλαίοντα. Πίστις δὲ καὶ Αἰδὼς καὶ Δίκη καὶ Ἀλήθεια πρὸς Ὄλυμπον ἀπὸ χθονὸς εὐρυοδείης. τί οὖν ἔτι τὸ ἐνταῦθα κατέχον, εἴ γε τὰ μὲν αἰσθητὰ εὐμετάβλητα καὶ οὐχ ἑστῶτα, τὰ δὲ αἰσθητήρια ἀμυδρὰ καὶ εὐπαρατύπωτα, αὐτὸ δὲ τὸ ψυχάριον ἀναθυμίασις ἀφ αἵματος, τὸ δὲ εὐδοκιμεῖν παρὰ τοιούτοις κενόν; τί οὖν; περιμένειν ἵλεων τὴν εἴτε σβέσιν εἴτε μετάστασιν˙ ἕως δὲ ἐκείνης ὁ καιρὸς ἐφίσταται, τί ἀρκεῖ; τί δὲ ἄλλο ἢ θεοὺς μὲν σέβειν καὶ εὐφημεῖν, ἀνθρώπους δὲ εὖ ποιεῖν καὶ ἀνέχεσθαι αὐτῶν καὶ ἀπέχεσθαι˙ ὅσα δὲ ἐντὸς ὅρων τοῦ κρεᾳδίου καὶ τοῦ πνευματίου, ταῦτα μεμνῆσθαι μήτε σὰ ὄντα μήτε ἐπὶ σοί;

34. Δύνασαι ἀεὶ εὐροεῖν, εἴ γε καὶ εὐοδεῖν, εἴ γε καὶ ὁδῷ ὑπολαμβάνειν καὶ πράσσειν. δύο ταῦτα κοινὰ τῇ τε τοῦ θεοῦ καὶ τῇ τοῦ ἀνθρώπου καὶ παντὸς λογικοῦ ζῴου ψυχῇ˙ τὸ μὴ ἐμποδίζεσθαι ὑπ ἄλλου καὶ τὸ ἐν τῇ δικαϊκῇ διαθέσει καὶ πράξει ἔχειν τὸ ἀγαθὸν καὶ ἐνταῦθα τὴν ὄρεξιν ἀπολήγειν.

35. Εἰ μήτε κακία ἐστὶ τοῦτο ἐμὴ μήτε ἐνέργεια κατὰ κακίαν ἐμὴν μήτε τὸ κοινὸν βλάπτεται, τί ὑπὲρ αὐτοῦ διαφέρομαι; τίς δὲ βλάβη τοῦ κοινοῦ;

36. Μὴ ὁλοσχερῶς τῇ φαντασίᾳ συναρπάζεσθαι, ἀλλὰ βοηθεῖν μὲν κατὰ δύναμιν καὶ κατ ἀξίαν, κἂν εἰς τὰ μέσα ἐλαττῶνται, μὴ μέντοι βλάβην αὐτὸ φαντάζεσθαι˙ κακὸν γὰρ ἔθος. ἀλλ ὡςὁ γέρων ἀπελθὼν τὸν τοῦ θρεπτοῦ ῥόμβον ἀπῄτει, μεμνημένος ὅτι ῥόμβος, οὕτως οὖν καὶ ‹σὺ› ὧδε. ἐπεί τοι γίνῃ κλαίων ἐπὶ τῶν ἐμβόλων˙ ἄνθρωπε, ἐπελάθου τί ταῦτα ἦν; “ναί˙ ἀλλὰ τούτοις περισπούδαστα.” διὰ τοῦτ οὖν καὶ σὺ μωρὸς γένῃ;

37. “Ἐγενόμην ποτέ, ὁπουδήποτε καταληφθείς, εὔμοιρος ἄνθρωπος.” τὸ δὲ εὔμοιρος, ἀγαθὴν μοῖραν σεαυτῷ ἀπονείμας˙ ἀγαθὴ δὲ μοῖρα˙ ἀγαθαὶ τροπαὶ ψυχῆς, ἀγαθαὶ ὁρμαί, ἀγαθαὶ πράξεις.

### Book VI
1. Ἡ τῶν ὅλων οὐσία εὐπειθὴς καὶ εὐτρεπής, ὁ δὲ ταύτην διοικῶν λόγος οὐδεμίαν ἐν ἑαυτῷ αἰτίαν ἔχει τοῦ κακοποιεῖν, κακίαν γὰρ οὐκ ἔχει˙ οὐδέ τι κακῶς ποιεῖ οὐδὲ βλάπτεταί τι ὑπ ἐκείνου. πάντα δὲ κατ ἐκεῖνον γίνεται καὶ περαίνεται.

2. Μὴ διαφέρου πότερον ῥιγῶν ἢ θαλπόμενος τὸ πρέπον ποιεῖς, καὶ πότερον νυστάζων ἢ ἱκανῶς ὕπνου ἔχων, καὶ πότερον κακῶς ἀκούων ἢ εὐφημούμενος, καὶ πότερον ἀποθνῄσκων ἢ πράττων τι ἀλλοῖον˙ μία γὰρ τῶν βιωτικῶν πράξεων καὶ αὕτη ἐστί, καθ ἣν ἀποθνῄσκομεν˙ ἀρκεῖ οὖν καὶ ἐπὶ ταύτης τὸ παρὸν εὖ θέσθαι.

3. Ἔσω βλέπε˙ μηδενὸς πράγματος μήτε ἡ ἰδία ποιότης μήτε ἡ ἀξία παρατρεχέτω σε.

4. Πάντα τὰ ὑποκείμενα τάχιστα μεταβαλεῖ καὶ ἤτοι ἐκθυμιαθήσεται, εἴπερ ἥνωται ἡ οὐσία, ἢ σκεδασθήσεται.

5. Ὁ διοικῶν λόγος οἶδε πῶς διακείμενος καὶ τί ποιεῖ καὶ ἐπὶ τίνος ὕλης.

6. Ἄριστος τρόπος τοῦ ἀμύνεσθαι τὸ μὴ ἐξομοιοῦσθαι.

7. Ἑνὶ τέρπου καὶ προσαναπαύου, τῷ ἀπὸ πράξεως κοινωνικῆς μεταβαίνειν ἐπὶ πρᾶξιν κοινωνικὴν σὺν μνήμῃ θεοῦ.

8. Τὸ ἡγεμονικόν ἐστι τὸ ἑαυτὸ ἐγεῖρον καὶ τρέπον καὶ ποιοῦν μὲν ἑαυτὸ οἷον ἂν καὶ θέλῃ, ποιοῦν δὲ ἑαυτῷ φαίνεσθαι πᾶν τὸ συμβαῖνον οἷον αὐτὸ θέλει.

9. Κατὰ τὴν τῶν ὅλων φύσιν ἕκαστα περαίνεται˙ οὐ γὰρ κατ ἄλλην γέ τινα φύσιν ἤτοι ἔξωθεν περιέχουσαν ἢ ἐμπεριεχομένην ἔνδον ἢ ἔξω ἀπηρτημένην.

10. Ἤτοι κυκεὼν καὶ ἀντεμπλοκὴ καὶ σκεδασμὸς ἢ ἕνωσις καὶ τάξις καὶ πρόνοια. εἰ μὲν οὖν τὰ πρότερα, τί καὶ ἐπιθυμῶ εἰκαίῳ συγκρίματι καὶ φυρμῷ τοιούτῳ ἐνδιατρίβειν; τί δέ μοι καὶ μέλει ἄλλου τινὸς ἢ τοῦ ὅπως ποτὲ “αἶα γίνεσθα”; τί δὲ καὶ ταράσσομαι; ἥξει γὰρ ἐπ ἐμὲ ὁ σκεδασμός, ὅ τι ἂν ποιῶ. εἰ δὲ θάτερά ἐστι, σέβω καὶ εὐσταθῶ καὶ θαῤῥῶ τῷ διοικοῦντι.

11. Ὅταν ἀναγκασθῇς ὑπὸ τῶν περιεστηκότων οἱονεὶ διαταραχθῆναι, ταχέως ἐπάνιθι εἰς ἑαυτὸν καὶ μὴ ὑπὲρ τὰ ἀναγκαῖα ἐξίστασο τοῦ ῥυθμοῦ˙ ἔσῃ γὰρ ἐγκρατέστερος τῆς ἁρμονίας τῷ συνεχῶς εἰς αὐτὴν ἐπανέρχεσθαι.

12. Εἰ μητρυιάν τε ἅμα εἶχες καὶ μητέρα, ἐκείνην τ ἂν ἐθεράπευες καὶ ὅμως ἡ ἐπάνοδός σοι πρὸς τὴν μητέρα συνεχὴς ἐγίνετο. τοῦτό σοι νῦν ἐστιν ἡ αὐλὴ καὶ ἡ φιλοσοφία˙ ὧδε πολλάκις ἐπάνιθι καὶ προσαναπαύου ταύτῃ, δἰ ἣν καὶ τὰ ἐκεῖ σοι ἀνεκτὰ φαίνεται καὶ σὺ ἐν αὐτοῖς ἀνεκτός.

13. Οἷον δὴ τὸ φαντασίαν λαμβάνειν ἐπὶ τῶν ὄψων καὶ τῶν τοιούτων ἐδωδίμων, ὅτι νεκρὸς οǷτος ἰχθύος, οǷτος δὲ νεκρὸς ὄρνιθος ἢ χοίρου˙ καὶ πάλιν, ὅτι ὁ Φάλερνος χυλάριόν ἐστι σταφυλίου καὶ ἡ περιπόρφυρος τριχία προβατίου αἱματίῳ κόγχης δεδευμένα˙ καὶ ἐπὶ τῶν κατὰ τὴν συνουσίαν ἐντερίου παράτριψις καὶ μετά τινος σπασμοῦ μυξαρίου ἔκκρισις˙ οἷαι δὴ αǷταί εἰσιν αἱ φαντασίαι καθικνούμεναι αὐτῶν τῶν πραγμάτων καὶ διεξιοῦσαι δἰ αὐτῶν, ὥστε ὁρᾶν οἷά τινά ποτ ἐστιν. οὕτως δεῖ παῤ ὅλον τὸν βίον ποιεῖν καὶ ὅπου λίαν ἀξιόπιστα τὰ πράγματα φαντάζεται, ἀπογυμνοῦν αὐτὰ καὶ τὴν εὐτέλειαν αὐτῶν καθορᾶν καὶ τὴν ἱστορίαν ἐφ ᾗ σεμνύνεται περιαιρεῖν. δεινὸς γὰρ ὁ τῦφος παραλογιστὴς καὶ ὅτε δοκεῖς μάλιστα περὶ τὰ σπουδαῖα καταγίνεσθαι, τότε μάλιστα καταγοητεύῃ. ὅρα γοῦν ὁ Κράτης τί περὶ αὐτοῦ τοῦ Ξενοκράτους λέγει.

14. Τὰ πλεῖστα, ὧν ἡ πληθὺς θαυμάζει, εἰς γενικώτατα ἀνάγεται τὰ ὑπὸ ἕξεως ἢ φύσεως συνεχόμενα, λίθους, ξύλα, συκᾶς, ἀμπέλους, ἐλαίας˙ τὰ δὲ ὑπὸ τῶν ὀλίγῳ μετριωτέρων εἰς τὰ ὑπὸ ψυχῆς, οἷον ποίμνας, ἀγέλας ἢ κατὰ ψιλὸν τὸ πλῆθος ἀνδραπόδων κεκτῆσθαι. τὰ δὲ ὑπὸ τῶν ἔτι χαριεστέρων εἰς τὰ ὑπὸ λογικῆς ψυχῆς, οὐ μέντοι καθὸ λογική, ἀλλὰ καθὸ τεχνικὴ ἢ ἄλλως πως ἐντρεχής. ὁ δὲ ψυχὴν λογικὴν καὶ πολιτικὴν τιμῶν οὐδὲν ἔτι τῶν ἄλλων ἐπιστρέφεται, πρὸ ἁπάντων δὲ τὴν ἑαυτοῦ ψυχὴν λογικῶς καὶ κοινωνικῶς ἔχουσαν καὶ κινουμένην διασῴζει καὶ τῷ ὁμογενεῖ εἰς τοῦτο συνεργεῖ.

15. Τὰ μὲν σπεύδει γίνεσθαι, τὰ δὲ σπεύδει γεγονέναι, καὶ τοῦ γινομένου δὲ ἤδη τι ἀπέσβη˙ ῥύσεις καὶ ἀλλοιώσεις ἀνανεοῦσι τὸν κόσμον διηνεκῶς, ὥσπερ τὸν ἄπειρον αἰῶνα ἡ τοῦ χρόνου ἀδιάλειπτος φορὰ νέον ἀεὶ παρέχεται. ἐν δὴ τούτῳ τῷ ποταμῷ, ἐφ οǷ στῆναι οὐκ ἔξεστιν, τί ἄν τις τούτων τῶν παραθεόντων ἐκτιμήσειεν; ὥσπερ εἴ τίς τι τῶν παραπετομένων στρουθαρίων φιλεῖν ἄρχοιτο, τὸ δ ἤδη ἐξ ὀφθαλμῶν ἀπελήλυθεν. τοιοῦτον δή τι καὶ αὐτὴ ἡ ζωὴ ἑκάστου, οἷον ἡ ἀφ αἵματος ἀναθυμίασις καὶ ἡ ἐκ τοῦ ἀέρος ἀνάπνευσις˙ ὁποῖον γάρ ἐστι τὸ ἅπαξ ἑλκύσαι τὸν ἀέρα καὶ ἀποδοῦναι, ὅπερ παῤ ἕκαστον ποιοῦμεν, τοιοῦτόν ἐστι καὶ τὸ τὴν πᾶσαν ἀναπνευστικὴν δύναμιν, ἣν χθὲς καὶ πρῴ ην ἀποτεχθεὶς ἐκτήσω, ἀποδοῦναι ἐκεῖ ὅθεν τὸ πρῶτον ἔσπασας.

16. Οὔτε τὸ διαπνεῖσθαι ὡς τὰ φυτὰ τίμιον οὔτε τὸ ἀναπνεῖν ὡς τὰ βοσκήματα καὶ τὰ θηρία οὔτε τὸ τυποῦσθαι κατὰ φαντασίαν οὔτε τὸ νευροσπαστεῖσθαι καθ ὁρμὴν οὔτε τὸ συναγελάζεσθαι οὔτε τὸ τρέφεσθαι˙ τοῦτο γὰρ ὅμοιον τῷ ἀποκρίνειν τὰ περιττώματα τῆς τροφῆς. τί οὖν τίμιον; τὸ κροτεῖσθαι; οὐχί. οὐκοῦν οὐδὲ τὸ ὑπὸ γλωσσῶν κροτεῖσθαι˙ αἱ γὰρ παρὰ τῶν πολλῶν εὐφημίαι κρότος γλωσσῶν. ἀφῆκας οὖν καὶ τὸ δοξάριον˙ τί καταλείπεται τίμιον; δοκῶ μὲν τὸ κατὰ τὴν ἰδίαν κατασκευὴν κινεῖσθαι καὶ ἴσχεσθαι, ἐφ ὃ καὶ αἱ ἐπιμέλειαι ἄγουσι καὶ αἱ τέχναι˙ (ἥ τε γὰρ τέχνη πᾶσα τούτου στοχάζεται, ἵνα τὸ κατασκευασθὲν ἐπιτηδείως ἔχῃ πρὸς τὸ ἔργον πρὸς ὃ κατεσκεύασται˙ ὅ τε φυτουργὸς ‹καὶ› ὁ ἐπιμελούμενος τῆς ἀμπέλου, καὶ ὁ πωλοδάμνης καὶ ὁ τοῦ κυνὸς ἐπιμελούμενος τοῦτο ζητεῖ.) αἱ δὲ παιδαγωγίαι, αἱ δὲ διδασκαλίαι ἐπὶ τί σπεύδουσιν; ὧδε οὖν τὸ τίμιον˙ καὶ τοῦτο μὲν ἂν εὖ ἔχῃ, οὐδὲν τῶν ἄλλων περιποιήσεις ἑαυτῷ. οὐ παύσῃ καὶ ἄλλα πολλὰ τιμῶν; οὔτ οὖν ἐλεύθερος ἔσῃ οὔτε αὐτάρκης οὔτε ἀπαθής˙ ἀνάγκη γὰρ φθονεῖν, ζηλοτυπεῖν, ὑφορᾶσθαι τοὺς ἀφελέσθαι ἐκεῖνα δυναμένους, ἐπιβουλεύειν τοῖς ἔχουσι τὸ τιμώμενον ὑπὸ σοῦ˙ ὅλως πεφύρθαι ἀνάγκη τὸν ἐκείνων τινὸς ἐνδεῆ, προσέτι δὲ πολλὰ καὶ τοῖς θεοῖς μέμφεσθαι. ἡ δὲ τῆς ἰδίας διανοίας αἰδὼς καὶ τιμὴ σεαυτῷ τε ἀρεστόν σε ποιήσει καὶ τοῖς κοινωνοῖς εὐάρμοστον καὶ τοῖς θεοῖς σύμφωνον, τουτέστιν ἐπαινοῦντα ὅσα ἐκεῖνοι διανέμουσι καὶ διατετάχασιν.

17. Ἄνω, κάτω, κύκλῳ ‹αἱ› φοραὶ τῶν στοιχείων, ἡ δὲ τῆς ἀρετῆς κίνησις ἐν οὐδεμιᾷ τούτων, ἀλλὰ θειότερόν τι καὶ ὁδῷ δυσεπινοήτῳ προιοῦσα εὐοδεῖ.

18. Οἷόν ἐστιν ὃ ποιοῦσι. τοὺς μὲν ἐπὶ τοῦ αὐτοῦ χρόνου καὶ μεθ ἑαυτῶν ζῶντας ἀνθρώπους εὐφημεῖν οὐ θέλουσιν, αὐτοὶ δὲ ὑπὸ τῶν μεταγενεστέρων εὐφημηθῆναι, οὓς οὔτε εἶδόν ποτε οὔτε ὄψονται, περὶ πολλοῦ ποιοῦνται. τοῦτο δὲ ἐγγύς ἐστι τῷ λυπηθῆναι ἄν, ὅτι οὐχὶ καὶ οἱ προγενέστεροι περὶ σοῦ λόγους εὐφήμους ἐποιοῦντο.

19. Μή, εἴ τι αὐτῷ σοὶ δυσκαταπόνητον, τοῦτο ἀνθρώπῳ ἀδύνατον ὑπολαμβάνειν, ἀλλ εἴ τι ἀνθρώπῳ δυνατὸν καὶ οἰκεῖον, τοῦτο καὶ σεαυτῷ ἐφικτὸν νομίζειν.

20. Ἐν τοῖς γυμνασίοις καὶ ὄνυξι κατέδρυψέ τις καὶ τῇ κεφαλῇ ἐῤῥαγεὶς πληγὴν ἐποίησεν, ἀλλ οὔτε ἐπισημαινόμεθα οὔτε προσκόπτομεν οὔτε ὑφορώμεθα ὕστερον ὡς ἐπίβουλον˙ καίτοι φυλαττόμεθα, οὐ μέντοι ὡς ἐχθρὸν οὐδὲ μεθ ὑποψίας, ἀλλ ἐκκλίσεως εὐμενοῦς. τοιοῦτόν τι γινέσθω καὶ ἐν τοῖς λοιποῖς μέρεσι τοῦ βίου˙ πολλὰ παρενθυμώμεθα τῶν οἷον προσγυμναζομένων. ἔξεστι γάρ, ὡς ἔφην, ἐκκλίνειν καὶ μήτε ὑποπτεύειν μήτε ἀπέχθεσθαι.

21. Εἴ τίς με ἐλέγξαι καὶ παραστῆσαί μοι, ὅτι οὐκ ὀρθῶς ὑπολαμβάνω ἢ πράσσω, δύναται, χαίρων μεταθήσομαι˙ ζητῶ γὰρ τὴν ἀλήθειαν, ὑφ ἧς οὐδεὶς πώποτε ἐβλάβη, βλάπτεται δὲ ὁ ἐπιμένων ἐπὶ τῆς ἑαυτοῦ ἀπάτης καὶ ἀγνοίας.

22. Ἐγὼ τὸ ἐμαυτοῦ καθῆκον ποιῶ, τὰ ἄλλα με οὐ περισπᾷ˙ ἤτοι γὰρ ἄψυχα ἢ ἄλογα ἢ πεπλανημένα καὶ τὴν ὁδὸν ἀγνοοῦντα.

23. Τοῖς μὲν ἀλόγοις ζῴοις καὶ καθόλου πράγμασι καὶ ὑποκειμένοις, ὡς λόγον ἔχων λόγον μὴ ἔχουσι, χρῶ μεγαλοφρόνως καὶ ἐλευθέρως˙ τοῖς δὲ ἀνθρώποις, ὡς λόγον ἔχουσι, χρῶ κοινωνικῶς˙ ἐφ ἅπασι δὲ θεοὺς ἐπικαλοῦ. καὶ μὴ διαφέρου πρὸς τὸ πόσῳ χρόνῳ ταῦτα πράξεις˙ ἀρκοῦσι γὰρ καὶ τρεῖς ὧραι τοιαῦται.

24. Ἀλέξανδρος ὁ Μακεδὼν καὶ ὁ ὀρεωκόμος αὐτοῦ ἀποθανόντες εἰς ταὐτὸ κατέστησαν˙ ἤτοι γὰρ ‹ἀν›ελήφθησαν εἰς τοὺς αὐτοὺς τοῦ κόσμου σπερματικοὺς λόγους ἢ διεσκεδάσθησαν ὁμοίως εἰς τὰς ἀτόμους.

25. Ἐνθυμήθητι πόσα κατὰ τὸν αὐτὸν ἀκαριαῖον χρόνον ἐν ἑκάστῳ ἡμῶν ἅμα γίνεται σωματικὰ ὁμοῦ καὶ ψυχικά, καὶ οὕτως οὐ θαυμάσεις εἰ πολὺ πλείω, μᾶλλον δὲ πάντα τὰ γινόμενα ἐν τῷ ἑνί τε καὶ σύμπαντι, ὃ δὴ κόσμον ὀνομάζομεν, ἅμα ἐνυφίσταται.

26. Ἐάν τίς σοι προβάλῃ πῶς γράφεται τὸ Ἀντωνίνου ὄνομα, μήτι κατεντεινόμενος προοίσῃ ἕκαστον τῶν στοιχείων; τί οὖν ἐὰν ὀργίζωνται, μήτι ἀντοργιῇ; μήτι οὐκ ἐξαριθμήσῃ πρᾴως προϊὼν ἕκαστον τῶν γραμμάτων; οὕτως οὖν καὶ ἐνθάδε μέμνησο ὅτι πᾶν καθῆκον ἐξ ἀριθμῶν τινῶν συμπληροῦται. τούτους δεῖ τηροῦντα καὶ μὴ θορυβούμενον μηδὲ τοῖς δυσχεραίνουσιν ἀντιδυσχεραίνοντα περαίνειν ὁδῷ τὸ προκείμενον.

27. Πῶς ὠμόν ἐστι μὴ ἐπιτρέπειν τοῖς ἀνθρώποις ὁρμᾶν ἐπὶ τὰ φαινόμενα αὐτοῖς οἰκεῖα καὶ συμφέροντα. καίτοι τρόπον τινὰ οὐ συγχωρεῖς αὐτοῖς τοῦτο ποιεῖν, ὅταν ἀγανακτῇς, ὅτι ἁμαρτάνουσι˙ φέρονται γὰρ πάντως ὡς ἐπὶ οἰκεῖα καὶ συμφέροντα αὐτοῖς. “ἀλλ οὐκ ἔχει οὕτως.” οὐκοῦν δίδασκε καὶ δείκνυε μὴ ἀγανακτῶν.

28. Θάνατος ἀνάπαυλα αἰσθητικῆς ἀντιτυπίας καὶ ὁρμητικῆς νευροσπαστίας καὶ διανοητικῆς διεξόδου καὶ τῆς πρὸς τὴν σάρκα λειτουργίας.

29. Αἰσχρόν ἐστιν, ἐν ᾧ βίῳ τὸ σῶμά σοι μὴ ἀπαυδᾷ, ἐν τούτῳ τὴν ψυχὴν προαπαυδᾶν.

30. Ὅρα μὴ ἀποκαισαρωθῇς, μὴ βαφῇς˙ γίνεται γάρ. τήρησον οὖν σεαυτὸν ἁπλοῦν, ἀγαθόν, ἀκέραιον, σεμνόν, ἄκομψον, τοῦ δικαίου φίλον, θεοσεβῆ, εὐμενῆ, φιλόστοργον, ἐῤῥωμένον πρὸς τὰ πρέποντα ἔργα. ἀγώνισαι, ἵνα τοιοῦτος συμμείνῃς, οἷόν σε ἠθέλησε ποιῆσαι φιλοσοφία. αἰδοῦ θεούς, σῷζε ἀνθρώπους. βραχὺς ὁ βίος˙ εἷς καρπὸς τῆς ἐπιγείου ζωῆς, διάθεσις ὁσία καὶ πράξεις κοινωνικαί. πάντα ὡς Ἀντωνίνου μαθητής˙ τὸ ὑπὲρ τῶν κατὰ λόγον πρασσομένων εὔτονον ἐκείνου καὶ τὸ ὁμαλὲς πανταχοῦ καὶ τὸ ὅσιον καὶ τὸ εὔδιον τοῦ προσώπου καὶ τὸ μειλίχιον καὶ τὸ ἀκενόδοξον καὶ τὸ περὶ τὴν κατάληψιν τῶν πραγμάτων φιλότιμον˙ καὶ ὡς ἐκεῖνος οὐκ ἄν τι ὅλως παρῆκε, μὴ πρότερον εὖ μάλα κατιδὼν καὶ σαφῶς νοήσας˙ καὶ ὡς ἔφερεν ἐκεῖνος τοὺς ἀδίκως αὐτῷ μεμφομένους μὴ ἀντιμεμφόμενος˙ καὶ ὡς ἐπ οὐδὲν ἔσπευδεν˙ καὶ ὡς διαβολὰς οὐκ ἐδέχετο˙ καὶ ὡς ἀκριβὴς ἦν ἐξεταστὴς ἠθῶν καὶ πράξεων καὶ οὐκ ὀνειδιστής, οὐ ψοφοδεής, οὐχ ὑπόπτης, οὐ σοφιστής˙ καὶ ὡς ὀλίγοις ἀρκούμενος, οἷον οἰκήσει, στρωμνῇ, ἐσθῆτι, τροφῇ, ὑπηρεσίᾳ˙ καὶ ὡς φιλόπονος καὶ μακρόθυμος˙ καὶ οἷος μέν‹ειν› ἐν τῷ ‹αὐτῷ› μέχρι ἑσπέρας διὰ τὴν λιτὴν δίαιταν μηδὲ τοῦ ἀποκρίνειν τὰ περιττώματα παρὰ τὴν συνήθη ὥραν χρῄζων˙ καὶ τὸ βέβαιον καὶ ὅμοιον ἐν ταῖς φιλίαις αὐτοῦ˙ καὶ τὸ ἀνέχεσθαι ‹τῶν› ἀντιβαινόντων παῤῥησιαστικῶς ταῖς γνώμαις αὐτοῦ καὶ χαίρειν εἴ τίς ‹τι› δεικνύοι κρεῖττον˙ καὶ ὡς θεοσεβὴς χωρὶς δεισιδαιμονίας˙ ἵν οὕτως εὐσυνειδήτῳ σοι ἐπιστῇ ἡ τελευταία ὥρα ὡς ἐκείνῳ.

31. Ἀνάνηφε καὶ ἀνακαλοῦ σεαυτὸν καὶ ἐξυπνισθεὶς πάλιν καὶ ἐννοήσας ὅτι ὄνειροί σοι ἠνώχλουν, πάλιν ἐγρηγορὼς βλέπε ταῦτα, ὡς ἐκεῖνα ἔβλεπες.

32. Ἐκ σωματίου εἰμὶ καὶ ψυχῆς. τῷ μὲν οὖν σωματίῳ πάντα ἀδιάφορα˙ οὐδὲ γὰρ δύναται διαφέρεσθαι. τῇ δὲ διανοίᾳ ἀδιάφορα ὅσα μή ἐστιν αὐτῆς ἐνεργήματα˙ ὅσα δέ γε αὐτῆς ἐστιν ἐνεργήματα, ταῦτα πάντα ἐπ αὐτῇ ἐστιν. καὶ τούτων μέντοι περὶ μόνον τὸ παρὸν πραγματεύεται˙ τὰ γὰρ μέλλοντα καὶ παρῳ χηκότα ἐνεργήματα αὐτῆς καὶ αὐτὰ ἤδη ἀδιάφορα.

33. Οὐκ ἔστιν ὁ πόνος τῇ χειρὶ οὐδὲ τῷ ποδὶ παρὰ φύσιν, μέχρις ἂν ποιῇ ὁ ποῦς τὰ τοῦ ποδὸς καὶ ἡ χεὶρ τὰ τῆς χειρός. οὕτως οὖν οὐδὲ ἀνθρώπῳ ὡς ἀνθρώπῳ παρὰ φύσιν ἐστὶν ὁ πόνος, μέχρις ἂν ποιῇ τὰ τοῦ ἀνθρώπου˙ εἰ δὲ παρὰ φύσιν αὐτῷ οὐκ ἔστιν, οὐδὲ κακόν ἐστιν αὐτῷ.

34. Ἡλίκας ἡδονὰς ἥσθησαν λῃσταί, κίναιδοι, πατραλοῖαι, τύραννοι.

35. Οὐχ ὁρᾷς πῶς οἱ βάναυσοι τεχνῖται ἁρμόζονται μὲν μέχρι τινὸς πρὸς τοὺς ἰδιώτας, οὐδὲν ἧσσον μέντοι ἀντέχονται τοῦ λόγου τῆς τέχνης καὶ τούτου ἀποστῆναι οὐχ ὑπομένουσιν; οὐ δεινὸν εἰ ὁ ἀρχιτέκτων καὶ ὁ ἰατρὸς μᾶλλον αἰδέσονται τὸν τῆς ἰδίας τέχνης λόγον ἢ ὁ ἄνθρωπος τὸν ἑαυτοῦ, ὃς αὐτῷ κοινός ἐστι πρὸς τοὺς θεούς;

36. Ἡ Ἀσία, ἡ Εὐρώπη γωνίαι τοῦ κόσμου˙ πᾶν πέλαγος σταγὼν τοῦ κόσμου˙ Ἄθως βωλάριον τοῦ κόσμου˙ πᾶν τὸ ἐνεστὼς τοῦ χρόνου στιγμὴ τοῦ αἰῶνος. πάντα μικρά, εὔτρεπτα, ἐναφανιζόμενα. Πάντα ἐκεῖθεν ἔρχεται, ἀπ ἐκείνου τοῦ κοινοῦ ἡγεμονικοῦ ὁρμήσαντα ἢ κατ ἐπακολούθησιν. καὶ τὸ χάσμα οὖν τοῦ λέοντος καὶ τὸ δηλητήριον καὶ πᾶσα κακουργία, ὡς ἄκανθα, ὡς βόρβορος, ἐκείνων ἐπιγεννήματα τῶν σεμνῶν καὶ καλῶν. μὴ οὖν αὐτὰ ἀλλότρια τούτου οǷ σέβεις φαντάζου, ἀλλὰ τὴν πάντων πηγὴν ἐπιλογίζου.

37. Ὁ τὰ νῦν ἰδὼν πάντα ἑώρακεν, ὅσα τε ἐξ ἀϊδίου ἐγένετο καὶ ὅσα εἰς τὸ ἄπειρον ἔσται˙ πάντα γὰρ ὁμογενῆ καὶ ὁμοειδῆ.

38. Πολλάκις ἐνθυμοῦ τὴν ἐπισύνδεσιν πάντων τῶν ἐν τῷ κόσμῳ καὶ σχέσιν πρὸς ἄλληλα. τρόπον γάρ τινα πάντα ἀλλήλοις ἐπιπέπλεκται καὶ πάντα κατὰ τοῦτο φίλα ἀλλήλοις ἐστί˙ καὶ γὰρ ἄλλῳ ‹ἄλλο› ἑξῆς ἐστι ταῦτα διὰ τὴν τονικὴν κίνησιν καὶ σύμπνοιαν καὶ τὴν ἕνωσιν τῆς οὐσίας.

39. Οἷς συγκεκλήρωσαι πράγμασι, τούτοις συνάρμοζε σεαυτόν, καὶ οἷς συνείληχας ἀνθρώποις, τούτους φίλει, ἀλλ ἀληθινῶς.

40. Ὄργανον, ἐργαλεῖον, σκεῦος πᾶν εἰς πρὸς ὃ κατεσκεύασται ποιεῖ, εὖ ἔχει˙ καίτοι ἐκεῖ ὁ κατασκευάσας ἐκποδών. ἐπὶ δὲ τῶν ὑπὸ φύσεως συνεχομένων ἔνδον ἐστὶ καὶ παραμένει ἡ κατασκευάσασα δύναμις˙ καθὸ καὶ μᾶλλον αἰδεῖσθαι αὐτὴν δεῖ καὶ νομίζειν, ἐὰν κατὰ τὸ βούλημα ταύτης ἔχῃς καὶ διεξάγῃς, ἔχειν σοι πάντα κατὰ νοῦν. ἔχει δὲ οὕτως καὶ τῷ παντὶ κατὰ νοῦν τὰ ἑαυτοῦ.

41. Ὅ τι ἂν τῶν ἀπροαιρέτων ὑποστήσῃ σαυτῷ ἀγαθὸν ἢ κακόν, ἀνάγκη κατὰ τὴν περίπτωσιν τοῦ τοιούτου κακοῦ ἢ τὴν ἀπότευξιν τοῦ τοιούτου ἀγαθοῦ μέμψασθαί σε θεοῖς καὶ ἀνθρώπους δὲ μισῆσαι τοὺς αἰτίους ὄντας ἢ ὑποπτευομένους ἔσεσθαι τῆς ἀποτεύξεως ἢ τῆς περιπτώσεως˙ καὶ ἀδικοῦμεν δὴ πολλὰ διὰ τὴν πρὸς ταῦτα διαφοράν. ἐὰν δὲ μόνα τὰ ἐφ ἡμῖν ἀγαθὰ καὶ κακὰ κρίνωμεν, οὐδεμία αἰτία καταλείπεται οὔτε θεῷ ἐγκαλέσαι οὔτε πρὸς ἄνθρωπον στῆναι στάσιν πολεμίου.

42. Πάντες εἰς ἓν ἀποτέλεσμα συνεργοῦμεν, οἱ μὲν εἰδότως καὶ παρακολουθητικῶς, οἱ δὲ ἀνεπιστάτως, ὥσπερ καὶ τοὺς καθεύδοντας, οἶμαι, ὁ Ἡράκλειτος ἐργάτας εἶναι λέγει καὶ συνεργοὺς τῶν ἐν τῷ κόσμῳ γινομένων. ἄλλος δὲ κατ ἄλλο συνεργεῖ, ἐκ περιουσίας δὲ καὶ ὁ μεμφόμενος καὶ ὁ ἀντιβαίνειν πειρώμενος καὶ ἀναιρεῖν τὰ γινόμενα˙ καὶ γὰρ τοῦ τοιούτου ἔχρῃζεν ὁ κόσμος. λοιπὸν οὖν σύνες εἰς τίνας ἑαυτὸν κατατάσσεις˙ ἐκεῖνος μὲν γὰρ πάντως σοι καλῶς χρήσεται ὁ τὰ ὅλα διοικῶν καὶ παραδέξεταί σε εἰς μέρος τι τῶν συνεργῶν καὶ συνεργητικῶν, ἀλλὰ σὺ μὴ τοιοῦτο μέρος γένῃ, οἷος ὁ εὐτελὴς καὶ γελοῖος στίχος ἐν τῷ δράματι, οǷ Χρύσιππος μέμνηται.

43. Μήτι ὁ Ἥλιος τὰ τοῦ Ὑετίου ἀξιοῖ ποιεῖν; μήτι ὁ Ἀσκληπιὸς τὰ τῆς Καρποφόρου; τί δὲ τῶν ἄστρων ἕκαστον; οὐχὶ διάφορα μέν, συνεργὰ δὲ πρὸς ταὐτόν;

44. Εἰ μὲν οὖν ἐβουλεύσαντο περὶ ἐμοῦ καὶ τῶν ἐμοὶ συμβῆναι ὀφειλόντων οἱ θεοί, καλῶς ἐβουλεύσαντο˙ ἄβουλον γὰρ θεὸν οὐδὲ ἐπινοῆσαι ῥᾴδιον, κακοποιῆσαι δέ με διὰ τίνα αἰτίαν ἔμελλον ὁρμᾶν; τί γὰρ αὐτοῖς ἢ τῷ κοινῷ, οǷ μάλιστα προνοοῦνται, ἐκ τούτου περιεγένετο; εἰ δὲ μὴ ἐβουλεύσαντο κατ ἰδίαν περὶ ἐμοῦ, περί γε τῶν κοινῶν πάντως ἐβουλεύσαντο, οἷς κατ ἐπακολούθησιν καὶ ταῦτα συμβαίνοντα ἀσπάζεσθαι καὶ στέργειν ὀφείλω. εἰ δ ἄρα περὶ μηδενὸς βουλεύονται (πιστεύειν μὲν οὐχ ὅσιον ἢ μηδὲ θύωμεν μηδὲ εὐχώμεθα μηδὲ ὀμνύωμεν μηδὲ τὰ ἄλλα πράσσωμεν ἃ παῤ ἕκαστα ὡς πρὸς παρόντας καὶ συμβιοῦντας τοὺς θεοὺς πράσσομεν), εἰ δ ἄρα περὶ μηδενὸς τῶν καθ ἡμᾶς βουλεύονται, ἐμοὶ μὲν ἔξεστι περὶ ἐμαυτοῦ βουλεύεσθαι, ἐμοὶ δέ ἐστι σκέψις περὶ τοῦ συμφέροντος. συμφέρει δὲ ἑκάστῳ τὸ κατὰ τὴν ἑαυτοῦ κατασκευὴν καὶ φύσιν, ἡ δὲ ἐμὴ φύσις λογικὴ καὶ πολιτική. Πόλις καὶ πατρὶς ὡς μὲν Ἀντωνίνῳ μοι ἡ Ῥώμη, ὡς δὲ ἀνθρώπῳ ὁ κόσμος. τὰ ταῖς πόλεσιν οὖν ταύταις ὠφέλιμα μόνα ἐστί μοι ἀγαθά.

45. Ὅσα ἑκάστῳ συμβαίνει, ταῦτα τῷ ὅλῳ συμφέρει˙ ἤρκει τοῦτο. ἀλλ ἔτι ἐκεῖνο ὡς ἐπίπαν ὄψει παραφυλάξας, ὅσα ἀνθρώπῳ, καὶ ἑτέροις ἀνθρώποις. κοινότερον δὲ νῦν τὸ συμφέρον ἐπὶ τῶν μέσων λαμβανέσθω.

46. Ὥσπερ προσίσταταί σοι τὰ ἐν τῷ ἀμφιθεάτρῳ καὶ τοῖς τοιούτοις χωρίοις ὡς ἀεὶ τὰ αὐτὰ ὁρώμενα, καὶ τὸ ὁμοειδὲς προσκορῆ τὴν θέαν ποιεῖ, τοῦτο καὶ ἐπὶ ὅλου τοῦ βίου πάσχεις˙ πάντα γὰρ ἄνω κάτω τὰ αὐτὰ καὶ ἐκ τῶν αὐτῶν. μέχρι τίνος οὖν;

47. Ἐννόει συνεχῶς παντοίους ἀνθρώπους καὶ παντοίων μὲν ἐπιτηδευμάτων, παντοδαπῶν δὲ ἐθνῶν τεθνεῶτας, ὥστε κατιέναι τοῦτο μέχρι Φιλιστίωνος καὶ Φοίβου καὶ Ὀριγανίωνος. μέτιθι νῦν ἐπὶ τὰ ἄλλα φῦλα˙ ἐκεῖ δὴ μεταβαλεῖν ἡμᾶς δεῖ ὅπου τοσοῦτοι μὲν δεινοὶ ῥήτορες, τοσοῦτοι δὲ σεμνοὶ φιλόσοφοι, Ἡράκλειτος, Πυθαγόρας, Σωκράτης, τοσοῦτοι δὲ ἥρωες πρότερον, τοσοῦτοι δὲ ὕστερον στρατηγοί, τύραννοι˙ ἐπὶ τούτοις δὲ Εὔδοξος, Ἵππαρχος, Ἀρχιμήδης, ἄλλαι φύσεις ὀξεῖαι, μεγαλόφρονες, φιλόπονοι, πανοῦργοι, αὐθάδεις, αὐτῆς τῆς ἐπικήρου καὶ ἐφημέρου τῶν ἀνθρώπων ζωῆς χλευασταί, οἷον Μένιππος καὶ ὅσοι τοιοῦτοι. περὶ πάντων τούτων ἐννόει ὅτι πάλαι κεῖνται˙ τί οὖν τοῦτο δεινὸν αὐτοῖς; τί δαὶ τοῖς μηδ ὀνομαζομένοις ὅλως; ἓν ὧδε πολλοῦ ἄξιον, τὸ μετ ἀληθείας καὶ δικαιοσύνης εὐμενῆ τοῖς ψεύσταις καὶ ἀδίκοις διαβιοῦν.

48. Ὅταν εὐφρᾶναι σεαυτὸν θέλῃς, ἐνθυμοῦ τὰ προτερήματα τῶν συμβιούντων˙ οἷον τοῦ μὲν τὸ δραστήριον, τοῦ δὲ τὸ αἰδῆμον, τοῦ δὲ τὸ εὐμετάδοτον, ἄλλου δὲ ἄλλο τι. οὐδὲν γὰρ οὕτως εὐφραίνει ὡς τὰ ὁμοιώματα τῶν ἀρετῶν ἐμφαινόμενα τοῖς ἤθεσι τῶν συζώντων καὶ ἀθρόα ὡς οἷόν τε συμπίπτοντα. διὸ καὶ πρόχειρα αὐτὰ ἑκτέον.

49. Μήτι δυσχεραίνεις ὅτι τοσῶνδέ τινων λιτρῶν εἶ καὶ οὐ τριακοσίων; οὕτω δὴ καὶ ὅτι μέχρι τοσῶνδε ἐτῶν βιωτέον σοι καὶ οὐ μέχρι πλείονος; ὥσπερ γὰρ τῆς οὐσίας ὅσον ἀφώρισταί σοι στέργεις, οὕτως καὶ ἐπὶ τοῦ χρόνου.

50. Πειρῶ μὲν πείθειν αὐτούς, πρᾶττε δὲ καὶ ‹αὐ›τῶν ἀκόντων, ὅταν τῆς δικαιοσύνης ὁ λόγος οὕτως ἄγῃ. ἐὰν μέντοι βίᾳ τις προσχρώμενος ἐνίστηται, μετάβαινε ἐπὶ τὸ εὐάρεστον καὶ ἄλυπον καὶ συγχρῶ εἰς ἄλλην ἀρετὴν τῇ κωλύσει, καὶ μέμνησο ὅτι μεθ ὑπεξαιρέσεως ὥρμας καὶ ὅτι τῶν ἀδυνάτων οὐκ ὠρέγου. τίνος οὖν; τῆς τοιᾶσδέ τινος ὁρμῆς. τούτου δὲ τυγχάνεις˙ ἐφ οἷς προήχθημεν, ταῦτα γίνεται.

51. Ὁ μὲν φιλόδοξος ἀλλοτρίαν ἐνέργειαν ἴδιον ἀγαθὸν ὑπολαμβάνει, ὁ δὲ φιλήδονος ἰδίαν πεῖσιν, ὁ δὲ νοῦν ἔχων ἰδίαν πρᾶξιν.

52. Ἔξεστι περὶ τούτου μηδὲν ὑπολαμβάνειν καὶ μὴ ὀχλεῖσθαι τῇ ψυχῇ˙ αὐτὰ γὰρ τὰ πράγματα οὐκ ἔχει φύσιν ποιητικὴν τῶν ἡμετέρων κρίσεων.

53. Ἔθισον σεαυτὸν πρὸς τῷ ὑφ ἑτέρου λεγομένῳ γίνεσθαι ἀπαρενθυμήτως καὶ ὡς οἷόν τε ἐν τῇ ψυχῇ τοῦ λέγοντος γίνου. Τὸ τῷ σμήνει μὴ συμφέρον οὐδὲ τῇ μελίσσῃ συμφέρει.

54. Εἰ κυβερνῶντα οἱ ναῦται ἢ ἰατρεύοντα οἱ κάμνοντες κακῶς ἔλεγον, ἄλλῳ τινὶ ἂν προσεῖχον; ἢ πῶς ‹ἂν› αὐτὸς ἐνεργοίη τὸ τοῖς ἐμπλέουσι σωτήριον ἢ τὸ τοῖς θεραπευομένοις ὑγιεινόν;

55. Πόσοι, μεθ ὧν εἰσῆλθον εἰς τὸν κόσμον, ἤδη ἀπεληλύθασιν.

56. Ἰκτεριῶσι τὸ μέλι πικρὸν φαίνεται καὶ λυσσοδήκτοις τὸ ὕδωρ φοβερὸν καὶ παιδίοις τὸ σφαιρίον καλόν. τί οὖν ὀργίζομαι; ἢ δοκεῖ σοι ἔλασσον ἰσχύειν τὸ διεψευσμένον ἢ τὸ χόλιον τῷ ἰκτεριῶντι καὶ ὁ ἰὸς τῷ λυσσοδήκτῳ;

57. Κατὰ τὸν λόγον τῆς σῆς φύσεως βιοῦν σε οὐδεὶς κωλύσει˙παρὰ τὸν λόγον τῆς κοινῆς φύσεως οὐδέν σοι συμβήσεται.

58. Οἷοί εἰσιν οἷς θέλουσιν ἀρέσκειν, καὶ δἰ οἷα περιγινόμενοι καὶ δἰ οἵων ἐνεργειῶν. ὡς ταχέως ὁ αἰὼν πάντα καλύψει καὶ ὅσα ἐκάλυψεν ἤδη.

### Book VII
1. Τί ἐστι κακία; τοῦτ ἔστιν ὃ πολλάκις εἶδες. καὶ ἐπὶ παντὸς δὲ τοῦ συμβαίνοντος πρόχειρον ἔχε ὅτι τοῦτό ἐστιν ὃ πολλάκις εἶδες. ὅλως ἄνω κάτω τὰ αὐτὰ εὑρήσεις, ὧν μεσταὶ αἱ ἱστορίαι αἱ παλαιαί, αἱ μέσαι, αἱ ὑπόγυιοι˙ ὧν νῦν μεσταὶ αἱ πόλεις καὶ οἰκίαι. οὐδὲν καινόν˙ πάντα καὶ συνήθη καὶ ὀλιγοχρόνια.

2. Ζῇ τὰ δόγματα˙ πῶς γὰρ ἄλλως δύναται νεκρωθῆναι, ἐὰν μὴαἱ κατάλληλοι αὐτοῖς φαντασίαι σβεσθῶσιν, ἃς διηνεκῶς ἀναζωπυρεῖν ἐπὶ σοί ἐστιν; δύναμαι περὶ τούτου ὃ δεῖὑπολαμβάνειν˙ εἰ δύναμαι, τί ταράσσομαι; τὰ ἔξω τῆς ἐμῆς διανοίας οὐδὲν ὅλως πρὸς τὴν ἐμὴν διάνοιαν. τοῦτο μάθε καὶ ὀρθὸς εἶ. ἀναβιῶναί σοι ἔξεστιν˙ ἴδε πάλιν τὰ πράγματα, ὡς ἑώρας˙ ἐν τούτῳ γὰρ τὸ ἀναβιῶναι.

3. Πομπῆς κενοσπουδία, ἐπὶ σκηνῆς δράματα, ποίμνια, ἀγέλαι, διαδορατισμοί, κυνιδίοις ὀστάριον ἐῤῥιμμένον, ψωμίον εἰς τὰς τῶν ἰχθύων δεξαμενάς, μυρμήκων ταλαιπωρίαι καὶ ἀχθοφορίαι, μυιδίων ἐπτοημένων διαδρομαί, σιγιλλάρια νευροσπαστούμενα. χρὴ οὖν ἐν τούτοις εὐμενῶς μὲν καὶ μὴ καταφρυαττόμενονἑστάναι, παρακολουθεῖν μέντοι, ὅτι τοσούτου ἄξιος ἕκαστόςἐστιν, ὅσου ἄξιά ἐστι ταῦτα περὶ ἃ ἐσπούδακεν.

4. Δεῖ κατὰ λέξιν παρακολουθεῖν τοῖς λεγομένοις καὶ καθ' ἑκάστην ὁρμὴν τοῖς γινομένοις, καὶ ἐπὶ μὲν τοῦ ἑτέρου εὐθὺς ὁρᾶν ἐπὶ τίνα σκοπὸν ἡ ἀναφορά, ἐπὶ δὲ τοῦ ἑτέρου παραφυλάσσειν τί τὸ σημαινόμενον.

5. Πότερον ἐξαρκεῖ ἡ διάνοιά μου πρὸς τοῦτο ἢ οὔ; εἰ μὲν ἐξαρκεῖ, χρῶμαι αὐτῇ πρὸς τὸ ἔργον ὡς ὀργάνῳ παρὰ τῆς τῶν ὅλων φύσεωςδοθέντι. εἰ δὲ μὴ ἐξαρκεῖ, ἤτοι παραχωρῶ τοῦ ἔργου τῷ δυναμένῳκρεῖττον ἐπιτελέσαι, ἐὰν ἄλλως τοῦτό μοι καθήκῃ, ἢ πράσσω ὡςδύναμαι, προσπαραλαβὼν τὸν δυνάμενον κατὰ πρόσχρησιν τοῦἐμοῦ ἡγεμονικοῦ ποιῆσαι τὸ εἰς τὴν κοινωνίαν νῦν καίριον καὶχρήσιμον. ὅ τι γὰρ ἂν δἰ ἐμαυτοῦ ἢ σὺν ἄλλῳ ποιῶ, ὧδε μόνονχρὴ συντείνειν, εἰς τὸ κοινῇ χρήσιμον καὶ εὐάρμοστον.

6. Ὅσοι μὲν πολυύμνητοι γενόμενοι ἤδη λήθῃ παραδέδονται,ὅσοι δὲ τούτους ὑμνήσαντες πάλαι ἐκποδών.

7. Μὴ αἰσχύνου βοηθούμενος˙ πρόκειται γάρ σοι ἐνεργεῖν τὸἐπιβάλλον ὡς στρατιώτῃ ἐν τειχομαχίᾳ. τί οὖν, ἐὰν σὺ μὲνχωλαίνων ἐπὶ τὴν ἔπαλξιν ἀναβῆναι μόνος μὴ δύνῃ, σὺν ἄλλῳδὲ δυνατὸν ᾖ τοῦτο;

8. Τὰ μέλλοντα μὴ ταρασσέτω˙ ἥξεις γὰρ ἐπ αὐτά, ἐὰν δεήσῃ, φέρων τὸν αὐτὸν λόγον ᾧ νῦν πρὸς τὰ παρόντα χρᾷ.

9. Πάντα ἀλλήλοις ἐπιπέπλεκται καὶ ἡ σύνδεσις ἱερά, καὶ σχεδόντι οὐδὲν ἀλλότριον ἄλλο ἄλλῳ˙ συγκατατέτακται γὰρ καὶ συγκοσμεῖ τὸν αὐτὸν κόσμον. κόσμος τε γὰρ εἷς ἐξ ἁπάντων καὶθεὸς εἷς δἰ ἁπάντων καὶ οὐσία μία καὶ νόμος εἷς, λόγος κοινὸςπάντων τῶν νοερῶν ζῴων, καὶ ἀλήθεια μία, εἴγε καὶ τελειότηςμία τῶν ὁμογενῶν καὶ τοῦ αὐτοῦ λόγου μετεχόντων ζῴων.

10. Πᾶν τὸ ἔνυλον ἐναφανίζεται τάχιστα τῇ τῶν ὅλων οὐσίᾳ καὶπᾶν αἴτιον εἰς τὸν τῶν ὅλων λόγον τάχιστα ἀναλαμβάνεται καὶπαντὸς μνήμη τάχιστα ἐγκαταχώννυται τῷ αἰῶνι.

11. Τῷ λογικῷ ζῴῳ ἡ αὐτὴ πρᾶξις κατὰ φύσιν ἐστὶ καὶ κατὰ λόγον.

12. Ὀρθός, ἢ ὀρθούμενος.

13. Οἷόν ἐστιν ἐν ἡνωμένοις τὰ μέλη τοῦ σώματος, τοῦτον ἔχειτὸν λόγον ἐν διεστῶσι τὰ λογικά, πρὸς μίαν τινὰ συνεργίανκατεσκευασμένα. μᾶλλον δέ σοι ἡ τούτου νόησις προσπεσεῖται,ἐὰν πρὸς ἑαυτὸν πολλάκις λέγῃς, ὅτι μέλος εἰμὶ τοῦ ἐκ τῶν λογικῶνσυστήματος. ἐὰν δὲ διὰ τοῦ ῥῶ στοιχείου μέρος εἶναι ἑαυτὸνλέγῃς, οὔπω ἀπὸ καρδίας φιλεῖς τοὺς ἀνθρώπους˙ οὔπω σεκαταληκτικῶς εὐφραίνει τὸ εὐεργετεῖν˙ ἔτι ὡς πρέπον αὐτὸ ψιλὸνποιεῖς, οὔπω ὡς ἑαυτὸν εὖ ποιῶν.

14. Ὂ θέλει, ἔξωθεν προσπιπτέτω τοῖς παθεῖν ἐκ τῆς προσπτώσεωςταύτης δυναμένοις. ἐκεῖνα γάρ, ἐὰν θελήσῃ, μέμψεται τὰ παθόντα,ἐγὼ δέ, ἐὰν μὴ ὑπολάβω ὅτι κακὸν τὸ συμβεβηκός, οὔπωβέβλαμμαι˙ ἔξεστι δέ μοι μὴ ὑπολαβεῖν.

15. Ὅ τι ἄν τις ποιῇ ἢ λέγῃ, ἐμὲ δεῖ ἀγαθὸν εἶναι, ὡς ἂν εἰ ὁχρυσὸς ἢ ὁ σμάραγδος ἢ ἡ πορφύρα τοῦτο ἀεὶ ἔλεγεν˙ ὅ τι ἄν τιςποιῇ ἢ λέγῃ, ἐμὲ δεῖ σμάραγδον εἶναι καὶ τὸ ἐμαυτοῦ χρῶμαἔχειν.

16. Τὸ ἡγεμονικὸν αὐτὸ ἑαυτῷ οὐκ ἐνοχλεῖ, οἷον λέγω, οὐ φοβεῖἑαυτὸ.. εἰς ἐπιθυμίαν. εἰ δέ τις ἄλλος αὐτὸ φοβῆσαι ἢ λυπῆσαιδύναται, ποιείτω˙ αὐτὸ γὰρ ἑαυτὸ ὑποληπτικῶς οὐ τρέψει εἰςτοιαύτας τροπάς. τὸ σωμάτιον μὴ πάθῃ τι, αὐτὸ μεριμνάτω, εἰδύναται˙ καὶ λεγέτω, εἴ τι πάσχει, τὸ [δὲ] ψυχάριον τὸ φοβούμενον,τὸ λυπούμενον˙ τὸ ‹δὲ› περὶ τούτων ὅλως ὑπολαμβάνον οὐδὲν μὴπάθῃ˙ οὐ γὰρ ᾄξει αὐτὸ εἰς κρίσιν τοιαύτην. ἀπροσδεές ἐστινὅσον ἐφ ἑαυτῷ τὸ ἡγεμονικόν, ἐὰν μὴ ἑαυτῷ ἔνδειαν ποιῇ˙ κατὰταὐτὰ δὲ καὶ ἀτάραχον καὶ ἀνεμπόδιστον, ἐὰν μὴ ἑαυτὸ ταράσσῃκαὶ ἐμποδίζῃ.

17. Εὐδαιμονία ἐστὶ δαίμων ἀγαθὸς ἢ ‹δαιμόνιον› ἀγαθόν. τί οὖν ὧδε ποιεῖς, ὦ φαντασία; ἀπέρχου, τοὺς θεούς σοι, ὡς ἦλθες˙ οὐγὰρ χρῄζω σου. ἐλήλυθας δὲ κατὰ τὸ ἀρχαῖον ἔθος. οὐκὀργίζομαί σοι˙ μόνον ἄπιθι.

18. Φοβεῖταί τις μεταβολήν; τί γὰρ δύναται χωρὶς μεταβολῆςγενέσθαι; τί δὲ φίλτερον ἢ οἰκειότερον τῇ τῶν ὅλων φύσει; σὺ δὲαὐτὸς λούσασθαι δύνασαι, ἐὰν μὴ τὰ ξύλα μεταβάλῃ; τραφῆναιδὲ δύνασαι, ἐὰν μὴ τὰ ἐδώδιμα μεταβάλῃ; ἄλλο δέ τι τῶν χρησίμωνδύναται συντελεσθῆναι χωρὶς μεταβολῆς; οὐχ ὁρᾷς οὖν ὅτι καὶαὐτὸ τὸ σὲ μεταβαλεῖν ὅμοιόν ἐστι καὶ ὁμοίως ἀναγκαῖον τῇτῶν ὅλων φύσει;

19. Διὰ τῆς τῶν ὅλων οὐσίας ὡς διὰ χειμάῤῥου διεκπορεύεταιπάντα τὰ σώματα, τῷ ὅλῳ συμφυῆ καὶ συνεργὰ ὡς τὰ ἡμέτεραμέλη ἀλλήλοις. πόσους ἤδη ὁ αἰὼν Χρυσίππους, πόσους Σωκράτεις,πόσους Ἐπικτήτους καταπέπωκεν. τὸ δ αὐτὸ καὶ ἐπὶπαντὸς οὑτινοσοῦν σοι ἀνθρώπου τε καὶ πράγματος προσπιπτέτω.

20. Ἐμὲ ἓν μόνον περισπᾷ, μή τι αὐτὸς ποιήσω, ὃ ἡ κατασκευὴτοῦ ἀνθρώπου οὐ θέλει ἢ ὡς οὐ θέλει ἢ ὃ νῦν οὐ θέλει.

21. Ἐγγὺς μὲν ἡ σὴ περὶ πάντων λήθη, ἐγγὺς δὲ ἡ πάντων περὶ σοῦ λήθη.

22. Ἴδιον ἀνθρώπου φιλεῖν καὶ τοὺς πταίοντας. τοῦτο δὲ γίνεται,ἐὰν συμπροσπίπτῃ σοι, ὅτι καὶ συγγενεῖς καὶ δἰ ἄγνοιαν καὶἄκοντες ἁμαρτάνουσι καὶ ὡς μετ ὀλίγον ἀμφότεροι τεθνήξεσθε,καὶ πρὸ πάντων, ὅτι οὐκ ἔβλαψέ σε˙ οὐ γὰρ τὸ ἡγεμονικόν σουχεῖρον ἐποίησεν ἢ πρόσθεν ἦν.

23. Ἡ τῶν ὅλων φύσις ἐκ τῆς ὅλης οὐσίας ὡς κηροῦ νῦν μὲνἱππάριον ἔπλασε, συγχέασα δὲ τοῦτο εἰς δενδρύφιον συνεχρήσατοτῇ ὕλῃ αὐτοῦ˙ εἶτα εἰς ἀνθρωπάριον˙ εἶτα εἰς ἄλλο τι˙ ἕκαστονδὲ τούτων πρὸς ὀλίγιστον ὑπέστη. δεινὸν δὲ οὐδὲν τὸ διαλυθῆναιτῷ κιβωτίῳ, ὥσπερ οὐδὲ τὸ συμπαγῆναι.

24. Τὸ ἐπίκοτον τοῦ προσώπου λίαν παρὰ φύσιν, ὅταν ‹δὲ› †πολλάκις ᾖ, ἐναποθνῄσκει ‹τὸ› πρόσχημα ἢ τὸ τελευταῖονἀπεσβέσθη, ὥστε ὅλως ἐξαφθῆναι μὴ δύνασθαι.. αὐτῷ γε τούτῳπαρακολουθεῖν πειρῶ, ὅτι παρὰ τὸν λόγον. εἰ γὰρ καὶ ἡσυναίσθησις τοῦ ἁμαρτάνειν οἰχήσεται, τίς ἔτι τοῦ ζῆν αἰτία;

25. Πάντα ὅσα ὁρᾷς ὅσον οὔπω μεταβαλεῖ ἡ τὰ ὅλα διοικοῦσαφύσις καὶ ἄλλα ἐκ τῆς οὐσίας αὐτῶν ποιήσει καὶ πάλιν ἄλλα ἐκτῆς ἐκείνων οὐσίας, ἵνα ἀεὶ νεαρὸς ᾖ ὁ κόσμος.

26. Ὅταν τις ἁμάρτῃ τι εἰς σέ, εὐθὺς ἐνθυμοῦ τί ἀγαθὸν ἢ κακὸνὑπολαβὼν ἥμαρτεν. τοῦτο γὰρ ἰδὼν ἐλεήσεις αὐτὸν καὶ οὔτεθαυμάσεις οὔτε ὀργισθήσῃ. ἤτοι γὰρ καὶ αὐτὸς τὸ αὐτὸ ἐκείνῳἀγαθὸν ἔτι ὑπολαμβάνεις ἢ ἄλλο ὁμοειδές˙ δεῖ οὖν συγγινώσκειν.εἰ δὲ μηκέτι ὑπολαμβάνεις τὰ τοιαῦτα ἀγαθὰ καὶ κακά, ῥᾷονεὐμενὴς ἔσῃ τῷ παρορῶντι.

27. Μὴ τὰ ἀπόντα ἐννοεῖν ὡς ἤδη ὄντα, ἀλλὰ τῶν παρόντων τὰ δεξιώτατα ἐκλογίζεσθαι καὶ τούτων χάριν ὑπομιμνῄσκεσθαι πῶς ἂν ἐπεζητεῖτο, εἰ μὴ παρῆν. ἅμα μέντοι φυλάσσου, μὴ διὰ τοῦοὕτως ἀσμενίζειν αὐτοῖς ἐθίσῃς ἐκτιμᾶν αὐτά, ὥστε, ἐάν ποτε μὴ παρῇ, ταραχθήσεσθαι.

28. Εἰς ἑαυτὸν συνειλοῦ˙ φύσιν ἔχει τὸ λογικὸν ἡγεμονικὸν ἑαυτῷἀρκεῖσθαι δικαιοπραγοῦντι καὶ παῤ αὐτὸ τοῦτο γαλήνην ἔχοντι.

29. Ἐξάλειψον τὴν φαντασίαν. στῆσον τὴν νευροσπαστίαν.περίγραψον τὸ ἐνεστὼς τοῦ χρόνου. γνώρισον τὸ συμβαῖνον ἢσοὶ ἢ ἄλλῳ. δίελε καὶ μέρισον τὸ ὑποκείμενον εἰς τὸ αἰτιῶδεςκαὶ ὑλικόν. ἐννόησον τὴν ἐσχάτην ὥραν. τὸ ἐκείνῳ ἁμαρτηθὲνἐκεῖ κατάλιπε ὅπου ἡ ἁμαρτία ὑπέστη.

30. Συμπαρεκτείνειν τὴν νόησιν τοῖς λεγομένοις. εἰσδύεσθαι τὸννοῦν εἰς τὰ γινόμενα καὶ ‹τὸν› ποιοῦντα.

31. Φαίδρυνον σεαυτὸν ἁπλότητι καὶ αἰδοῖ καὶ τῇ πρὸς τὸ ἀνὰμέσον ἀρετῆς καὶ κακίας ἀδιαφορίᾳ. φίλησον τὸ ἀνθρώπινονγένος. ἀκολούθησον θεῷ. ἐκεῖνος μέν φησιν ὅτι “πάντα νομιστί,ἐτεῇ δὲ μόνα τὰ στοιχεῖ”, ἀρκεῖ δὲ μεμνῆσθαι ὅτι τὰ πάντανομιστὶ ἔχει˙ ἤδη λίαν ὀλίγα.

32. Περὶ θανάτου˙ ἢ σκεδασμός, εἰ ἄτομοι˙ εἰ δ ἕνωσις, ἤτοι σβέσιςἢ μετάστασις.

33. Περὶ πόνου˙ τὸ μὲν ἀφόρητον ἐξάγει, τὸ δὲ χρονίζον φορητόν˙καὶ ἡ διάνοια τὴν ἑαυτῆς γαλήνην κατὰ ἀπόληψιν διατηρεῖ καὶοὐ χεῖρον τὸ ἡγεμονικὸν γέγονε, τὰ δὲ κακούμενα μέρη ὑπὸ τοῦπόνου, εἴ τι δύναται, περὶ αὐτοῦ ἀποφηνάσθω.

34. Περὶ δόξης˙ ἴδε τὰς διανοίας αὐτῶν, οἷαι καὶ οἷα μὲν φεύγουσι,οἷα δὲ διώκουσι. καὶ ὅτι, ὡς αἱ θῖνες ἄλλαι ἐπ ἄλλαιςἐπιφορούμεναι κρύπτουσι τὰς προτέρας, οὕτως ἐν τῷ βίῳ τὰπρότερα ὑπὸ τῶν ἐπενεχθέντων τάχιστα ἐκαλύφθη.

35. “Ὣι οὖν ὑπάρχει διάνοια μεγαλοπρεπὴς καὶ θεωρία παντὸςμὲν χρόνου, πάσης δὲ οὐσίας, ἆρα οἴει τούτῳ μέγα τι δοκεῖν εἶναι τὸν ἀνθρώπινον βίον; ἀδύνατον, ἦ δ ὅς. οὐκοῦν καὶ θάνατον οὐ δεινόν τι ἡγήσεται ὁ τοιοῦτος; ἥκιστά γε.”

36. “Βασιλικὸν εὖ μὲν πράττειν, κακῶς δὲ ἀκούειν.”

37. Αἰσχρόν ἐστι τὸ μὲν πρόσωπον ὑπήκοον εἶναι καὶ σχηματίζεσθαι καὶ κατακοσμεῖσθαι, ὡς κελεύει ἡ διάνοια, αὐτὴν δ ὑφἑαυτῆς μὴ σχηματίζεσθαι καὶ κατακοσμεῖσθαι.

38. Τοῖς πράγμασιν γὰρ οὐχὶ θυμοῦσθαι χρεών˙ μέλει γὰρ αὐτοῖς οὐδέν.

39. Ἀθανάτοις τε θεοῖσι καὶ ἡμῖν χάρματα δοίης.

40. Βίον θερίζειν ὥστε κάρπιμον στάχυν καὶ τὸν μὲν εἶναι, τὸν δὲμή.

41. Εἰ δ ἠμελήθην ἐκ θεῶν καὶ παῖδ ἐμώ, ἔχει λόγον καὶ τοῦτο.

42. Τὸ γὰρ εὖ μετ ἐμοῦ καὶ τὸ δίκαιον.

43. Μὴ συνεπιθρηνεῖν, μη‹δὲ› ‹συ›σφύζειν ‹χρεών.›

44. “Ἐγὼ δὲ τούτῳ δίκαιον ἂν λόγον ἀντείποιμι, ὅτι οὐ καλῶςλέγεις, ὦ ἄνθρωπε, εἰ οἴει δεῖν κίνδυνον ὑπολογίζεσθαι τοῦ ζῆνἢ τεθνάναι ἄνδρα, ὅτου τι καὶ σμικρὸν ὄφελός ‹ἐστιν›, ἀλλ οὐκἐκεῖνο μόνον σκοπεῖν, ὅταν πράττῃ, πότερον δίκαια ἢ ἄδικαπράττει καὶ ἀνδρὸς ἀγαθοῦ ‹ἔργα› ἢ κακοῦ.”

45. “Οὕτω γὰρ ἔχει, ὦ ἄνδρες Ἀθηναῖοι, τῇ ἀληθείᾳ˙ οǷ ἄν τιςαὑτὸν τάξῃ ἡγησάμενος βέλτιστον εἶναι ἢ ὑπ ἄρχοντος ταχθῇ,ἐνταῦθα ‹δεῖ›, ὡς ἐμοὶ δοκεῖ[ν], μένοντα κινδυνεύειν, μηδὲνὑπολογιζόμενον μήτε θάνατον μήτε ἄλλο μηδὲν πρὸ τοῦ αἰσχροῦ.”

46. “Ἀλλ, ὦ μακάριε, ὅρα μὴ ἄλλο τι τὸ γενναῖον καὶ τὸ ἀγαθὸν‹ᾖ› ἢ τὸ σῴζειν τε καὶ σῴζεσθαι˙ μὴ γὰρ τοῦτο μέν, τὸ ζῆνὁποσονδὴ χρόνον, τόν γε ὡς ἀληθῶς ἄνδρα ἐατέον ἐστὶ καὶ οὐφιλοψυχητέον, ἀλλ ἐπιτρέψαντα περὶ τούτων τῷ θεῷ καὶπιστεύσαντα ταῖς γυναιξίν, ὅτι τὴν εἱμαρμένην οὐδ ἂν εἷς ἐκφύγοι,τὸ ἐπὶ τούτῳ σκεπτέον τίνα ἂν τρόπον τοῦτον ὃν μέλλει χρόνονβιῶναι ὡς ἄριστα βιῴη.”

47. Περισκοπεῖν ἄστρων δρόμους ὥσπερ συμπεριθέοντα καὶ τὰςτῶν στοιχείων εἰς ἄλληλα μεταβολὰς συνεχῶς ἐννοεῖν˙ ἀποκαθαίρουσιγὰρ αἱ τούτων φαντασίαι τὸν ῥύπον τοῦ χαμαὶ βίου.

48. Καὶ δὴ περὶ ἀνθρώπων τοὺς λόγους ποιούμενον ἐπισκοπεῖν[δεῖ] καὶ τὰ ἐπίγεια ὥσπερ ποθὲν ἄνωθεν κάτω˙ ἀγέλας,στρατεύματα, γεώργια, γάμους, διαλύσεις, γενέσεις, θανάτους,δικαστηρίων θόρυβον, ἐρήμους χώρας, βαρβάρων ἔθνη ποικίλα,ἑορτάς, θρήνους, ἀγοράς, τὸ παμμιγὲς καὶ τὸ ἐκ τῶν ἐναντίωνσυγκοσμούμενον.

49. Τὰ προγεγονότα ἀναθεωρεῖν, τὰς τοσαύτας τῶν ἡγεμονιῶνμεταβολάς. ἔξεστι καὶ τὰ ἐσόμενα προεφορᾶν˙ ὁμοειδῆ γὰρπάντως ἔσται καὶ οὐχ οἷόν τε ἐκβῆναι τοῦ ῥυθμοῦ τῶν νῦνγινομένων˙ ὅθεν καὶ ἴσον τὸ τεσσαράκοντα ἔτεσιν ἱστορῆσαιτὸν ἀνθρώπινον βίον τῷ ἐπὶ ἔτη μύρια˙ τί γὰρ πλέον ὄψει;

50. Καὶ τὰ μὲν ἐκ γαίας φύντ εἰς γαῖαν, τὰ δ ἀπ αἰθερίου βλαστόνταγονῆς εἰς αἰθέριον πάλιν ἦλθε πόλον.

51. Η τοῦτο˙ διάλυσις τῶν ἐν ταῖς ἀτόμοις ἀντεμπλοκῶν καὶτοιοῦτός τις σκορπισμὸς τῶν ἀπαθῶν στοιχείων.

52. Καὶ σίτοισι καὶ ποτοῖσι καὶ μαγεύμασι παρεκτρέποντες ὀχετὸνὥστε μὴ θανεῖν. θεόθεν δὲ πνέοντ οὖρον ἀνάγκη τλῆναι καμάτοιςἀνοδύρτοις.

53. “Καββαλικώτερος”, ἀλλ οὐχὶ κοινωνικώτερος οὐδὲ αἰδημονέστεροςοὐδὲ εὐτακτότερος ἐπὶ τοῖς συμβαίνουσιν οὐδὲ εὐμενέστεροςπρὸς τὰ τῶν πλησίον παροράματα.

54. Ὅπου ἔργον ἐπιτελεῖσθαι δύναται κατὰ τὸν κοινὸν θεοῖς καὶἀνθρώποις λόγον, ἐκεῖ οὐδὲν δεινόν˙ ὅπου γὰρ ὠφελείας τυχεῖνἔξεστι διὰ τῆς εὐοδούσης καὶ κατὰ τὴν κατασκευὴν προιούσηςἐνεργείας, ἐκεῖ οὐδεμίαν βλάβην ὑφορατέον.

55. Πανταχοῦ καὶ διηνεκῶς ἐπὶ σοί ἐστι καὶ τῇ παρούσῃ συμβάσειθεοσεβῶς εὐαρεστεῖν καὶ τοῖς παροῦσιν ἀνθρώποις κατὰ δικαιοσύνηνπροσφέρεσθαι καὶ τῇ ‹παρ›ούσῃ φαντασίᾳ ἐμφιλοτεχνεῖν,ἵνα μή τι ἀκατάληπτον παρεισρυῇ.

56. Μὴ περιβλέπου ἀλλότρια ἡγεμονικά, ἀλλ ἐκεῖ βλέπε κατ εὐθὺἐπὶ τί σε ἡ φύσις ὁδηγεῖ, ἥ τε τοῦ ὅλου διὰ τῶν συμβαινόντωνσοι καὶ ἡ σὴ διὰ τῶν πρακτέων ὑπὸ σοῦ˙ πρακτέον δὲ ἑκάστῳ τὸἑξῆς τῇ κατασκευῇ˙ κατεσκεύασται δὲ τὰ μὲν λοιπὰ τῶν λογικῶνἕνεκεν, ὥσπερ καὶ ἐπὶ παντὸς ἄλλου τὰ χείρω τῶν κρειττόνωνἕνεκεν, τὰ δὲ λογικὰ ἀλλήλων ἕνεκεν. τὸ μὲν οὖν προηγούμενονἐν τῇ τοῦ ἀνθρώπου κατασκευῇ τὸ κοινωνικόν ἐστι, δεύτερον δὲτὸ ἀνένδοτον πρὸς τὰς σωματικὰς πείσεις˙ λογικῆς γὰρ καὶ νοερᾶςκινήσεως ἴδιον περιορίζειν ἑαυτὴν καὶ μήποτε ἡττᾶσθαι μήτεαἰσθητικῆς μήτε ὁρμητικῆς κινήσεως˙ ζῳώδεις γὰρ ἑκάτεραι, ἡδὲ νοερὰ ἐθέλει πρωτιστεύειν καὶ μὴ κατακρατεῖσθαι ὑπ ἐκείνων.δικαίως γε˙ πέφυκε γὰρ χρηστικὴ πᾶσιν ἐκείνοις. τρίτον ἐν τῇλογικῇ κατασκευῇ τὸ ἀπρόπτωτον καὶ ἀνεξαπάτητον. τούτωνοὖν ἐχόμενον τὸ ἡγεμονικὸν εὐθεῖαν περαινέτω καὶ ἔχει τὰἑαυτοῦ.

57. Ὡς ἀποτεθνηκότα ἤδη καὶ μέχρι νῦν ‹μὴ› βεβιωκότα, τὸ λοιπὸνἐκ τοῦ περιόντος ζῆσαι κατὰ τὴν φύσιν.

58. Μόνως φιλεῖν τὸ ἑαυτῷ συμβαῖνον καὶ συγκλωθόμενον˙ τί γὰρἁρμοδιώτερον;

59. Ἐφ ἑκάστου συμβάματος ἐκείνους πρὸ ὀμμάτων ἔχειν, οἷς τὰαὐτὰ συνέβαινεν, ἔπειτα ἤχθοντο, ἐξενίζοντο, ἐμέμφοντο˙ νῦνοὖν ἐκεῖνοι ποῦ; οὐδαμοῦ. τί οὖν; καὶ σὺ θέλεις ὁμοίως; οὐχὶ δὲτὰς μὲν ἀλλοτρίας τροπὰς καταλιπεῖν τοῖς τρέπουσι καὶ τρεπομένοις,αὐτὸς δὲ περὶ τὸ πῶς χρῆσθαι αὐτοῖς ὅλος γίνεσθαι; χρήσῃγὰρ καλῶς καὶ ὕλη σοι ἔσται˙ μόνον πρόσεχε, καὶ θέλε σεαυτῷκαλὸς εἶναι ἐπὶ παντός, οǷ πράσσεις, καὶ μέμνησο ἀμφοτέρων,ὅτι καὶ διάφορον ‹ὃ πράσσεις καὶ ἀδιάφορον› ἐφ οǷ ἡ πρᾶξις.

60. Ἔνδον σκάπτε, ἔνδον ἡ πηγὴ τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ καὶ ἀεὶ ἀναβλύειν δυναμένη, ἐὰν ἀεὶ σκάπτῃς.

61. Δεῖ καὶ τὸ σῶμα πεπηγέναι καὶ μὴ διεῤῥῖφθαι μήτε ἐν κινήσειμήτε ἐν σχέσει. οἷον γάρ τι ἐπὶ τοῦ προσώπου παρέχεται ἡ διάνοιασυνετὸν αὐτὸ καὶ εὔσχημον συντηροῦσα, τοιοῦτο καὶ ἐπὶ ὅλουτοῦ σώματος ἀπαιτητέον. πάντα δὲ ταῦτα σὺν τῷ ἀνεπιτηδεύτῳφυλακτέα.

62. Ἡ βιωτικὴ τῇ παλαιστικῇ ὁμοιοτέρα ἤπερ τῇ ὀρχηστικῇ κατὰτὸ πρὸς τὰ ἐμπίπτοντα καὶ οὐ προεγνωσμένα ἕτοιμος καὶ ἀπτὼςἑστάναι.

63. Συνεχῶς ἐφιστάναι, τίνες εἰσὶν οǷτοι, ὑφ ὧν μαρτυρεῖσθαιθέλεις, καὶ τίνα ἡγεμονικὰ ἔχουσιν˙ οὔτε γὰρ μέμψῃ τοῖς ἀκουσίωςπταίουσιν οὔτε ἐπιμαρτυρήσεως δεήσῃ, ἐμβλέπων εἰς τὰς πηγὰςτῆς ὑπολήψεως καὶ ὁρμῆς αὐτῶν.

64. “Πᾶσα ψυχή, φησίν, ἄκουσα στέρεται ἀληθείας˙” οὕτως οὖνκαὶ δικαιοσύνης καὶ σωφροσύνης καὶ εὐμενείας καὶ παντὸς τοῦτοιούτου. ἀναγκαιότατον δὲ τὸ διηνεκῶς τούτου μεμνῆσθαι˙ἔσῃ γὰρ πρὸς πάντας πρᾳότερος.

65. Ἐπὶ μὲν παντὸς πόνου πρόχειρον ἔστω ὅτι οὐκ αἰσχρὸν οὐδὲτὴν διάνοιαν τὴν κυβερνῶσαν χείρω ποιεῖ˙ οὔτε γὰρ καθὸ λογικήἐστιν οὔτε καθὸ κοινωνικὴ διαφθείρει αὐτήν. ἐπὶ μέντοι τῶνπλείστων πόνων καὶ τὸ τοῦ Ἐπικούρου σοι βοηθείτω, ὅτι οὔτεἀφόρητον οὔτε αἰώνιον, ἐὰν τῶν ὅρων μνημονεύῃς καὶ μὴπροσδοξάζῃς. κἀκείνου δὲ μέμνησο, ὅτι πολλὰ πόνῳ τὰ αὐτὰὄντα λανθάνει, δυσχεραινόμενα˙ οἷον τὸ νυστάζειν καὶ τὸκαυματίζεσθαι καὶ τὸ ἀνορεκτεῖν˙ ὅταν οὖν τινι τούτωνδυσαρεστῇς, λέγε σεαυτῷ, ὅτι πόνῳ ἐνδίδως.

66. Ὅρα μήποτε τοιοῦτον πάθῃς πρὸς τοὺς ἀπανθρώπους, οἷονοἱ ‹ἀπ›άνθρωποι πρὸς τοὺς ἀνθρώπους.

67. Πόθεν ἴσμεν, εἰ μὴ Τηλαύγης Σωκράτους τὴν διάθεσιν κρείττωνἦν; οὐ γὰρ ἀρκεῖ, εἰ Σωκράτης ἐνδοξότερον ἀπέθανε καὶἐντρεχέστερον τοῖς σοφισταῖς διελέγετο καὶ καρτερικώτερον ἐντῷ πάγῳ διενυκτέρευε καὶ τὸν Σαλαμίνιον κελευσθεὶς ἄγεινγεννικώτερον ἔδοξεν ἀντιβῆναι καὶ “ἐν ταῖς ὁδοῖς ἐβρενθύετ”,περὶ οǷ καὶ μάλιστ ἄν τις ἐπιστήσειεν, εἴπερ ἀληθὲς ἦν˙ ἀλλἐκεῖνο δεῖ σκοπεῖν, ποίαν τινὰ τὴν ψυχὴν εἶχε Σωκράτης καὶ εἰἐδύνατο ἀρκεῖσθαι τῷ δίκαιος εἶναι τὰ πρὸς ἀνθρώπους καὶ ὅσιοςτὰ πρὸς θεούς, μήτε εἰκῇ πρὸς τὴν κακίαν ἀγανακτῶν μήτε μὴνδουλεύων τινὸς ἀγνοίᾳ, μήτε τῶν ἀπονεμομένων ἐκ τοῦ ὅλου ὡςξένον τι δεχόμενος ἢ ὡς ἀφόρητον ὑπομένων, μήτε τοῖς τοῦσαρκιδίου πάθεσιν ἐμπαρέχων συμπαθῆ τὸν νοῦν.

68. Ἡ φύσις οὐχ οὕτως συνεκέρασέ ‹σε› τῷ συγκρίματι, ὡς μὴἐφεῖσθαι περιορίζειν ἑαυτὸν καὶ τὰ ἑαυτοῦ ὑφ ἑαυτῷ ποιεῖσθαι.τούτου μέμνησο ἀεὶ καὶ ἔτι ἐκείνου, ὅτι ἐν ὀλιγίστοις κεῖται τὸεὐδαιμόνως βιῶσαι˙ καὶ μή, ὅτι ἀπήλπισας διαλεκτικὸς καὶφυσικὸς ἔσεσθαι, διὰ τοῦτο ἀπογνῷς καὶ ἐλεύθερος καὶ αἰδήμωνκαὶ κοινωνικὸς καὶ εὐπειθὴς θεῷ. λίαν γὰρ ἐνδέχεται θεῖον ἄνδραγενέσθαι καὶ ὑπὸ μηδενὸς γνωρισθῆναι.

69. Ἀβιάστως διαζῆσαι ἐν πλείστῃ θυμηδίᾳ, κἂν πάντες καταβοῶσινἅτινα βούλονται, κἂν τὰ θηρία διασπᾷ τὰ μελύδρια τοῦπεριτεθραμμένου τούτου φυράματος. τί γὰρ κωλύει ἐν πᾶσιτούτοις τὴν διάνοιαν σῴζειν ἑαυτὴν ἐν γαλήνῃ καὶ κρίσει [τῇ]περὶ τῶν περιεστηκότων ἀληθεῖ καὶ χρήσει τῶν ὑποβεβλημένωνἑτοίμῃ, ὥστε τὴν μὲν κρίσιν λέγειν τῷ προσπίπτοντι˙ “τοῦτοὑπάρχεις κατ οὐσίαν, κἂν κατὰ δόξαν ἀλλοῖον φαίνῃ˙” τὴν δὲχρῆσιν λέγειν τῷ ὑποπίπτοντι˙ “σὲ ἐζήτουν˙ ἀεὶ γάρ μοι τὸ παρὸνὕλη ἀρετῆς λογικῆς καὶ πολιτικῆς καὶ τὸ σύνολον τέχνης ἀνθρώπουἢ θεοῦ˙” πᾶν γὰρ τὸ συμβαῖνον θεῷ ἢ ἀνθρώπῳἐξοικειοῦται καὶ οὔτε καινὸν οὔτε δυσμεταχείριστον, ἀλλὰγνώριμον καὶ εὐεργές.

70. Τοῦτο ἔχει ἡ τελειότης τοῦ ἤθους, τὸ πᾶσαν ἡμέραν ὡςτελευταίαν διεξάγειν καὶ μήτε σφύζειν μήτε ναρκᾶν μήτεὑποκρίνεσθαι.

71. Οἱ θεοί, ἀθάνατοι ὄντες, οὐ δυσχεραίνουσιν ὅτι ἐν τοσούτῳαἰῶνι δεήσει αὐτοὺς πάντως ἀεὶ τοιούτων ὄντων καὶ τοσούτωνφαύλων ἀνέχεσθαι˙ προσέτι δὲ καὶ κήδονται αὐτῶν παντοίως.σὺ δέ, ὅσον οὐδέπω λήγειν μέλλων, ἀπαυδᾷς, καὶ ταῦτα εἷς ὢντῶν φαύλων;

72. Γελοῖόν ἐστι τὴν μὲν ἰδίαν κακίαν μὴ φεύγειν, ὃ καὶ δυνατόνἐστι, τὴν δὲ τῶν ἄλλων φεύγειν, ὅπερ ἀδύνατον.

73. Ὂ ἂν ἡ λογικὴ καὶ πολιτικὴ δύναμις εὑρίσκῃ μήτε νοερὸνμήτε κοινωνικόν, εὐλόγως καταδεέστερον ἑαυτῆς κρίνει.

74. Ὅταν σὺ εὖ πεποιηκὼς ᾖς καὶ ἄλλος εὖ πεπονθώς, τί ἔτι ζητεῖςτρίτον παρὰ ταῦτα, ὥσπερ οἱ μωροί, τὸ καὶ δόξαι εὖ πεποιηκέναιἢ τὸ ἀμοιβῆς τυχεῖν;

75. Οὐδεὶς κάμνει ὠφελούμενος, ὠφέλεια δὲ πρᾶξις κατὰ φύσιν˙μὴ οὖν κάμνε ὠφελούμενος, ἐν ᾧ ὠφελεῖς.

76. Ἡ τοῦ ὅλου φύσις ἐπὶ τὴν κοσμοποιίαν ὥρμησε˙ νῦν δὲ ἤτοιπᾶν τὸ γινόμενον κατ ἐπακολούθησιν γίνεται ἢ ἀλόγιστα καὶ τὰκυριώτατά ἐστιν ἐφ ἃ ποιεῖται ἰδίαν ὁρμὴν τὸ τοῦ κόσμουἡγεμονικόν. εἰς πολλά σε γαληνότερον ποιήσει τοῦτομνημονευόμενον.

### Book VIII
1. Καὶ τοῦτο πρὸς τὸ ἀκενόδοξον φέρει, ὅτι οὐκέτι δύνασαι τὸν βίον ὅλον ἢ τόν γε ἀπὸ νεότητος φιλόσοφον βεβιωκέναι, ἀλλὰ πολλοῖς τε ἄλλοις καὶ αὐτὸς ἑαυτῷ δῆλος γέγονας πόῤῥω φιλοσοφίας ὤν. πέφυρσαι οὖν, ὥστε τὴν μὲν δόξαν τὴν τοῦ φιλοσόφου κτήσασθαι οὐκέτι σοι ῥᾴδιον˙ ἀνταγωνίζεται δὲ καὶἡ ὑπόθεσις. εἴπερ οὖν ἀληθῶς ἑώρακας ποῦ κεῖται τὸ πρᾶγμα, τὸ μὲν τί δόξεις ἄφες, ἀρκέσθητι δέ, εἰ κἂν τὸ λοιπὸν τοῦ βίου ὅσον δήποτε, ‹ᾗ› ἡ [σὴ] φύσις σοῦ θέλει, βιώσῃ. κατανόησον οὖν τί θέλει, καὶ ἄλλο μηδέν σε περισπάτω˙ πεπείρασαι γὰρ περὶ πόσα πλανηθεὶς οὐδαμοῦ εǷρες τὸ εὖ ζῆν, οὐκ ἐν συλλογισμοῖς,οὐκ ἐν πλούτῳ, οὐκ ἐν δόξῃ, οὐκ ἐν ἀπολαύσει, οὐδαμοῦ. ποῦ οὖν ἐστιν; ἐν τῷ ποιεῖν ἃ ἐπιζητεῖ ἡ τοῦ ἀνθρώπου φύσις. πῶς οὖν ταῦτα ποιήσει; ἐὰν δόγματα ἔχῃ ἀφ ὧν αἱ ὁρμαὶ καὶ αἱπράξεις. τίνα δόγματα; τὰ περὶ ἀγαθῶν καὶ κακῶν, ὡς οὐδενὸς μὲν ἀγαθοῦ ὄντος ἀνθρώπῳ ὃ οὐχὶ ποιεῖ δίκαιον, σώφρονα, ἀνδρεῖον, ἐλεύθερον, οὐδενὸς δὲ κακοῦ ὃ οὐχὶ ποιεῖ τἀναντίατοῖς εἰρημένοις.

2. Καθ ἑκάστην πρᾶξιν ἐρώτα σεαυτόν˙ πῶς μοι αὕτη ἔχει; μὴ μετανοήσω ἐπ αὐτῇ; μικρὸν καὶ τέθνηκα καὶ πάντ ἐκ μέσου˙ τί πλέον ἐπιζητῶ, εἰ τὸ παρὸν ἔργον ζῴου νοεροῦ καὶ κοινωνικοῦ καὶ ἰσονόμου θεῷ;

3. Ἀλέξανδρος [δὲ] καὶ Γάιος καὶ Πομπήιος τί πρὸς Διογένη καὶ Ἡράκλειτον καὶ Σωκράτην; οἱ μὲν γὰρ εἶδον τὰ πράγματα καὶ τὰς αἰτίας καὶ τὰς ὕλας, καὶ τὰ ἡγεμονικὰ ἦν αὐτῶν αὐτά‹ρκη›, ἐκεί‹νων› δὲ ὅσων πρόνοια καὶ δουλεία πόσων.

4. Ὅτι οὐδὲν ἧττον τὰ αὐτὰ ποιήσουσι, κἂν σὺ διαῤῥαγῇς.

5. Τὸ πρῶτον μὴ ταράσσου˙ πάντα γὰρ κατὰ τὴν τοῦ ὅλου φύσιν, καὶ ὀλίγου χρόνου οὐδεὶς οὐδαμοῦ ἔσῃ, ὥσπερ οὐδὲ Ἁδριανὸς οὐδὲ Αὔγουστος. ἔπειτα ἀτενίσας εἰς τὸ πρᾶγμα ἴδε αὐτὸ καὶ συμμνημονεύσας ὅτι ἀγαθόν σε ἄνθρωπον εἶναι δεῖ καὶ τί τοῦ ἀνθρώπου ἡ φύσις ἀπαιτεῖ, πρᾶξον τοῦτο ἀμεταστρεπτὶ καὶ εἰπέ, ὡς δικαιότατον φαίνεταί σοι˙ μόνον εὐμενῶς καὶ αἰδημόνως καὶ ἀνυποκρίτως.

6. Ἡ τῶν ὅλων φύσις τοῦτο ἔργον ἔχει, τὰ ὧδε ὄντα ἐκεῖ μετατιθέναι, μεταβάλλειν, αἴρειν ἔνθεν καὶ ἐκεῖ φέρειν. πάντα τροπαί˙ ἀλλὰ ἴσαι καὶ αἱ ἀπονεμήσεις. πάντα συνήθη˙ οὐχ ὥστε φοβηθῆναι, μή τι καινόν.

7. Ἀρκεῖται πᾶσα φύσις ἑαυτῇ εὐοδούσῃ, φύσις δὲ λογικὴ εὐοδεῖ ἐν μὲν φαντασίαις μήτε ψευδεῖ μήτε ἀδήλῳ συγκατατιθεμένη,τὰς ὁρμὰς δὲ ἐπὶ τὰ κοινωνικὰ ἔργα μόνα ἀπευθύνουσα, τὰς ὀρέξεις δὲ καὶ τὰς ἐκκλίσεις τῶν ἐφ ἡμῖν μόνων περιποιουμένη, τὸ δὲ ὑπὸ τῆς κοινῆς φύσεως ἀπονεμόμενον πᾶν ἀσπαζομένη˙μέρος γὰρ αὐτῆς ἐστιν ὡς ἡ τοῦ φύλλου φύσις τῆς τοῦ φυτοῦφύσεως˙ πλὴν ὅτι ἐκεῖ μὲν ἡ τοῦ φύλλου φύσις μέρος ἐστὶ φύσεωςκαὶ ἀναισθήτου καὶ ἀλόγου καὶ ἐμποδίζεσθαι δυναμένης, ἡ δὲτοῦ ἀνθρώπου φύσις μέρος ἐστὶν ἀνεμποδίστου φύσεως καὶνοερᾶς καὶ δικαίας, εἴγε ἴσους καὶ κατ ἀξίαν τοὺς μερισμοὺς χρόνων, οὐσίας, αἰτίου, ἐνεργείας, συμβάσεως ἑκάστοις ποιεῖται. σκόπει δέ, μὴ εἰ τὸ ‹ἓν› πρὸς τὸ ἓν ἴσον εὑρήσεις ἐπὶ παντός,ἀλλὰ εἰ συλλήβδην τὰ πάντα τοῦδε πρὸς ἀθρόα τὰ τοῦ ἑτέρου.

8. Ἀναγινώσκειν οὐκ ἔξεστιν. ἀλλὰ ὕβριν ἀνείργειν ἔξεστιν˙ ἀλλὰ ἡδονῶν καὶ πόνων καθυπερτερεῖν ἔξεστιν˙ ἀλλὰ τοῦ δοξαρίου ὑπεράνω εἶναι ἔξεστιν˙ ἀλλὰ ἀναισθήτοις καὶ ἀχαρίστοις μὴθυμοῦσθαι, προσέτι κήδεσθαι αὐτῶν ἔξεστιν.

9. Μηκέτι σου μηδεὶς ἀκούσῃ καταμεμφομένου τὸν ἐν αὐλῇ βίον μηδὲ σὺ σεαυτοῦ.

10. Ἡ μετάνοιά ἐστιν ἐπίληψίς τις ἑαυτοῦ ὡς χρήσιμόν τι παρεικότος˙τὸ δὲ ἀγαθὸν χρήσιμόν τι δεῖ εἶναι καὶ ἐπιμελητέον αὐτοῦ τῷ καλῷ καὶ ἀγαθῷ ἀνδρί˙ οὐδεὶς δ ἂν καλὸς καὶ ἀγαθὸς ἀνὴρ μετανοήσειεν ἐπὶ τῷ ἡδονήν τινα παρεικέναι˙ οὔτε ἄρα χρήσιμον οὔτε ἀγαθὸν ἡδονή.

11. Τοῦτο τί ἐστιν αὐτὸ καθ αὑτὸ τῇ ἰδίᾳ κατασκευῇ, τί μὲν τὸ οὐσιῶδες αὐτοῦ καὶ ὑλικόν, τί δὲ τὸ αἰτιῶδες, τί δὲ ποιεῖ ἐν τῷ κόσμῳ, πόσον δὲ χρόνον ὑφίσταται;

12. Ὅταν ἐξ ὕπνου δυσχερῶς ἐγείρῃ, ἀναμιμνῄσκου ὅτι κατὰ τὴν κατασκευήν σου ἐστὶ καὶ κατὰ τὴν ἀνθρωπικὴν φύσιν τὸ πράξεις κοινωνικὰς ἀποδιδόναι, τὸ δὲ καθεύδειν κοινὸν καὶ τῶν ἀλόγωνζῴων˙ ὃ δὲ κατὰ φύσιν ἑκάστῳ, τοῦτο οἰκειότερον καὶ προσφυέστερον καὶ δὴ καὶ προσηνέστερον.

13. Διηνεκῶς καὶ ἐπὶ πάσης, εἰ οἷόν τε, φαντασίας φυσιολογεῖν, παθολογεῖν, διαλεκτικεύεσθαι.

14. Ὣι ἂν ἐντυγχάνῃς, εὐθὺς ἑαυτῷ πρόλεγε˙ οὗτος τίνα δόγματα ἔχει περὶ ἀγαθῶν καὶ κακῶν; εἰ γὰρ περὶ ἡδονῆς καὶ πόνου καὶτῶν ποιητικῶν ἑκατέρου καὶ περὶ δόξης, ἀδοξίας, θανάτου, ζωῆς, τοιάδε τινὰ δόγματα ἔχει, οὐδὲν θαυμαστὸν ἢ ξένον μοι δόξει,ἐὰν τάδε τινὰ ποιῇ, καὶ μεμνήσομαι ὅτι ἀναγκάζεται οὕτως ποιεῖν.

15. Μέμνησο ὅτι, ὥσπερ αἰσχρόν ἐστι ξενίζεσθαι, εἰ ἡ συκῆ σῦκα φέρει, οὕτως, εἰ ὁ κόσμος τάδε τινὰ φέρει ὧν ἐστι φορός˙ καὶ ἰατρῷ δὲ καὶ κυβερνήτῃ αἰσχρὸν ξενίζεσθαι, εἰ πεπύρεχεν οὗτος ἢ εἰ ἀντίπνοια γέγονεν.

16. Μέμνησο ὅτι καὶ τὸ μετατίθεσθαι καὶ ἕπεσθαι τῷ διορθοῦντι ὁμοίως ἐλεύθερόν ἐστι˙ σὴ γὰρ ἐνέργεια, κατὰ τὴν σὴν ὁρμὴνκαὶ κρίσιν καὶ δὴ καὶ κατὰ νοῦν τὸν σὸν περαινομένη.

17. Εἰ μὲν ἐπὶ σοί, τί αὐτὸ ποιεῖς; εἰ δὲ ἐπ ἄλλῳ, τίνι μέμφῃ; ταῖς ἀτόμοις ἢ τοῖς θεοῖς; ἀμφότερα μανιώδη. οὐδενὶ μεμπτέον. εἰ μὲν γὰρ δύνασαι, διόρθωσον˙ εἰ δὲ τοῦτο μὴ δύνασαι, τό γε πρᾶγμα αὐτό˙ εἰ δὲ μηδὲ τοῦτο, πρὸς τί ἔτι σοι φέρει τὸ μέμψασθαι; εἰκῇ γὰρ οὐδὲν ποιητέον.

18. Ἔξω τοῦ κόσμου τὸ ἀποθανὸν οὐ πίπτει. εἰ ὧδε μένει καὶ μεταβάλλει, ὧδε καὶ διαλύεται εἰς τὰ ‹ἀ›ίδια, ἃ στοιχεῖά ἐστι τοῦ κόσμου καὶ σά. καὶ αὐτὰ δὲ μεταβάλλει καὶ οὐ γογγύζει.

19. Ἕκαστον πρός τι γέγονεν, ἵππος, ἄμπελος. τί θαυμάζεις; καὶ ὁ Ἥλιος ἐρεῖ˙ πρός τι ἔργον γέγονα, καὶ οἱ λοιποὶ θεοί. σὺ οὖν πρὸς τί; τὸ ἥδεσθαι; ἴδε εἰ ἀνέχεται ἡ ἔννοια.

20. Ἡ φύσις ἐστόχασται ἑκάστου οὐδέν τι ἔλασσον τῆς ἀπολήξεως ἢ τῆς ἀρχῆς τε καὶ διεξαγωγῆς, ὡς ὁ ἀναβάλλων τὴν σφαῖραν˙ τί οὖν ἀγαθὸν τῷ σφαιρίῳ ἀναφερομένῳ ἢ κακὸν καταφερομένῳ ἢκαὶ πεπτωκότι; τί δὲ ἀγαθὸν τῇ πομφόλυγι συνεστώσῃ ἢ κακὸν διαλυθείσῃ; τὰ ὅμοια δὲ καὶ ἐπὶ λύχνου.

21. Ἔκστρεψον καὶ θέασαι οἷόν ἐστι, γηρᾶσαν δὲ οἷον γίνεται, νοσῆσαν δέ, † πορνεῦσαν. Βραχύβιον καὶ ὁ ἐπαινῶν καὶ ὁ ἐπαινούμενος καὶ ὁ μνημονεύων καὶ ὁ μνημονευόμενος. προσέτι δὲ καὶ ἐν γωνίᾳ τούτου τοῦ κλίματος καὶ οὐδὲ ἐνταῦθα πάντες συμφωνοῦσι καὶ οὐδὲ αὐτός τις ἑαυτῷ˙ καὶ ὅλη δὲ ἡ γῆ στιγμή.

22. Πρόσεχε τῷ ὑποκειμένῳ ἢ τῇ ἐνεργείᾳ ἢ τῷ δόγματι ἢ τῷ σημαινομένῳ. Δικαίως ταῦτα πάσχεις˙ μᾶλλον δὴ θέλεις ἀγαθὸς αὔριον γενέσθαι ἢ σήμερον εἶναι.

23. Πράσσω τι; πράσσω ἐπ ἀνθρώπων εὐποιίαν ἀναφέρων. συμβαίνει τί μοι; δέχομαι ἐπὶ τοὺς θεοὺς ἀναφέρων καὶ τὴν πάντων πηγήν, ἀφ ἧς πάντα τὰ γινόμενα συμμηρύεται.

24. Ὁποῖόν σοι φαίνεται τὸ λούεσθαι, - ἔλαιον, ἱδρώς, ῥύπος, ὕδωρ γλοιῶδες, πάντα σικχαντά, - τοιοῦτον πᾶν μέρος τοῦ βίου καὶ πᾶν ὑποκείμενον.

25. Λούκιλλα Οὐῆρον, εἶτα Λούκιλλα˙ Σέκουνδα Μάξιμον, εἶτα Σέκουνδα˙ Ἐπιτύγχανος Διότιμον, εἶτα Ἐπιτύγχανος˙ Φαυστῖναν Ἀντωνῖνος, εἶτα Ἀντωνῖνος. τοιαῦτα πάντα˙ Κέλερ Ἁδριανόν, εἶτα Κέλερ. οἱ δὲ δριμεῖς ἐκεῖνοι ἢ προγνωστικοὶ ἢ τετυφωμένοι ποῦ; οἷον, δριμεῖς μὲν Χάραξ καὶ Δημήτριος [ὁ Πλατωνικὸς] καὶ Εὐδαίμων καὶ εἴ τις τοιοῦτος. πάντα ἐφήμερα, τεθνηκότα πάλαι˙ ἔνιοι μὲν οὐδὲ ἐπ ὀλίγον μνημονευθέντες, οἱ δὲ εἰς μύθους μεταβαλόντες, οἱ δὲ ἤδη καὶ ἐκ μύθων ἐξίτηλοι. τούτων οὖν μεμνῆσθαι, ὅτι δεήσει ἤτοι σκεδασθῆναι τὸ συγκριμάτιόν σου ἢσβεσθῆναι τὸ πνευμάτιον ἢ μεταστῆναι καὶ ἀλλαχοῦ καταταχθῆναι.

26. Εὐφροσύνη ἀνθρώπου ποιεῖν τὰ ἴδια ἀνθρώπου, ἴδιον δὲ ἀνθρώπου εὔνοια πρὸς τὸ ὁμόφυλον, ὑπερόρασις τῶν αἰσθητικῶν κινήσεων, διάκρισις τῶν πιθανῶν φαντασιῶν, ἐπιθεώρησις τῆς τῶν ὅλων φύσεως καὶ τῶν κατ αὐτὴν γινομένων.

27. Τρεῖς σχέσεις˙ ἡ μὲν πρὸς [τὸ αἴτιον] τὸ περικείμενον, ἡ δὲπρὸς τὴν θείαν αἰτίαν, ἀφ ἧς συμβαίνει πᾶσι πάντα, ἡ δὲ πρὸς τοὺς συμβιοῦντας.

28. Ὁ πόνος ἤτοι τῷ σώματι κακόν˙ οὐκοῦν ἀποφαινέσθω˙ ἢ τῇψυχῇ˙ ἀλλ ἔξεστιν αὐτῇ τὴν ἰδίαν αἰθρίαν καὶ γαλήνην διαφυλάσσειν καὶ μὴ ὑπολαμβάνειν ὅτι κακόν. πᾶσα γὰρ κρίσις καὶ ὁρμὴ καὶ ὄρεξις καὶ ἔκκλισις ἔνδον καὶ οὐδὲν κακὸν ὧδε ἀναβαίνει.

29. Ἐξάλειφε τὰς φαντασίας συνεχῶς ἑαυτῷ λέγων˙ νῦν ἐπ ἐμοί ἐστιν ἵνα ἐν ταύτῃ τῇ ψυχῇ μηδεμία πονηρία ᾖ μηδὲ ἐπιθυμία μηδὲ ὅλως ταραχή τις, ἀλλὰ βλέπων πάντα ὁποῖά ἐστι χρῶμαι ἑκάστῳ κατ ἀξίαν. μέμνησο ταύτης τῆς ἐξουσίας κατὰ φύσιν.

30. Λαλεῖν καὶ ἐν συγκλήτῳ καὶ πρὸς πάνθ ὁντινοῦν κοσμίως, μὴ περιτράνως˙ ὑγιεῖ λόγῳ χρῆσθαι.

31. Αὐλὴ Αὐγούστου, γυνή, θυγάτηρ, ἔγγονοι, πρόγονοι, ἀδελφή, Ἀγρίππας, συγγενεῖς, οἰκεῖοι, φίλοι, Ἄρειος, Μαικήνας, ἰατροί, θύται˙ ὅλης αὐλῆς θάνατος. εἶτα ἔπιθι τὰς ἄλλας.. μὴ καθ ἑνὸς ἀνθρώπου θάνατον, οἷον Πομπηίων. κἀκεῖνο δὲ τὸ ἐπιγραφόμενον τοῖς μνήμασιν˙ ἔσχατος τοῦ ἰδίου γένους. ἐπιλογίζεσθαι πόσα ἐσπάσθησαν οἱ πρὸ αὐτῶν, ἵνα διάδοχόντινα καταλίπωσιν, εἶτα ἀνάγκη ἔσχατόν τινα γενέσθαι˙ πάλιν ὧδε ὅλου γένους θάνατον.

32. Συντιθέναι δεῖ τὸν βίον κατὰ μίαν πρᾶξιν καὶ εἰ ἑκάστη τὸ ἑαυτῆς ἀπέχει ὡς οἷόν τε, ἀρκεῖσθαι˙ ἵνα δὲ τὸ ἑαυτῆς ἀπέχῃ, οὐδὲ εἷς σε κωλῦσαι δύναται˙ “ἀλλ ‹ἐν›στήσεταί τι ἔξωθεν˙” οὐδὲν εἴς γε τὸ δικαίως καὶ σωφρόνως καὶ εὐλογίστως˙ “ἄλλο δέ τι ἴσως ἐνεργητικὸν κωλυθήσεται˙” ἀλλὰ τῇ πρὸς αὐτὸ τὸ κώλυμα εὐαρεστήσει καὶ τῇ ἐπὶ τὸ διδόμενον εὐγνώμονι μεταβάσει εὐθὺς ἄλλη πρᾶξις ἀντικαθίσταται ἐναρμόσουσα εἰς τὴν σύνθεσιν, περὶ ἧς ὁ λόγος.

33. Ἀτύφως μὲν λαβεῖν, εὐλύτως δὲ ἀφεῖναι.

34. Εἴ ποτε εἶδες χεῖρα ἀποκεκομμένην ἢ πόδα ἢ κεφαλὴν ἀποτετμημένην, χωρίς πού ποτε ἀπὸ τοῦ λοιποῦ σώματος κειμένην˙ τοιοῦτον ἑαυτὸν ποιεῖ, ὅσον ἐφ ἑαυτῷ, ὁ μὴ θέλων τὸ συμβαῖνον καὶ ἀποσχίζων ἑαυτὸν ἢ ὁ ἀκοινώνητόν τι πράσσων. ἀπέῤῥιψαί πού ποτε ἀπὸ τῆς κατὰ φύσιν ἑνώσεως˙ ἐπεφύκεις γὰρ μέρος˙ νῦν δὲ σεαυτὸν ἀπέκοψας. ἀλλ ὧδε κομψὸν ἐκεῖνο, ὅτι ἔξεστί σοιπάλιν ἑνῶσαι σεαυτόν. τοῦτο ἄλλῳ μέρει οὐδενὶ θεὸς ἐπέτρεψεν, χωρισθέντι καὶ διακοπέντι πάλιν συνελθεῖν, ἀλλὰ σκέψαι τὴν χρηστότητα ᾗ τετίμηκε τὸν ἄνθρωπον˙ καὶ γὰρ ἵνα τὴν ἀρχὴν μὴ ἀποῤῥαγῇ ἀπὸ τοῦ ὅλου ἐπ αὐτῷ ἐποίησε, καὶ ἀποῤῥαγέντι πάλιν ἐπανελθεῖν καὶ συμφῦναι καὶ τὴν τοῦ μέρους τάξιν ἀπολαβεῖν [ἐποίησεν].

35. Ὥσπερ τὰς ἄλλας δυνάμεις ἑκάστῳ τῶν λογικῶν † σχεδὸν ὅσον ἡ τῶν ὅλων φύσις, οὕτως καὶ ταύτην παῤ αὐτῆς εἰλήφαμεν. ὃν τρόπον γὰρ ἐκείνη πᾶν τὸ ἐνιστάμενον καὶ ἀντιβαῖνον ἐπιπεριτρέπει καὶ κατατάσσει εἰς τὴν εἱμαρμένην καὶ μέρος ἑαυτῆς ποιεῖ, οὕτως καὶ τὸ λογικὸν ζῷον δύναται πᾶν κώλυμα ὕλην ἑαυτοῦ ποιεῖν καὶ χρῆσθαι αὐτῷ, ἐφ οἷον ἂν καὶ ὥρμησεν.

36. Μή σε συγχείτω ἡ τοῦ ὅλου βίου φαντασία, μὴ συμπερινόει ἐπίπονα οἷα καὶ ὅσα πιθανὸν ἐπιγεγενῆσθαι ‹καὶ ἐπιγενήσεσθαι›ἀλλὰ καθ ἕκαστον τῶν παρόντων ἐπερώτα σεαυτόν˙ τί τοῦ ἔργουτὸ ἀφόρητον καὶ ἀνύποιστον; αἰσχυνθήσῃ γὰρ ὁμολογῆσαι.ἔπειτα ἀναμίμνῃσκε σεαυτὸν ὅτι οὔτε τὸ μέλλον οὔτε τὸ παρῳχηκὸς βαρεῖ σε, ἀλλ ἀεὶ τὸ παρόν, τοῦτο δὲ κατασμικρύνεται,ἐὰν αὐτὸ μόνον περιορίσῃς καὶ ἀπελέγχῃς τὴν διάνοιαν, εἰ πρὸς τοῦτο ψιλὸν ἀντέχειν μὴ δύναται.

37. Μήτι νῦν παρακάθηται τῇ [τοῦ] Οὐήρου σορῷ Πάνθεια ἢ Πέργαμος; τί δέ, τῇ Ἁδριανοῦ Χαβρίας ἢ Διότιμος; γελοῖον. τί δέ, εἰ παρεκάθηντο, ἔμελλον αἰσθάνεσθαι; τί δέ, εἰ ᾐσθάνοντο, ἔμελλον ἥδεσθαι; τί δέ, εἰ ἥδοντο, ἔμελλον οǷτοι ἀθάνατοι εἶναι; οὐχὶ καὶ τούτους πρῶτον μὲν γραίας καὶ γέροντας γενέσθαι οὕτως εἵμαρτο, εἶτα ἀποθανεῖν; τί οὖν ὕστερον ἔμελλον ἐκεῖνοι ποιεῖντούτων ἀποθανόντων; γράσος πᾶν τοῦτο καὶ λύθρον ἐν θυλάκῳ.

38. Εἰ δύνασαι ὀξὺ βλέπειν, βλέπε κρίνων ‹κρίμασι›, φησί, σοφωτάτοις.

39. Δικαιοσύνης κατεξαναστατικὴν ἀρετὴν οὐχ ὁρῶ ἐν τῇ τοῦλογικοῦ ζῴου κατασκευῇ, ἡδονῆς δὲ ὁρῶ τὴν ἐγκράτειαν.

40. Ἐὰν ἀφέλῃς τὴν σὴν ὑπόληψιν περὶ τοῦ λυπεῖν σε δοκοῦντος, αὐτὸς ἐν τῷ ἀσφαλεστάτῳ ἕστηκας. “τίς αὐτός;” ὁ λόγος. “ἀλλ οὐκ εἰμὶ λόγος.” ἔστω. οὐκοῦν ὁ μὲν λόγος αὐτὸς ἑαυτὸν μὴλυπείτω, εἰ δέ τι ἄλλο σοι κακῶς ἔχει, ὑπολαβέτω αὐτὸ περὶ αὑτοῦ.

41. Ἐμποδισμὸς αἰσθήσεως κακὸν ζωτικῆς φύσεως. ἐμποδισμὸς ὁρμῆς ὁμοίως κακὸν ζωτικῆς φύσεως. ἔστι δέ τι ἄλλο ὁμοίως ἐμποδιστικὸν καὶ κακὸν τῆς φυτικῆς κατασκευῆς. οὕτως τοί νυν ἐμποδισμὸς νοῦ κακὸν νοερᾶς φύσεως. πάντα δὴ ταῦτα ἐπὶ σεαυτὸν μετάφερε. πόνος, ἡδονὴ ἅπτεταί σου; ὄψεται ἡ αἴσθησις. ὁρμήσαντι ἔνστημα ἐγένετο; εἰ μὲν ἀνυπεξαιρέτως ὥρμας, ἤδη ὡς λογικοῦ κακόν, εἰ δὲ τὸ κοινὸν λαμβάνεις, οὔπω βέβλαψαι οὐδὲ ἐμπεπόδισαι. τὰ μέντοι τοῦ νοῦ ἴδια οὐδεὶς ἄλλος εἴωθεν ἐμποδίζειν˙ τούτου γὰρ οὐ πῦρ, οὐ σίδηρος, οὐ τύραννος, οὐβλασφημία, οὐχ ὁτιοῦν ἅπτεται, ὅταν γένηται “σφαῖρος κυκλοτερὴςμονί”.

42. Οὐκ εἰμὶ ἄξιος ἐμαυτὸν λυπεῖν˙ οὐδὲ γὰρ ἄλλον πώποτε ἑκὼν ἐλύπησα.

43. Εὐφραίνει ἄλλον ἄλλο˙ ἐμὲ δέ, ἐὰν ὑγιὲς ἔχω τὸ ἡγεμονικόν, μὴ ἀποστρεφόμενον μήτε ἄνθρωπόν τινα μήτε ‹τι› τῶν ἀνθρώποις συμβαινόντων, ἀλλὰ πᾶν εὐμενέσιν ὀφθαλμοῖς ὁρῶν τε καὶ δεχόμενον καὶ χρώμενον ἑκάστῳ κατ ἀξίαν.

44. Τοῦτον ἰδοὺ τὸν χρόνον σεαυτῷ χάρισαι. οἱ τὴν ὑστεροφημίαν μᾶλλον διώκοντες οὐ λογίζονται ὅτι ἄλλοι τοιοῦτοι μέλλουσιν ἐκεῖνοι εἶναι, οἷοί εἰσιν οǷτοι οὓς βαροῦνται˙ κἀκεῖνοι δὲ θνητοί. τί δὲ ὅλως πρὸς σέ, ἂν ἐκεῖνοι φωναῖς τοιαύταις ἀπηχῶσιν ἢ ὑπόληψιν τοιαύτην περὶ σοῦ ἔχωσιν;

45. Ἂρόν με καὶ βάλε, ὅπου θέλεις. ἐκεῖ γὰρ ἕξω τὸν ἐμὸν δαίμον αἵλεων, τουτέστιν ἀρκούμενον, εἰ ἔχοι καὶ ἐνεργοίη κατὰ τὸ ἑξῆς τῇ ἰδίᾳ κατασκευῇ. Ἂρα τοῦτο ἄξιον, ἵνα δἰ αὐτὸ κακῶς μοι ἔχῃ ἡ ψυχὴ καὶ χείρων ἑαυτῆς ᾖ, ταπεινουμένη, ὀρεγομένη, συνδουμένη, πτυρομένη; καὶ τί εὑρήσεις τούτου ἄξιον;

46. Ἀνθρώπῳ οὐδενὶ συμβαίνειν τι δύναται ὃ οὐκ ἔστιν ἀνθρωπικὸν σύμπτωμα, οὐδὲ βοῒ ὃ οὐκ ἔστι βοϊκόν, οὐδὲ ἀμπέλῳ ὃ οὐκ ἔστιν ἀμπελικόν, οὐδὲ λίθῳ ὃ οὐκ ἔστι λίθου ἴδιον. εἰ οὖν ἑκάστῳ συμβαίνει ὃ καὶ εἴωθε καὶ πέφυκε, τί ἂν δυσχεραίνοις; οὐ γὰρ ἀφόρητόν σοι ἔφερεν ἡ κοινὴ φύσις.

47. Εἰ μὲν διά τι τῶν ἐκτὸς λυπῇ, οὐκ ἐκεῖνό σοι ἐνοχλεῖ, ἀλλὰ τὸ σὸν περὶ αὐτοῦ κρῖμα, τοῦτο δὲ ἤδη ἐξαλεῖψαι ἐπὶ σοί ἐστιν. εἰδὲ λυπεῖ σέ τι τῶν ἐν τῇ σῇ διαθέσει, τίς ὁ κωλύων διορθῶσαι τὸ δόγμα; ὁμοίως δὲ καὶ εἰ λυπῇ ὅτι οὐχὶ τόδε τι ἐνεργεῖς ὑγιές σοιφαινόμενον, τί οὐχὶ μᾶλλον ἐνεργεῖς ἢ λυπῇ; “ἀλλὰ ἰσχυρότερόν τι ἐνίσταται.” μὴ οὖν λυποῦ˙ οὐ γὰρ παρὰ σὲ ἡ αἰτία τοῦ μὴ ἐνεργεῖσθαι. “ἀλλὰ οὐκ ἄξιον ζῆν μὴ ἐνεργουμένου τούτου.” ἄπιθι οὖν ἐκ τοῦ ζῆν εὐμενής, ᾗ καὶ ὁ ἐνεργῶν ἀποθνῄσκει, ἅμα ἵλεως τοῖς ἐνισταμένοις.

48. Μέμνησο ὅτι ἀκαταμάχητον γίνεται τὸ ἡγεμονικόν, ὅταν εἰς ἑαυτὸ συστραφὲν ἀρκεσθῇ ἑαυτῷ, μὴ ποιοῦν τι ὃ μὴ θέλει, κἂν ἀλόγως παρατάξηται. τί οὖν, ὅταν καὶ μετὰ λόγου καὶ περιεσκεμμένως κρίνῃ περί τινος; διὰ τοῦτο ἀκρόπολίς ἐστιν ἡ ἐλευθέρα παθῶν διάνοια˙ οὐδὲν γὰρ ὀχυρώτερον ἔχει ἄνθρωπος, ἐφ ὃ καταφυγὼν ἀνάλωτος λοιπὸν ἂν εἴη. ὁ μὲν οὖν μὴ ἑωρακὼς τοῦτο ἀμαθής, ὁ δὲ ἑωρακὼς καὶ μὴ καταφεύγων ἀτυχής.

49. Μηδὲν πλέον ἑαυτῷ λέγε ὧν αἱ προηγούμεναι φαντασίαι ἀναγγέλλουσιν. ἤγγελται ὅτι ὁ δεῖνά σε κακῶς λέγει. ἤγγελται τοῦτο˙ τὸ δέ, ὅτι βέβλαψαι, οὐκ ἤγγελται. βλέπω ὅτι νοσεῖ τὸ παιδίον. βλέπω˙ ὅτι δὲ κινδυνεύει, οὐ βλέπω. οὕτως οὖν μένε ἀεὶ ἐπὶ τῶν πρώτων φαντασιῶν καὶ μηδὲν αὐτὸς ἔνδοθεν ἐπίλεγε καὶ οὐδέν σοι γίνεται˙ μᾶλλον δὲ ἐπίλεγε ὡς γνωρίζων ἕκαστα τῶν ἐν τῷ κόσμῳ συμβαινόντων.

50. Σίκυος πικρός; ἄφες. βάτοι ἐν τῇ ὁδῷ; ἔκκλινον. ἀρκεῖ, μὴπροσεπείπῃς˙ τί δὲ καὶ ἐγένετο ταῦτα ἐν τῷ κόσμῳ; ἐπεὶ καταγελασθήσῃ ὑπὸ ἀνθρώπου φυσιολόγου, ὡς ἂν καὶ ὑπὸ τέκτονοςκαὶ σκυτέως γελασθείης καταγινώσκων ὅτι ἐν τῷ ἐργαστηρίῳ ξέσματα καὶ περιτμήματα τῶν κατασκευαζομένων ὁρᾷς. καί τοι ἐκεῖνοί γε ἔχουσι ποῦ αὐτὰ ῥίψωσιν, ἡ δὲ τῶν ὅλων φύσις ἔξωοὐδὲν ἔχει, ἀλλὰ τὸ θαυμαστὸν τῆς τέχνης ταύτης ἐστὶν ὅτι περιορίσασα ἑαυτὴν πᾶν τὸ ἔνδον διαφθείρεσθαι καὶ γηράσκειν καὶ ἄχρηστον εἶναι δοκοῦν εἰς ἑαυτὴν μεταβάλλει, καὶ ὅτι πάλιν ἄλλα νεαρὰ ἐκ τούτων αὐτῶν ποιεῖ, ἵνα μήτε οὐσίας ἔξωθεν χρῄζῃ μήτε ὅπου ἐκβάλῃ τὰ σαπρότερα προσδέηται. ἀρκεῖται οὖν καὶ χώρᾳ τῇ ἑαυτῆς καὶ ὕλῃ τῇ ἑαυτῆς καὶ τέχνῃ τῇ ἰδίᾳ.

51. Μήτε ἐν ταῖς πράξεσιν ἐπισύρειν μήτε ἐν ταῖς ὁμιλίαις φύρειν μήτε ἐν ταῖς φαντασίαις ἀλᾶσθαι μήτε τῇ ψυχῇ καθάπαξ συνέλκεσθαι ἢ ἐκθόρνυσθαι μήτε ἐν τῷ βίῳ ἀσχολεῖσθαι. “Κτείνουσι, κρεανομοῦσι, κατάραις ἐλαύνουσι.” τί ταῦτα πρὸςτὸ τὴν διάνοιαν μένειν καθαράν, φρενήρη, σώφρονα, δικαίαν; οἷον εἴ τις παραστὰς πηγῇ διαυγεῖ καὶ γλυκείᾳ βλασφημοίη αὐτήν, ἡ δὲ οὐ παύεται πότιμον ἀναβλύουσα˙ κἂν πηλὸν ἐμβάλῃ, κἂνκοπρίαν, τάχιστα διασκεδάσει αὐτὰ καὶ ἐκκλύσει καὶ οὐδαμῶς βαφήσεται. πῶς οὖν πηγὴν ἀέναον ἕξεις [καὶ] μὴ φρέαρ; ἂν φυλάσσῃς σεαυτὸν πάσης ὥρας εἰς ἐλευθερίαν μετὰ τοῦ εὐμενῶς καὶ ἁπλῶς καὶ αἰδημόνως.

52. Ὁ μὲν μὴ εἰδὼς ὅτι ἔστι κόσμος, οὐκ οἶδεν ὅπου ἐστίν. ὁ δὲ μὴεἰδὼς πρὸς ὅ τι πέφυκεν ‹κόσμος›, οὐκ οἶδεν ὅστις ἐστὶν οὐδὲ τί ἐστι κόσμος. ὁ δὲ ἕν τι τούτων ἀπολιπὼν οὐδ ἂν πρὸς ὅ τι αὐτὸς πέφυκεν εἴποι. τίς οὖν φαίνεταί σοι ὁ τὸν τῶν κροτούντων ἔπαινον φεύγων ἢ διώκων, οἳ οὔθ ὅπου εἰσὶν οὔτε οἵ τινές εἰσι γινώσκουσιν;

53. Ἐπαινεῖσθαι θέλεις ὑπὸ ἀνθρώπου τρὶς τῆς ὥρας ἑαυτῷ καταρωμένου; ἀρέσκειν θέλεις ἀνθρώπῳ ὃς οὐκ ἀρέσκει ἑαυτῷ; ἀρέσκει ἑαυτῷ ὁ μετανοῶν ἐφ ἅπασι σχεδὸν οἷς πράσσει;

54. Μηκέτι μόνον συμπνεῖν τῷ περιέχοντι ἀέρι, ἀλλ ἤδη καὶσυμφρονεῖν τῷ περιέχοντι πάντα νοερῷ. οὐ γὰρ ἧττον ἡ νοερὰ δύναμις πάντῃ κέχυται καὶ διαπεφοίτηκε τῷ σπάσαι βουλομένῳ ἤπερ ἡ ἀερώδης τῷ ἀναπνεῦσαι δυναμένῳ.

55. Γενικῶς μὲν ἡ κακία οὐδὲν βλάπτει τὸν κόσμον, ἡ δὲ κατὰμέρος οὐδὲν βλάπτει τὸν ἕτερον, μόνῳ δὲ βλαβερά ἐστι τούτῳ ᾧ ἐπιτέτραπται καὶ ἀπηλλάχθαι αὐτῆς, ὁπόταν πρῶτον αὐτὸς θελήσῃ.

56. Τῷ ἐμῷ προαιρετικῷ τὸ τοῦ πλησίον προαιρετικὸν ἐπ ίσης ἀδιάφορόν ἐστιν, ὡς καὶ τὸ πνευμάτιον αὐτοῦ καὶ τὸ σαρκίδιον. καὶ γὰρ εἰ ὅτι μάλιστα ἀλλήλων ἕνεκεν γεγόναμεν, ὅμως τὰ ἡγεμονικὰ ἡμῶν ἕκαστον τὴν ἰδίαν κυρίαν ἔχει˙ ἐπεί τοι ἔμελλεν ἡ τοῦ πλησίον κακία ἐμοῦ κακὸν εἶναι, ὅπερ οὐκ ἔδοξε τῷ θεῷ, ἵνα μὴ ἐπ ἄλλῳ ᾖ τὸ ἐμὲ ἀτυχεῖν.

57. Ὁ ἥλιος κατακεχύσθαι δοκεῖ καὶ πάντῃ γε κέχυται, οὐ μὴν ἐκκέχυται. ἡ γὰρ χύσις αὕτη τάσις ἐστίν˙ ἀκτῖνες γοῦν αἱ αὐγαὶ αὐτοῦ ἀπὸ τοῦ ἐκτείνεσθαι λέγονται. ὁποῖον δέ τι ἐστὶν ἀκτίς, ἴδοις ἄν, εἰ διά τινος στενοῦ εἰς ἐσκιασμένον οἶκον τὸ ἀφ ἡλίου φῶς εἰσδυόμενον θεάσαιο˙ τείνεται γὰρ κατ εὐθὺ καὶ ὥσπερ διερείδεται πρὸς τὸ στερέμνιον ὅ τι ἂν ἀπαντήσῃ διεῖργον τὸν ἐπέκεινα ἀέρα, ἐνταῦθα δὲ ἔστη καὶ οὐ κατώλισθεν οὐδὲ ἔπεσεν. τοιαύτην οὖν τὴν χύσιν καὶ διάχυσιν τῆς διανοίας εἶναι χρή, μηδαμῶς ἔκχυσιν, ἀλλὰ τάσιν, καὶ πρὸς τὰ ἀπαντῶντα κωλύματα μὴ βίαιον μηδὲ ῥαγδαίαν τὴν ἐπέρεισιν ποιεῖσθαι μηδὲ μὴν καταπίπτειν, ἀλλὰ ἵστασθαι καὶ ἐπιλάμπειν τὸ δεχόμενον˙ αὐτὸ γὰρ ἑαυτὸ στερήσει τῆς αὐγῆς τὸ μὴ παραπέμπον αὐτήν.

58. Ὁ τὸν θάνατον φοβούμενος ἤτοι ἀναισθησίαν φοβεῖται ἢ αἴσθησιν ἑτεροίαν. ἀλλ εἴτε οὐκέτι αἴσθησιν ‹ἕξεις› οὐδὲ κακοῦτινος αἰσθήσῃ˙ εἴτε ἀλλοιοτέραν αἴσθησιν κτήσῃ, ἀλλοῖον ζῷον ἔσῃ καὶ τοῦ ζῆν οὐ παύσῃ.

59. Οἱ ἄνθρωποι γεγόνασιν ἀλλήλων ἕνεκεν˙ ἢ δίδασκε οὖν ἢ φέρε.

60. Ἄλλως βέλος, ἄλλως νοῦς φέρεται. ὁ μέντοι νοῦς καὶ ὅταν εὐλαβῆται καὶ ὅταν περὶ τὴν σκέψιν στρέφηται, φέρεται κατεὐθὺ οὐδὲν ἧττον καὶ ἐπὶ τὸ προκείμενον.

61. Εἰσιέναι εἰς τὸ ἡγεμονικὸν ἑκάστου, παρέχειν δὲ καὶ ἑτέρῳ παντὶ εἰσιέναι εἰς τὸ ἑαυτοῦ ἡγεμονικόν.

### Book IX
1. Ὁ ἀδικῶν ἀσεβεῖ˙ τῆς γὰρ τῶν ὅλων φύσεως κατεσκευακυίαςτὰ λογικὰ ζῷα ἕνεκεν ἀλλήλων, ὥστε ὠφελεῖν μὲν ἄλληλα κατἀξίαν βλάπτειν δὲ μηδαμῶς, ὁ τὸ βούλημα ταύτης παραβαίνωνἀσεβεῖ δηλονότι εἰς τὴν πρεσβυτάτην τῶν θεῶν. ἡ γὰρ τῶν ὅλωνφύσις ὄντων ἐστὶ φύσις˙ τὰ δέ γε ὄντα πρὸς τὰ ὑπάρχοντα πάνταοἰκείως ἔχει. ἔτι δὲ καὶ ὁ ψευδόμενος [δὲ] ἀσεβεῖ περὶ τὴν αὐτὴνθεόν˙ καὶ Ἀλήθεια αὕτη ὀνομάζεται καὶ τῶν ἀληθῶν ἁπάντωνπρώτη αἰτία ἐστιν. ὁ μὲν οὖν ἑκὼν ψευδόμενος ἀσεβεῖ, καθόσονἐξαπατῶν ἀδικεῖ˙ ὁ δὲ ἄκων, καθόσον διαφωνεῖ τῇ τῶν ὅλωνφύσει καὶ καθόσον ἀκοσμεῖ μαχόμενος τῇ τοῦ κόσμου φύσει˙μάχεται γὰρ ὁ ἐπὶ τἀναντία τοῖς ἀληθέσι φερόμενος παῤ ἑαυτόν˙ἀφορμὰς γὰρ προειλήφει παρὰ τῆς φύσεως, ὧν ἀμελήσας οὐχοἷός τέ ἐστι νῦν διακρίνειν τὰ ψευδῆ ἀπὸ τῶν ἀληθῶν. καὶ μὴνκαὶ ὁ τὰς ἡδονὰς ὡς ἀγαθὰ διώκων, τοὺς δὲ πόνους ὡς κακὰφεύγων ἀσεβεῖ˙ ἀνάγκη γὰρ τὸν τοιοῦτον μέμφεσθαι πολλάκιςτῇ κοινῇ φύσει ὡς παῤ ἀξίαν τι ἀπονεμούσῃ τοῖς φαύλοις καὶτοῖς σπουδαίοις, διὰ τὸ πολλάκις τοὺς μὲν φαύλους ἐν ἡδοναῖςεἶναι καὶ τὰ ποιητικὰ τούτων κτᾶσθαι, τοὺς δὲ σπουδαίους πόνῳκαὶ τοῖς ποιητικοῖς τούτου περιπίπτειν. ἔτι δὲ ὁ φοβούμενος τοὺςπόνους φοβηθήσεταί ποτε καὶ τῶν ἐσομένων τι ἐν τῷ κόσμῳ,τοῦτο δὲ ἤδη ἀσεβές˙ ὅ τε διώκων τὰς ἡδονὰς οὐκ ἀφέξεται τοῦἀδικεῖν, τοῦτο δὲ ἐναργῶς ἀσεβές˙ χρὴ δὲ πρὸς ἃ ἡ κοινὴ φύσιςἐπίσης ἔχει (οὐ γὰρ ἀμφότερα ἂν ἐποίει, εἰ μὴ πρὸς ἀμφότεραἐπίσης εἶχε), πρὸς ταῦτα καὶ τοὺς τῇ φύσει βουλομένους ἕπεσθαι,ὁμογνώμονας ὄντας, ἐπίσης διακεῖσθαι˙ ὅστις οὖν πρὸς πόνονκαὶ ἡδονὴν ἢ θάνατον καὶ ζωὴν ἢ δόξαν καὶ ἀδοξίαν, οἷς ἐπίσηςἡ τῶν ὅλων φύσις χρῆται, αὐτὸς οὐκ ἐπίσης ἔχει, δῆλον ὡς ἀσεβεῖ.λέγω δὲ τὸ χρῆσθαι τούτοις ἐπίσης τὴν κοινὴν φύσιν ἀντὶ τοῦκατὰ τὸ ἑξῆς συμβαίνειν ἐπίσης τοῖς γινομένοις καὶ ἐπιγινομένοιςὁρμῇ τινι ἀρχαίᾳ τῆς προνοίας, καθ ἣν ἀπό τινος ἀρχῆς ὥρμησενἐπὶ τήνδε τὴν διακόσμησιν, συλλαβοῦσά τινας λόγους τῶνἐσομένων καὶ δυνάμεις γονίμους ἀφορίσασα ὑποστάσεών τε καὶμεταβολῶν καὶ διαδοχῶν τοιούτων.

2. Χαριεστέρου μὲν ἦν ἀνδρός, ἄγευστον ψευδολογίας καὶ πάσηςὑποκρίσεως καὶ τρυφῆς καὶ τύφου γενόμενον, ἐξ ἀνθρώπωνἀπελθεῖν. τὸ δ οὖν κορεσθέντα γε τούτων ἀποπνεῦσαι δεύτεροςπλοῦς. ἢ προῄρησαι προσκαθῆσθαι τῇ κακίᾳ καὶ οὔπω σε οὐδὲἡ πεῖρα πείθει φεύγειν ἐκ τοῦ λοιμοῦ; λοιμὸς γὰρ διαφθορὰδιανοίας πολλῷ γε μᾶλλον ἤπερ ἡ τοῦ περικεχυμένου τούτουπνεύματος τοιάδε τις δυσκρασία καὶ τροπή˙ αὕτη μὲν γὰρ ζῴωνλοιμός, καθὸ ζῷά ἐστιν, ἐκείνη δὲ ἀνθρώπων, καθὸ ἄνθρωποίεἰσιν.

3. Μὴ καταφρόνει θανάτου, ἀλλὰ εὐαρέστει αὐτῷ, ὡς καὶ τούτουἑνὸς ὄντος ὧν ἡ φύσις ἐθέλει. οἷον γάρ ἐστι τὸ νεάσαι καὶ τὸγηρᾶσαι, καὶ τὸ αὐξῆσαι καὶ τὸ ἀκμάσαι, καὶ ὀδόντας καὶ γένειονκαὶ πολιὰς ἐνεγκεῖν, καὶ σπεῖραι καὶ κυοφορῆσαι καὶ ἀποκυῆσαι,καὶ τὰ ἄλλα φυσικὰ ἐνεργήματα ὅσα αἱ τοῦ βίου ὧραι φέρουσι,τοιοῦτο καὶ αὐτὸ τὸ διαλυθῆναι. τοῦτο μὲν οὖν κατὰ ἄνθρωπόνἐστι λελογισμένον, μὴ ὁλοσχερῶς μηδὲ ὠστικῶς μηδὲ ὑπερηφάνωςπρὸς τὸν θάνατον ἔχειν ἀλλὰ περιμένειν ὡς μίαν τῶν φυσικῶνἐνεργειῶν, καὶ ὡς νῦν περιμένεις πότε ἔμβρυον ἐκ τῆς γαστρὸςτῆς γυναικός σου ἐξέλθῃ, οὕτως ἐκδέχεσθαι τὴν ὥραν ἐν ᾗ τὸψυχάριόν σου τοῦ ἐλύτρου τούτου ἐκπεσεῖται. εἰ δὲ καὶ ἰδιωτικὸνπαράπηγμα ἁψικάρδιον θέλεις, μάλιστά σε εὔκολον πρὸς τὸνθάνατον ποιήσει ἡ ἐπίστασις ἡ ἐπὶ τὰ ὑποκείμενα, ὧν μέλλειςἀφίστασθαι, καὶ μεθ οἵων ἠθῶν οὐκέτι ἔσται ἡ ‹ψυχή σου›συμπεφυρμένη. προσκόπτεσθαι μὲν γὰρ αὐτοῖς ἥκιστα δεῖ, ἀλλὰκαὶ κήδεσθαι καὶ πρᾴως φέρειν, μεμνῆσθαι μέντοι ὅτι οὐκ ἀπἀνθρώπων ὁμοδογματούντων σοι ἡ ἀπαλλαγὴ ἔσται. τοῦτο γὰρμόνον, εἴπερ ἄρα, ἀνθεῖλκεν ἂν καὶ κατεῖχεν ἐν τῷ ζῆν, εἰ συζῆνἐφεῖτο τοῖς τὰ αὐτὰ δόγματα περιπεποιημένοις˙ νῦν δ ὁρᾷς ὅσοςὁ κόπος ἐν τῇ διαφωνίᾳ τῆς συμβιώσεως, ὥστε εἰπεῖν˙ θᾶττονἔλθοις, ὦ θάνατε, μή που καὶ αὐτὸς ἐπιλάθωμαι ἐμαυτοῦ.

4. Ὁ ἁμαρτάνων ἑαυτῷ ἁμαρτάνει˙ ὁ ἀδικῶν ἑαυτὸν ἀδικεῖ,ἑαυτὸν κακὸν ποιῶν.

5. Ἀδικεῖ πολλάκις ὁ μὴ ποιῶν τι, οὐ μόνον ὁ ποιῶν τι.

6. Ἀρκεῖ ἡ παροῦσα ὑπόληψις καταληπτικὴ καὶ ἡ παροῦσαπρᾶξις κοινωνικὴ καὶ ἡ παροῦσα διάθεσις εὐαρεστικὴ πρὸς πᾶντὸ παρὰ τὴν ἐκτὸς αἰτίαν συμβαῖνον.

7. Ἐξαλεῖψαι φαντασίαν˙ στῆσαι ὁρμήν˙ σβέσαι ὄρεξιν˙ ἐφ ἑαυτῷἔχειν τὸ ἡγεμονικόν.

8. Εἰς μὲν τὰ ἄλογα ζῷα μία ψυχὴ διῄρηται, εἰς δὲ τὰ λογικὰ μίανοερὰ ψυχὴ μεμέρισται, ὥσπερ καὶ μία γῆ ἐστιν ἁπάντων τῶνγεωδῶν καὶ ἑνὶ φωτὶ ὁρῶμεν καὶ ἕνα ἀέρα ἀναπνέομεν, ὅσαὁρατικὰ καὶ ἔμψυχα πάντα.

9. ‹Πάντα› ὅσα κοινοῦ τινος μετέχει πρὸς τὸ ὁμογενὲς σπεύδει.τὸ γεῶδες πᾶν ῥέπει ἐπὶ τὴν γῆν˙ τὸ ὑγρὸν πᾶν σύῤῥουν˙ τὸ ἀερῶδεςὁμοίως, ὥστε χρῄζειν τῶν διειργόντων καὶ βίᾳ˙ τὸ πῦρ ἀνωφερὲςμὲν διὰ τὸ στοιχειῶδες πῦρ, παντὶ δὲ πυρὶ ἐνταῦθα πρὸς τὸ συνεξάπτεσθαιἕτοιμον οὕτως, ὥστε καὶ πᾶν τὸ ὑλικὸν τὸ ὀλίγῳξηρότερον εὐέξαπτον εἶναι διὰ τὸ ἔλαττον ἐγκεκρᾶσθαι αὐτῷ τὸκωλυτικὸν πρὸς ἔξαψιν. καὶ τοίνυν πᾶν τὸ κοινῆς νοερᾶς φύσεωςμέτοχον πρὸς τὸ συγγενὲς ὁμοίως σπεύδει ἢ καὶ μᾶλλον˙ ὅσῳ γάρἐστι κρεῖττον παρὰ τὰ ἄλλα, τοσούτῳ καὶ πρὸς τὸ συγκιρνᾶσθαιτῷ οἰκείῳ καὶ συγχεῖσθαι ἑτοιμότερον. εὐθὺς γοῦν ἐπὶ μὲν τῶνἀλόγων εὑρέθη σμήνη καὶ ἀγέλαι καὶ νεοσσοτροφίαι καὶ οἷονἔρωτες˙ ψυχαὶ γὰρ ἤδη ἦσαν ἐνταῦθα καὶ τὸ συναγωγὸν ἐν τῷκρείττονι ἐπιτεινόμενον εὑρίσκετο, οἷον οὔτε ἐπὶ φυτῶν ἦν οὔτεἐπὶ λίθων ἢ ξύλων. ἐπὶ δὲ τῶν λογικῶν ζῴων πολιτεῖαι καὶ φιλίαικαὶ οἶκοι καὶ σύλλογοι καὶ ἐν πολέμοις συνθῆκαι καὶ ἀνοχαί.ἐπὶ δὲ τῶν ἔτι κρειττόνων καὶ διεστηκότων τρόπον τινὰ ἕνωσιςὑπέστη οἵα ἐπὶ τῶν ἄστρων˙ οὕτως ἡ ἐπὶ τὸ κρεῖττον ἐπανάβασιςσυμπάθειαν καὶ ἐν διεστῶσιν ἐργάσασθαι ἐδύνατο. ὅρα οὖν τὸνῦν γινόμενον˙ μόνα γὰρ τὰ νοερὰ νῦν ἐπιλέλησται τῆς πρὸςἄλληλα σπουδῆς καὶ συννεύσεως καὶ τὸ σύῤῥουν ὧδε μόνον οὐβλέπεται. ἀλλ ὅμως καίτοι φεύγοντες περικαταλαμβάνονται˙κρατεῖ γὰρ ἡ φύσις. ὄψει δὲ ὃ λέγω παραφυλάσσων˙ θᾶσσονγοῦν εὕροι τις ἂν γεῶδές τι μηδενὸς γεώδους προσαπτόμενον ἤπερἄνθρωπον ἀνθρώπου ἀπεσχισμένον.

10. Φέρει καρπὸν καὶ ἄνθρωπος καὶ θεὸς καὶ ὁ κόσμος˙ ἐν ταῖςοἰκείαις ὥραις ἕκαστα φέρει. εἰ δὲ ἡ συνήθεια κυρίως τέτριφενἐπὶ ἀμπέλου καὶ τῶν ὁμοίων, οὐδὲν τοῦτο. ὁ λόγος δὲ καὶ κοινὸνκαὶ ἴδιον καρπὸν ἔχει καὶ γίνεται ἐξ αὐτοῦ τοιαῦθ ἕτερα, ὁποῖόντι αὐτός ἐστιν ὁ λόγος.

11. Εἰ μὲν δύνασαι, μεταδίδασκε˙ εἰ δὲ μή, μέμνησο ὅτι πρὸς τοῦτοἡ εὐμένειά σοι δέδοται. καὶ οἱ θεοὶ δὲ εὐμενεῖς τοῖς τοιούτοιςεἰσίν, εἰς ἔνια δὲ καὶ συνεργοῦσιν, εἰς ὑγίειαν, εἰς πλοῦτον, εἰςδόξαν˙ οὕτως εἰσὶ χρηστοί. ἔξεστι δὲ καὶ σοί˙ ἢ εἰπέ, τίς ὁ κωλύων;

12. Πόνει μὴ ὡς ἄθλιος μηδὲ ὡς ἐλεεῖσθαι ἢ θαυμάζεσθαι θέλων,ἀλλὰ μόνον ἓν θέλε˙ κινεῖσθαι καὶ ἴσχεσθαι, ὡς ὁ πολιτικὸςλόγος ἀξιοῖ.

13. Σήμερον ἐξῆλθον πάσης περιστάσεως, μᾶλλον δὲ ἐξέβαλονπᾶσαν περίστασιν˙ ἔξω γὰρ οὐκ ἦν, ἀλλὰ ἔνδον ἐν ταῖς ὑπολήψεσιν.

14. Πάντα ταὐτά˙ συνήθη μὲν τῇ πείρᾳ, ἐφήμερα δὲ τῷ χρόνῳ,ῥυπαρὰ δὲ τῇ ὕλῃ˙ πάντα νῦν οἷα ἐπ ἐκείνων οὓς κατεθάψαμεν.

15. Τὰ πράγματα ἔξω θυρῶν ἕστηκεν αὐτὰ ἐφ ἑαυτῶν, μηδὲν μήτεεἰδότα περὶ αὑτῶν μήτε ἀποφαινόμενα. τί οὖν ἀποφαίνεται περὶαὐτῶν; τὸ ἡγεμονικόν.

16. Οὐκ ἐν πείσει ἀλλ ἐνεργείᾳ τὸ τοῦ λογικοῦ πολιτικοῦ ζῴουκακὸν καὶ ἀγαθόν, ὥσπερ οὐδὲ ἡ ἀρετὴ καὶ κακία αὐτοῦ ἐνπείσει ἀλλὰ ἐνεργείᾳ.

17. Τῷ ἀναῤῥιφέντι λίθῳ οὐδὲν κακὸν τὸ κατενεχθῆναι οὐδὲἀγαθὸν τὸ ἀνενεχθῆναι.

18. Δίελθε ἔσω εἰς τὰ ἡγεμονικὰ αὐτῶν καὶ ὄψει τίνας κριτὰςφοβῇ, οἵους καὶ περὶ αὑτῶν ὄντας κριτάς.

19. Πάντα ἐν μεταβολῇ˙ καὶ αὐτὸς σὺ ἐν διηνεκεῖ ἀλλοιώσει καὶκατά τι φθορᾷ, καὶ ὁ κόσμος δὲ ὅλος.

20. Τὸ ἄλλου ἁμάρτημα ἐκεῖ δεῖ καταλιπεῖν.

21. Ἐνεργείας ἀπόληξις, ὁρμῆς καὶ ὑπολήψεως παῦλα, οἷονθάνατος˙ οὐδὲν κακόν. μέτιθι νῦν ἐπὶ ἡλικίαν, οἷον τὴν παιδικήν,τὴν τοῦ μειρακίου, τὴν νεότητα, τὸ γῆρας˙ καὶ γὰρ τούτων πᾶσαμεταβολή, θάνατος˙ μήτι δεινόν; μέτιθι νῦν ἐπὶ βίον τὸν ὑπὸ τῷπάππῳ, εἶτα τὸν ὑπὸ τῇ μητρί, εἶτα τὸν ὑπὸ τῷ πατρί, καὶ ἄλλαςδὲ πολλὰς διαφθορὰς καὶ μεταβολὰς καὶ ἀπολήξεις εὑρίσκωνἐπερώτα σεαυτόν˙ μήτι δεινόν; οὕτως τοίνυν οὐδὲ ἡ τοῦ ὅλουσου βίου λῆξις καὶ παῦλα καὶ μεταβολή.

22. Τρέχε ἐπὶ τὸ σεαυτοῦ ἡγεμονικὸν καὶ τὸ τοῦ ὅλου καὶ τὸ τούτου.τὸ μὲν σεαυτοῦ, ἵνα νοῦν δικαϊκὸν αὐτὸ ποιήσῃς˙ τὸ δὲ τοῦ ὅλου,ἵνα συμμνημονεύσῃς τίνος μέρος εἶ˙ τὸ δὲ τούτου, ἵνα ἐπιστήσῃςπότερον ἄγνοια ἢ γνώμη, καὶ ἅμα λογίσῃ ὅτι συγγενές.

23. Ὥσπερ αὐτὸς σὺ πολιτικοῦ συστήματος συμπληρωτικὸς εἶ,οὕτως καὶ πᾶσα πρᾶξίς σου συμπληρωτικὴ ἔστω ζωῆς πολιτικῆς.ἥτις ἐὰν οὖν πρᾶξίς σου μὴ ἔχῃ τὴν ἀναφοράν, εἴτε προσεχῶςεἴτε πόῤῥωθεν, ἐπὶ τὸ κοινωνικὸν τέλος, αὕτη διασπᾷ τὸν βίονκαὶ οὐκ ἐᾷ ἕνα εἶναι καὶ στασιώδης ἐστίν, ὥσπερ ἐν δήμῳ ὁ τὸκαθ αὑτὸν μέρος διιστάμενος ἀπὸ τῆς τοιαύτης συμφωνίας.

24. Παιδίων ὀργαὶ καὶ παίγνια, καὶ “πνευμάτια νεκροὺς βαστάζοντ”,ὥστε ἐναργέστερον προσπεσεῖν τὸ τῆς Νεκυίας.

25. Ἴθι ἐπὶ τὴν ποιότητα τοῦ αἰτίου καὶ ἀπὸ τοῦ ὑλικοῦ αὐτὸπεριγράψας θέασαι˙ εἶτα καὶ τὸν χρόνον περιόρισον, ὅσονπλεῖστον ὑφίστασθαι πέφυκε τοῦτο τὸ ἰδίως ποιόν.

26. Ἀνέτλης μύρια διὰ τὸ μὴ ἀρκεῖσθαι τῷ σῷ ἡγεμονικῷ ποιοῦντιτοιαῦτα, οἷα κατεσκεύασται. ἀλλὰ ἅλις.

27. Ὅταν ἄλλος ψέγῃ σε ἢ μισῇ ἢ τοιαῦτά τινα ἐκφωνῶσιν, ἔρχουἐπὶ τὰ ψυχάρια αὐτῶν, διέλθε ἔσω καὶ ἴδε ποῖοί τινές εἰσιν. ὄψειὅτι οὐ δεῖ σε σπᾶσθαι, ἵνα τούτοις τί ποτε περὶ σοῦ δοκῇ. εὐνοεῖνμέντοι αὐτοῖς δεῖ˙ φύσει γὰρ φίλοι, καὶ οἱ θεοὶ δὲ παντοίως αὐτοῖςβοηθοῦσι, δἰ ὀνείρων, διὰ μαντειῶν, πρὸς ταῦτα μέντοι, πρὸς ἃἐκεῖνοι διαφέρονται.

28. Ταὐτά ἐστι τὰ τοῦ κόσμου ἐγκύκλια, ἄνω κάτω, ἐξ αἰῶνος εἰςαἰῶνα. καὶ ἤτοι ἐφ ἕκαστον ὁρμᾷ ἡ τοῦ ὅλου διάνοια˙ ὅπερ εἰἔστιν, ἀποδέχου τὸ ἐκείνης ὁρμητόν˙ ἢ ἅπαξ ὥρμησε, τὰ δὲ λοιπὰκατ ἐπακολούθησιν, καὶ τί ἐντείνῃ; τὸ δὲ ὅλον - εἴτε θεός, εὖἔχει πάντα˙ εἴτε τὸ εἰκῇ, τρόπον [γὰρ] τινα ἄτομοι ἢ ἀμερῆ, μὴκαὶ σὺ εἰκῇ Ἤδη πάντας ἡμᾶς γῆ καλύψει, ἔπειτα καὶ αὐτὴμεταβαλεῖ κἀκεῖνα εἰς ἄπειρον μεταβαλεῖ καὶ πάλιν ἐκεῖνα εἰςἄπειρον. τὰς γὰρ ἐπικυματώσεις τῶν μεταβολῶν καὶ ἀλλοιώσεωνἐνθυμούμενός τις καὶ τὸ τάχος παντὸς θνητοῦ καταφρονήσει.

29. Χειμάῤῥους ἡ τῶν ὅλων αἰτία˙ πάντα φέρει. ἄνθρωπε, τί ποτε;ποίησον ὃ νῦν ἡ φύσις ἀπαιτεῖ, ὅρμησον, ἐὰν διδῶται, καὶ μὴπεριβλέπου εἴ τις εἴσεται. μὴ τὴν Πλάτωνος πολιτείαν ἔλπιζε,ἀλλὰ ἀρκοῦ, εἰ τὸ βραχύτατον πρόεισι, καὶ τούτου αὐτοῦ τὴνἔκβασιν ὡς οὐ μικρόν τί ἐστι διανοοῦ. ὡς εὐτελῆ δὲ καὶ τὰπολιτικὰ ταῦτα καί, ὡς οἴεται, φιλοσόφως πρακτικὰ ἀνθρώπια˙μυξῶν μεστά. δόγμα γὰρ αὐτῶν τίς μεταβαλεῖ; χωρὶς δὲ δογμάτωνμεταβολῆς τί ἄλλο ἢ δουλεία στενόντων καὶ πείθεσθαιπροσποιουμένων; ὕπαγε νῦν καὶ Ἀλέξανδρον καὶ Φίλιππον καὶΔημήτριον τὸν Φαληρέα μοι λέγε. ἕψομαι, εἰ εἶδον, τί ἡ κοινὴφύσις ἤθελε, καὶ ἑαυτοὺς ἐπαιδαγώγησαν˙ εἰ δὲ ἐτραγῴδησαν,οὐδείς με κατακέκρικε μιμεῖσθαι. ἁπλοῦν ἐστι καὶ αἰδῆμον τὸφιλοσοφίας ἔργον˙ μή με ἄπαγε ἐπὶ σεμνοτυφίαν.

30. “Ἄνωθεν ἐπιθεωρεῖν” ἀγέλας μυρίας καὶ τελετὰς μυρίας καὶπλοῦν παντοῖον ἐν χειμῶσι καὶ γαλήναις καὶ διαφορὰς γινομένων,συγγινομένων, ἀπογινομένων. ἐπινοεῖν δὲ καὶ τὸν ὑπ ἄλλων πάλαιβεβιωμένον βίον καὶ τὸν μετὰ σὲ βιωθησόμενον καὶ τὸν νῦν ἐντοῖς βαρβάροις ἔθνεσι βιούμενον˙ καὶ ὅσοι μὲν οὐδὲ ὄνομά σουγινώσκουσιν, ὅσοι δὲ τάχιστα ἐπιλήσονται, ὅσοι δ ἐπαινοῦντεςἴσως νῦν σε τάχιστα ψέξουσι˙ καὶ ὡς οὔτε ἡ μνήμη ἀξιόλογόν γεοὔτε ἡ δόξα οὔτε ἄλλο τι τὸ σύμπαν.

31. Ἀταραξία μὲν περὶ τὰ ἀπὸ τῆς ἐκτὸς αἰτίας συμβαίνοντα,δικαιότης δὲ ἐν τοῖς παρὰ τὴν ἐκ σοῦ αἰτίαν ἐνεργουμένοις˙τουτέστιν, ὁρμὴ καὶ πρᾶξις καταλήγουσα ἐπ αὐτὸ τὸ κοινωνικῶςπρᾶξαι ὡς τοῦτό σοι κατὰ φύσιν ὄν.

32. Πολλὰ περισσὰ περιελεῖν τῶν ἐνοχλούντων σοι δύνασαι ὅλαἐπὶ τῇ ὑπολήψει σου κείμενα, καὶ πολλὴν εὐρυχωρίαν περιποιήσειςἤδη σεαυτῷ ‹τῷ› τὸν ὅλον κόσμον περιειληφέναι τῇγνώμῃ καὶ τὸν ‹ἀ›ίδιον αἰῶνα περινοεῖν καὶ τὴν τῶν κατὰ μέροςἑκάστου πράγματος ταχεῖαν μεταβολὴν ἐπινοεῖν, ὡς βραχὺ μὲντὸ ἀπὸ γενέσεως μέχρι διαλύσεως, ἀχανὲς δὲ τὸ πρὸ τῆς γενέσεως,ὡς καὶ τὸ μετὰ τὴν διάλυσιν ὁμοίως ἄπειρον.

33. Πάντα ὅσα ὁρᾷς τάχιστα φθαρήσεται καὶ οἱ φθειρόμενα αὐτὰἐπιδόντες τάχιστα καὶ αὐτοὶ φθαρήσονται καὶ ὁ ἐσχατόγηρωςἀποθανὼν εἰς ἴσον καταστήσεται τῷ προώρῳ.

34. Τίνα τὰ ἡγεμονικὰ τούτων καὶ περὶ οἷα ἐσπουδάκασι καὶ δἰοἷα φιλοῦσι καὶ τιμῶσι˙ γυμνὰ νόμιζε βλέπειν τὰ ψυχάρια αὐτῶν.ὅτε δοκοῦσι βλάπτειν ψέγοντες ἢ ὠφελεῖν ἐξυμνοῦντες, ὅση οἴησις.

35. Ἡ ἀποβολὴ οὐδὲν ἄλλο ἐστὶν ἢ μεταβολή. τούτῳ δὲ χαίρει ἡτῶν ὅλων φύσις, καθ ἣν πάντα καλῶς γίνεται. ἐξ αἰῶνος ὁμοειδῶςἐγίνετο καὶ εἰς ἄπειρον τοιαῦθ ἕτερα ἔσται. τί οὖν λέγεις ὅτιἐγίνετό τε πάντα ‹ἀεὶ κακῶς› [ὃ] καὶ πάντα ἀεὶ κακῶς ἔσται καὶοὐδεμία ἄρα δύναμις ἐν τοσούτοις θεοῖς ἐξευρέθη ποτὲ ἡδιορθώσουσα ταῦτα, ἀλλὰ κατακέκριται ὁ κόσμος ἐν ἀδιαλείπτοιςκακοῖς συνέχεσθαι;

36. Τὸ σαπρὸν τῆς ἑκάστῳ ὑποκειμένης ὕλης˙ ὕδωρ, κόνις, ὀστάρια,γράσος, ἢ πάλιν˙ πῶροι γῆς τὰ μάρμαρα καὶ ὑποστάθμαι ὁ χρυσός,ὁ ἄργυρος, καὶ τριχία ἡ ἐσθὴς καὶ αἷμα ἡ πορφύρα, καὶ τὰ ἄλλαπάντα τοιαῦτα. καὶ τὸ πνευματικὸν δὲ ἄλλο τοιοῦτον καὶ ἐκτούτων εἰς ταῦτα μεταβάλλον.

37. Ἅλις τοῦ ἀθλίου βίου καὶ γογγυσμοῦ καὶ πιθηκισμοῦ. - τίταράσσῃ; τί τούτων καινόν; τί σε ἐξίστησι; τὸ αἴτιον; ἴδε αὐτό.ἀλλ ἡ ὕλη; ἴδε αὐτήν. ἔξω δὲ τούτων οὐδέν ἐστιν˙ ἀλλὰ καὶπρὸς τοὺς θεοὺς ἤδη ποτὲ ἁπλούστερος καὶ χρηστότερος γενοῦ.

38. Ἴσον τὸ ἑκατὸν ἔτεσι καὶ τὸ τρισὶ ταῦτα ἱστορῆσαι.

39. Εἰ μὲν ἥμαρτεν, ἐκεῖ τὸ κακόν. τάχα δ οὐχ ἥμαρτεν.

40. Ἤτοι ἀπὸ μιᾶς πηγῆς νοερᾶς πάντα ὡς ἑνὶ σώματι ἐπισυμβαίνεικαὶ οὐ δεῖ τὸ μέρος τοῖς ὑπὲρ τοῦ ὅλου γινομένοις μέμφεσθαι˙ἢ ἄτομοι καὶ οὐδὲν ἄλλο ἢ κυκεὼν καὶ σκεδασμός˙ τί οὖνταράσσῃ; τῷ ἡγεμονικῷ λέγειν˙ τέθνηκας, ἔφθαρσαι, τεθηρίωσαι,ὑποκρίνῃ, συναγελάζῃ, βόσκῃ;

41. Ἤτοι οὐδὲν δύνανται οἱ θεοὶ ἢ δύνανται. εἰ μὲν οὖν μὴδύνανται, τί εὔχῃ; εἰ δὲ δύνανται, διὰ τί οὐχὶ μᾶλλον εὔχῃ διδόναιαὐτοὺς τὸ μήτε φοβεῖσθαί τι τούτων μήτε ἐπιθυμεῖν τινος τούτωνμήτε λυπεῖσθαι ἐπί τινι τούτων, μᾶλλον ἤπερ τὸ μὴ παρεῖναί τιτούτων ἢ τὸ παρεῖναι; πάντως γάρ, εἰ δύνανται συνεργεῖνἀνθρώποις, καὶ εἰς ταῦτα δύνανται συνεργεῖν. ἀλλὰ ἴσως ἐρεῖςὅτι˙ ἐπ ἐμοὶ αὐτὰ οἱ θεοὶ ἐποίησαν. εἶτα οὐ κρεῖσσον χρῆσθαιτοῖς ἐπὶ σοὶ μετ ἐλευθερίας ἢ διαφέρεσθαι πρὸς τὰ μὴ ἐπὶ σοὶμετὰ δουλείας καὶ ταπεινότητος; τίς δέ σοι εἶπεν ὅτι οὐχὶ καὶ εἰςτὰ ἐφ ἡμῖν οἱ θεοὶ συλλαμβάνουσιν; ἄρξαι γοῦν περὶ τούτωνεὔχεσθαι καὶ ὄψει. οǷτος εὔχεται˙ πῶς κοιμηθῶ μετ ἐκείνης˙σύ˙ πῶς μὴ ἐπιθυμήσω τοῦ κοιμηθῆναι μετ ἐκείνης. ἄλλος˙ πῶςστερηθῶ ἐκείνου˙ σύ˙ πῶς μὴ χρῄζω τοῦ στερηθῆναι. ἄλλος˙πῶς μὴ ἀποβάλω τὸ τεκνίον˙ σύ˙ πῶς μὴ φοβηθῶ ἀποβαλεῖν.ὅλως ὧδε ἐπίστρεψον τὰς εὐχὰς καὶ θεώρει τί γίνεται.

42. Ὁ Ἐπίκουρος λέγει ὅτι˙ “ἐν τῇ νόσῳ οὐκ ἦσάν μοι αἱ ὁμιλίαιπερὶ τῶν τοῦ σωματίου παθῶν οὐδὲ πρὸς τοὺς εἰσιόντας τοιαῦτάτινα, φησίν, ἐλάλουν, ἀλλὰ τὰ προηγούμενα φυσιολογῶν διετέλουνκαὶ πρὸς αὐτῷ τούτῳ ὤν, πῶς ἡ διάνοια συμμεταλαμβάνουσατῶν ἐν τῷ σαρκιδίῳ τοιούτων κινήσεων ἀταρακτεῖ τὸ ἴδιονἀγαθὸν τηροῦσα. οὐδὲ τοῖς ἰατροῖς ἐμπαρεῖχον, φησί, καταφρυάττεσθαιὥς τι ποιοῦσιν, ἀλλὰ ὁ βίος ἤγετο εὖ καὶ καλῶς.” ταὐτὰοὖν ἐκείνῳ, ἐν νόσῳ, ἐὰν νοσῇς καὶ ἐν ἄλλῃ τινὶ περιστάσει˙ τὸγὰρ μὴ ἀφίστασθαι φιλοσοφίας ἐν οἵοις δήποτε τοῖς προσπίπτουσιμηδὲ ἰδιώτῃ καὶ ‹ἀ›φυσιολόγῳ συμφλυαρεῖν, πάσης αἱρέσεωςκοινόν. πρὸς μόνῳ τῷ νῦν πρασσομένῳ εἶναι καὶ τῷ ὀργάνῳ, δἰοǷ πράσσεις.

43. Ὅταν τινὸς ἀναισχυντίᾳ προσκόπτῃς, εὐθὺς πυνθάνου σεαυτοῦ˙δύνανται οὖν ἐν τῷ κόσμῳ ἀναίσχυντοι μὴ εἶναι; οὐ δύνανται˙μὴ οὖν ἀπαίτει τὸ ἀδύνατον˙ εἷς γὰρ καὶ οǷτός ἐστινἐκείνων τῶν ἀναισχύντων, οὓς ἀνάγκη ἐν τῷ κόσμῳ εἶναι. τὸ δαὐτὸ καὶ ἐπὶ τοῦ πανούργου καὶ ἐπὶ τοῦ ἀπίστου καὶ παντὸς τοῦὁτιοῦν ἁμαρτάνοντος ἔστω σοι πρόχειρον˙ ἅμα γὰρ τῷ ὑπομνησθῆναιὅτι τὸ γένος τῶν τοιούτων ἀδύνατόν ἐστι μὴ ὑπάρχειν,εὐμενέστερος ἔσῃ πρὸς τοὺς καθ ἕνα. εὔχρηστον δὲ κἀκεῖνο εὐθὺςἐννοεῖν, τίνα ἔδωκεν ἡ φύσις τῷ ἀνθρώπῳ ἀρετὴν πρὸς τοῦτοτὸ ἁμάρτημα˙ ἔδωκε γὰρ ὡς ἀντιφάρμακον πρὸς μὲν τὸν ἀγνώμονατὴν πρᾳότητα, πρὸς δὲ ἄλλον ἄλλην τινὰ δύναμιν, ὅλως δὲ ἔξεστίσοι μεταδιδάσκειν τὸν πεπλανημένον˙ πᾶς δὲ ὁ ἁμαρτάνωνἀφαμαρτάνει τοῦ προκειμένου καὶ πεπλάνηται. τί δὲ καὶβέβλαψαι; εὑρήσεις γὰρ μηδένα τούτων, πρὸς οὓς παροξύνῃ,πεποιηκότα τι τοιοῦτον ἐξ οǷ ἡ διάνοιά σου χείρων ἔμελλεγενήσεσθαι˙ τὸ δὲ κακόν σου καὶ τὸ βλαβερὸν ἐνταῦθα πᾶσαντὴν ὑπόστασιν ἔχει. τί δαὶ κακὸν ἢ ξένον γέγονεν, εἰ ὁ ἀπαίδευτοςτὰ τοῦ ἀπαιδεύτου πράσσει; ὅρα μὴ σεαυτῷ μᾶλλον ἐγκαλεῖνὀφείλῃς, ὅτι οὐ προσεδόκησας τοῦτον τοῦτο ἁμαρτήσεσθαι˙ σὺγὰρ καὶ ἀφορμὰς ἐκ τοῦ λόγου εἶχες πρὸς τὸ ἐνθυμηθῆναι ὅτιεἰκός ἐστι τοῦτον τοῦτο ἁμαρτήσεσθαι, καὶ ὅμως ἐπιλαθόμενοςθαυμάζεις εἰ ἡμάρτηκεν. μάλιστα δέ, ὅταν ὡς ἀπίστῳ ἢ ἀχαρίστῳμέμφῃ, εἰς ἑαυτὸν ἐπιστρέφου˙ προδήλως γὰρ σὸν τὸ ἁμάρτημα,εἴτε περὶ τοῦ τοιαύτην τὴν διάθεσιν ἔχοντος ἐπίστευσας ὅτι τὴνπίστιν φυλάξει, εἴτε τὴν χάριν διδοὺς μὴ καταληκτικῶς ἔδωκαςμηδὲ ὥστε ἐξ αὐτῆς τῆς σῆς πράξεως εὐθὺς ἀπειληφέναι πάντατὸν καρπόν. τί γὰρ πλέον θέλεις εὖ ποιήσας, ἄνθρωπε; οὐκ ἀρκεῖτοῦτο, ὅτι κατὰ φύσιν τὴν σήν τι ἔπραξας, ἀλλὰ τούτου μισθὸνζητεῖς; ὡσεὶ ὁ ὀφθαλμὸς ἀμοιβὴν ἀπῄτει, ὅτι βλέπει, ἢ οἱ πόδες,ὅτι βαδίζουσιν. ὥσπερ γὰρ ταῦτα πρὸς τόδε τι γέγονεν, ὅπερκατὰ τὴν ἰδίαν κατασκευὴν ἐνεργοῦντα ἀπέχει τὸ ἴδιον, οὕτωςκαὶ ὁ ἄνθρωπος εὐεργετικὸς πεφυκώς, ὁπόταν τι εὐεργετικὸν ἢἄλλως εἰς τὰ μέσα συνεργητικὸν πράξῃ, πεποίηκε πρὸς ὃ κατεσκεύασται,καὶ ἔχει τὸ ἑαυτοῦ.

### Book X
1. Ἔσῃ ποτὲ ἆρα, ὦ ψυχή, ἀγαθὴ καὶ ἁπλῆ καὶ μία καὶ γυμνή,φανερωτέρα τοῦ περικειμένου σοι σώματος; γεύσῃ ποτὲ ἆρα τῆςφιλητικῆς καὶ στερκτικῆς διαθέσεως; ἔσῃ ποτὲ ἆρα πλήρης καὶἀνενδεὴς καὶ οὐδὲν ἐπιποθοῦσα οὐδὲ ἐπιθυμοῦσα οὐδενὸς οὔτεἐμψύχου οὔτε ἀψύχου πρὸς ἡδονῶν ἀπολαύσεις; οὐδὲ χρόνου,ἐν ᾧ ἐπὶ μακρότερον ἀπολαύσεις; οὐδὲ τόπου ἢ χώρας ἢ ἀέρωνεὐκαιρίας; οὐδὲ ἀνθρώπων εὐαρμοστίας; ἀλλὰ ἀρκεσθήσῃ τῇπαρούσῃ καταστάσει καὶ ἡσθήσῃ τοῖς παροῦσι πᾶσι, καὶσυμπείσεις σεαυτὴν ὅτι πάντα σοι παρὰ τῶν θεῶν πάρεστι, καὶπάντα σοι εὖ ἔχει καὶ εὖ ἕξει, ὅσα φίλον αὐτοῖς καὶ ὅσα μέλλουσιδώσειν ἐπὶ σωτηρίᾳ τοῦ τελείου ζῴου, τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ καὶ δικαίουκαὶ καλοῦ καὶ γεννῶντος πάντα καὶ συνέχοντος καὶ περιέχοντοςκαὶ περιλαμβάνοντος διαλυόμενα εἰς γένεσιν ἑτέρων ὁμοίων; ἔσῃποτὲ ἆρα τοιαύτη, οἵα θεοῖς τε καὶ ἀνθρώποις οὕτως συμπολιτεύεσθαιὡς μήτε μέμφεσθαί τι αὐτοῖς μήτε καταγινώσκεσθαιὑπ αὐτῶν;

2. Παρατήρει τί σου ἡ φύσις ἐπιζητεῖ ὡς ὑπὸ φύσεως μόνονδιοικουμένου˙ εἶτα ποίει αὐτὸ καὶ προσίεσο, εἰ μὴ χεῖρον μέλλειδιατίθεσθαί σου ἡ ὡς ζῴου φύσις. ἑξῆς δὲ παρατηρητέον τίἐπιζητεῖ σου ἡ ὡς ζῴου φύσις, καὶ πᾶν τοῦτο παραληπτέον, εἰμὴ χεῖρον μέλλει διατίθεσθαι ἡ ὡς ζῴου λογικοῦ φύσις˙ ἔστι δὲτὸ λογικὸν εὐθὺς καὶ πολιτικόν. τούτοις δὴ κανόσι χρώμενοςμηδὲν περιεργάζου.

3. Πᾶν τὸ συμβαῖνον ἤτοι οὕτω συμβαίνει ὡς πέφυκας αὐτὸφέρειν ἢ ὡς οὐ πέφυκας αὐτὸ φέρειν. εἰ μὲν οὖν συμβαίνει σοιὡς πέφυκας φέρειν, μὴ δυσχέραινε, ἀλλ ὡς πέφυκας ‹φέρειν› φέρε.εἰ δὲ ὡς μὴ πέφυκας φέρειν, μὴ δυσχέραινε˙ φθήσεται γάρ σεἀπαναλῶσαν. μέμνησο μέντοι ὅτι πέφυκας φέρειν πᾶν, περὶ οǷἐπὶ τῇ ὑπολήψει ἐστὶ τῇ σῇ φορητὸν καὶ ἀνεκτὸν αὐτὸ ποιῆσαικατὰ φαντασίαν τοῦ συμφέρειν ἢ καθήκειν σεαυτῷ τοῦτο ποιεῖν.

4. Εἰ μὲν σφάλλεται, διδάσκειν εὐμενῶς καὶ τὸ παρορώμενονδεικνύναι. εἰ δὲ ἀδυνατεῖς, σεαυτὸν αἰτιᾶσθαι ἢ μηδὲ σεαυτόν.

5. Ὅ τι ἄν σοι συμβαίνῃ, τοῦτό σοι ἐξ αἰῶνος προκατεσκευάζετοκαὶ ἡ ἐπιπλοκὴ τῶν αἰτίων συνέκλωθε τήν τε σὴν ὑπόστασιν ἐξἀιδίου καὶ τὴν τούτου σύμβασιν.

6. Εἴτε ἄτομοι εἴτε φύσις, πρῶτον κείσθω ὅτι μέρος εἰμὶ τοῦ ὅλουὑπὸ φύσεως διοικουμένου˙ ἔπειτα, ὅτι ἔχω πως οἰκείως πρὸς τὰὁμογενῆ μέρη. τούτων γὰρ μεμνημένος, καθότι μὲν μέρος εἰμί,οὐδενὶ δυσαρεστήσω τῶν ἐκ τοῦ ὅλου ἀπονεμομένων˙ οὐδὲν γὰρβλαβερὸν τῷ μέρει ὃ τῷ ὅλῳ συμφέρει. οὐ γὰρ ἔχει τι τὸ ὅλον ὃμὴ συμφέρει ἑαυτῷ, πασῶν μὲν φύσεων κοινὸν ἐχουσῶν τοῦτο,τῆς δὲ τοῦ κόσμου προσειληφυίας τὸ μηδὲ ὑπό τινος ἔξωθεν αἰτίαςἀναγκάζεσθαι βλαβερόν τι ἑαυτῇ γεννᾶν. κατὰ μὲν δὴ τὸμεμνῆσθαι ὅτι μέρος εἰμὶ ὅλου τοῦ τοιούτου, εὐαρεστήσω παντὶτῷ ἀποβαίνοντι, καθόσον δὲ ἔχω πως οἰκείως πρὸς τὰ ὁμογενῆμέρη, οὐδὲν πράξω ἀκοινώνητον, μᾶλλον δὲ στοχάσομαι τῶνὁμογενῶν καὶ πρὸς τὸ κοινῇ συμφέρον πᾶσαν ὁρμὴν ἐμαυτοῦἄξω καὶ ἀπὸ τοὐναντίου ἀπάξω. τούτων δὲ οὕτως περαινομένωνἀνάγκη τὸν βίον εὐροεῖν, ὡς ἂν καὶ πολίτου βίον εὔρουν ἐπινοήσειαςπροιόντος διὰ πράξεων τοῖς πολίταις λυσιτελῶν καὶὅπερ ἂν ἡ πόλις ἀπονέμῃ, τοῦτο ἀσπαζομένου.

7. Τοῖς μέρεσι τοῦ ὅλου, ὅσα φύσει περιέχεται ὑπὸ τοῦ κόσμου,ἀνάγκη φθείρεσθαι˙ λεγέσθω δὲ τοῦτο σημαντικῶς τοῦἀλλοιοῦσθαι. εἰ δὲ φύσει κακόν τε καὶ ἀναγκαῖόν ἐστι τοῦτοαὐτοῖς, οὐκ ἂν τὸ ὅλον καλῶς διεξάγοιτο τῶν μερῶν εἰς ἀλλοίωσινἰόντων καὶ πρὸς τὸ φθείρεσθαι διαφόρως κατεσκευασμένων.(πότερον γὰρ ἐπεχείρησεν ἡ φύσις αὐτὴ τὰ ἑαυτῆς μέρη κακοῦνκαὶ περιπτωτικὰ τῷ κακῷ καὶ ἐξ ἀνάγκης ἔμπτωτα εἰς τὸ κακὸνποιεῖν, ἢ ἔλαθεν αὐτὴν τοιάδε τινὰ γινόμενα; ἀμφότερα γὰρἀπίθανα.) εἰ δέ τις καὶ ἀφέμενος τῆς φύσεως κατὰ τὸ πεφυκέναιταῦτα ἐξηγοῖτο, καὶ ὡς γελοῖον ἅμα μὲν φάναι πεφυκέναι τὰμέρη τοῦ ὅλου μεταβάλλειν, ἅμα δὲ ὡς ἐπί τινι τῶν παρὰ φύσινσυμβαίνοντι θαυμάζειν ἢ δυσχεραίνειν, ἄλλως τε καὶ τῆςδιαλύσεως εἰς ταῦτα γινομένης, ἐξ ὧν ἕκαστον συνίσταται. ἤτοιγὰρ σκεδασμὸς στοιχείων, ἐξ ὧν συνεκρίθη, ἢ τροπὴ τοῦ μὲνστερεμνίου εἰς τὸ γεῶδες, τοῦ δὲ πνευματικοῦ εἰς τὸ ἀερῶδες,ὥστε καὶ ταῦτα ἀναληφθῆναι εἰς τὸν τοῦ ὅλου λόγον, εἴτε κατὰπερίοδον ἐκπυρουμένου εἴτε ἀιδίοις ἀμοιβαῖς ἀνανεουμένου. καὶτὸ στερέμνιον δὲ καὶ τὸ πνευματικὸν μὴ φαντάζου τὸ ἀπὸ τῆςπρώτης γενέσεως˙ πᾶν γὰρ τοῦτο ἐχθὲς καὶ τρίτην ἡμέραν ἐκ τῶνσιτίων καὶ τοῦ ἑλκομένου ἀέρος τὴν ἐπιῤῥοὴν ἔλαβεν˙ τοῦτοοὖν ὃ ἔλαβε μεταβάλλει, οὐχ ὃ ἡ μήτηρ ἔτεκεν. ὑπόθου δ ὅτιἐκεῖνό σε λίαν προσπλέκει τῷ ἰδίως ποιῷ, οὐδὲν ‹τῷ› ὄντι οἶμαιπρὸς τὸ νῦν λεγόμενον.

8. Ὀνόματα θέμενος ἑαυτῷ ταῦτα˙ ἀγαθός, αἰδήμων, ἀληθής,ἔμφρων, σύμφρων, ὑπέρφρων, πρόσεχε μήποτε μετονομάζῃ, κἂνἀπολλύῃς ταῦτα τὰ ὀνόματα, [καὶ] ταχέως ἐπάνιθι ἐπ αὐτά.μέμνησο δὲ ὅτι τὸ μὲν ἔμφρων ἐβούλετό σοι σημαίνειν τὴν ἐφἕκαστα διαληπτικὴν ἐπίστασιν καὶ τὸ ἀπαρενθύμητον˙ τὸ δὲσύμφρων τὴν ἑκούσιον ἀπόδεξιν τῶν ὑπὸ τῆς κοινῆς φύσεωςἀπονεμομένων˙ τὸ δὲ ὑπέρφρων τὴν ὑπέρτασιν τοῦ φρονοῦντοςμορίου ὑπὲρ λείαν ἢ τραχεῖαν κίνησιν τῆς σαρκὸς καὶ τὸ δοξάριονκαὶ τὸν θάνατον καὶ ὅσα τοιαῦτα. ἐὰν οὖν διατηρῇς ἑαυτὸν ἐντούτοις τοῖς ὀνόμασι μὴ γλιχόμενος τοῦ ὑπ ἄλλων κατὰ ταῦταὀνομάζεσθαι, ἔσῃ ἕτερος καὶ εἰς βίον εἰσελεύσῃ ἕτερον. τὸ γὰρἔτι τοιοῦτον εἶναι οἷος μέχρι νῦν γέγονας, καὶ ἐν βίῳ τοιούτῳσπαράσσεσθαι καὶ μολύνεσθαι, λίαν ἐστὶν ἀναισθήτου καὶφιλοψύχου καὶ ὁμοίου τοῖς ἡμιβρώτοις θηριομάχοις, οἵτινεςμεστοὶ τραυμάτων καὶ λύθρου παρακαλοῦσιν ὅμως εἰς τὴν αὔριονφυλαχθῆναι, παραβληθησόμενοι τοιοῦτοι τοῖς αὐτοῖς ὄνυξι καὶδήγμασιν. ἐμβίβασον οὖν ἑαυτὸν εἰς τὰ ὀλίγα ταῦτα ὀνόματα,κἂν μὲν ἐπ αὐτῶν μένειν δύνῃ, μένε ὥσπερ εἰς μακάρων τινὰςνήσους μετῳ κισμένος˙ ἐὰν δὲ αἴσθῃ ὅτι ἐκπίπτεις καὶ οὐπερικρατεῖς, ἄπιθι θαῤῥῶν εἰς γωνίαν τινά, ὅπου κρατήσεις, ἢκαὶ παντάπασιν ἔξιθι τοῦ βίου, μὴ ὀργιζόμενος, ἀλλὰ ἁπλῶς καὶἐλευθέρως καὶ αἰδημόνως, ἕν γε τοῦτο μόνον πράξας ἐν τῷ βίῳτὸ οὕτως ἐξελθεῖν. πρὸς μέντοι τὸ μεμνῆσθαι τῶν ὀνομάτωνμεγάλως συλλήψεταί σοι τὸ μεμνῆσθαι θεῶν καὶ ὅτιπερ οὐκολακεύεσθαι οǷτοι θέλουσιν, ἀλλὰ ἐξομοιοῦσθαι ἑαυτοῖς τὰλογικὰ πάντα καὶ εἶναι τὴν μὲν συκῆν τὰ συκῆς ποιοῦσαν, τὸνδὲ κύνα τὰ κυνός, τὴν δὲ μέλισσαν τὰ μελίσσης, τὸν δὲ ἄνθρωποντὰ ἀνθρώπου.

9. Μῖμος, πόλεμος, πτοία, νάρκα, δουλεία. καθ ἡμέραν ἀπαλείψεταίσου τὰ ἱερὰ ἐκεῖνα δόγματα, ὁπόσα ἀφυσιολογήτωςφαντάζῃ καὶ παραπέμπεις. δεῖ δὲ πᾶν οὕτω βλέπειν καὶ πράσσεινὥστε καὶ τὸ περιστατικὸν ἅμα συντελεῖσθαι καὶ ἅμα τὸ θεωρητικὸνἐνεργεῖσθαι καὶ τὸ ἐκ τῆς περὶ ἑκάστων ἐπιστήμηςαὔθαδες σῴζεσθαι λανθάνον, οὐχὶ κρυπτόμενον. πότε γὰρἁπλότητος ἀπολαύσεις; πότε δὲ σεμνότητος; πότε δὲ τῆς ἐφἑκάστου γνωρίσεως, τί τε ἐστὶ κατ οὐσίαν καὶ τίνα χώραν ἔχειἐν τῷ κόσμῳ καὶ ἐπὶ πόσον πέφυκεν ὑφίστασθαι καὶ ἐκ τίνωνσυγκέκριται καὶ τίσι δύναται ὑπάρχειν καὶ τίνες δύνανται αὐτὸδιδόναι τε καὶ ἀφαιρεῖσθαι;

10. Ἀράχνιον μυῖαν θηρᾶσαν μέγα φρονεῖ, ἄνθρωπος δὲ λαγίδιον,ἄλλος δὲ ὑποχῇ ἀφύην, ἄλλος δὲ συίδια, ἄλλος δὲ ἄρκτους, ἄλλοςΣαρμάτας. οǷτοι γὰρ οὐ λῃσταί, ἐὰν τὰ δόγματα ἐξετάζῃς;

11. Πῶς εἰς ἄλληλα πάντα μεταβάλλει, θεωρητικὴν μέθοδονκτῆσαι καὶ διηνεκῶς πρόσεχε καὶ συγγυμνάσθητι περὶ τοῦτο τὸμέρος˙ οὐδὲν γὰρ οὕτως μεγαλοφροσύνης ποιητικόν. ἐξεδύσατοτὸ σῶμα καὶ ἐννοήσας ὅτι ὅσον οὐδέπω πάντα ταῦτα καταλιπεῖνἀπιόντα ἐξ ἀνθρώπων δεήσει, ἀνῆκεν ὅλον ἑαυτὸν δικαιοσύνῃμὲν εἰς τὰ ὑφ ἑαυτοῦ ἐνεργούμενα, ἐν δὲ τοῖς ἄλλως συμβαίνουσιτῇ τῶν ὅλων φύσει. τί δ ἐρεῖ τις ἢ ὑπολήψεται περὶ αὐτοῦ ἢπράξει κατ αὐτοῦ, οὐδ εἰς νοῦν βάλλεται, δύο τούτοις ἀρκούμενος,εἰ αὐτὸς δικαιοπραγεῖ τὸ νῦν πρασσόμενον καὶ φιλεῖ τὸνῦν ἀπονεμόμενον ἑαυτῷ˙ ἀσχολίας δὲ πάσας καὶ σπουδὰς ἀφῆκεκαὶ οὐδὲν ἄλλο βούλεται ἢ εὐθεῖαν περαίνειν διὰ τοῦ νόμου καὶεὐθεῖαν περαίνοντι ἕπεσθαι τῷ θεῷ.

12. Τίς ὑπονοίας χρεία παρὸν σκοπεῖν τί δεῖ πραχθῆναι, κἂν μὲνσυνορᾷς, εὐμενῶς, ἀμεταστρεπτὶ ταύτῃ χωρεῖν˙ ἐὰν δὲ μὴ συνορᾷς, ἐπέχειν καὶ συμβούλοις τοῖς ἀρίστοις χρῆσθαι˙ ἐὰν δὲ ἕτεράτινα πρὸς ταῦτα ἀντιβαίνῃ, προιέναι κατὰ τὰς παρούσας ἀφορμὰςλελογισμένως, ἐχόμενον τοῦ φαινομένου δικαίου; ἄριστον γὰρκατατυγχάνειν τούτου, ἐπεί τοι ἥ γε ἀπόπτωσις ἀπὸ τούτου ἐστίν.σχολαῖόν τι καὶ ἅμα εὐκίνητόν ἐστι καὶ φαιδρὸν ἅμα καὶσυνεστηκὸς ὁ τῷ λόγῳ κατὰ πᾶν ἑπόμενος.

13. Πυνθάνεσθαι ἑαυτοῦ εὐθὺς ἐξ ὕπνου γενόμενον˙ μήτι διοίσεισοι, ἐὰν ὑπὸ ἄλλου ψέγηται τὰ δίκαια καὶ καλῶς ἔχοντα; οὐδιοίσει. μήτι ἐπιλέλησαι ὅτι οǷτοι οἱ ἐν τοῖς περὶ ἄλλων ἐπαίνοιςκαὶ ψόγοις φρυαττόμενοι τοιοῦτοι μὲν ἐπὶ τῆς κλίνης εἰσί, τοιοῦτοιδὲ ἐπὶ τῆς τραπέζης, οἷα δὲ ποιοῦσιν, οἷα δὲ φεύγουσιν, οἷα δὲδιώκουσιν, οἷα δὲ κλέπτουσιν, οἷα δὲ ἁρπάζουσιν, οὐ χερσὶ καὶποσίν, ἀλλὰ τῷ τιμιωτάτῳ ἑαυτῶν μέρει, ᾧ γίνεται, ὅταν θέλῃ,πίστις, αἰδώς, ἀλήθεια, νόμος, ἀγαθὸς δαίμων;

14. Τῇ πάντα διδούσῃ καὶ ἀπολαμβανούσῃ φύσει ὁ πεπαιδευμένοςκαὶ αἰδήμων λέγει˙ δὸς ὃ θέλεις˙ ἀπόλαβε ὃ θέλεις. λέγει δὲτοῦτο οὐ καταθρασυνόμενος, ἀλλὰ πειθαρχῶν μόνον καὶ εὐνοῶναὐτῇ.

15. Ὀλίγον ἐστὶ τὸ ὑπολειπόμενον τοῦτο. ζῆσον ὡς ἐν ὄρει˙ οὐδὲνγὰρ διαφέρει ἐκεῖ ἢ ὧδε, ἐὰν τις πανταχοῦ ὡς ἐν πόλει τῷκόσμῳ. ἰδέτωσαν, ἱστορησάτωσαν οἱ ἄνθρωποι ἄνθρωπονἀληθινὸν κατὰ φύσιν ζῶντα. εἰ μὴ φέρουσιν, ἀποκτεινάτωσαν˙κρεῖττον γὰρ ἢ οὕτως ζῆν.

16. Μηκέθ ὅλως περὶ τοῦ οἷόν τινα εἶναι τὸν ἀγαθὸν ἄνδραδιαλέγεσθαι, ἀλλὰ εἶναι τοιοῦτον.

17. Τοῦ ὅλου αἰῶνος καὶ τῆς ὅλης οὐσίας συνεχῶς φαντασία ‹ἔστω›καὶ ὅτι πάντα τὰ κατὰ μέρος, ὡς μὲν πρὸς οὐσίαν, κεγχραμίς, ὡςδὲ πρὸς χρόνον, τρυπάνου περιστροφή.

18. Εἰς ἕκαστον τῶν ὑποκειμένων ἐφιστάντα ἐπινοεῖν αὐτὸ ἤδηδιαλυόμενον καὶ ἐν μεταβολῇ καὶ οἷον σήψει ἢ σκεδάσειγινόμενον ἢ καθότι ἕκαστον πέφυκεν ὥσπερ θνῄσκειν.

19. Οἷοί εἰσιν ἐσθίοντες, καθεύδοντες, ὀχεύοντες, ἀποπατοῦντες,τὰ ἄλλα˙ εἶτα οἷοι ἀνδρονομούμενοι καὶ γαυρούμενοι ἢ χαλεπαίνοντεςκαὶ ἐξ ὑπεροχῆς ἐπιπλήττοντες, πρὸ ὀλίγου δὲ ἐδούλευονπόσοις καὶ δἰ οἷα˙ καὶ μετ ὀλίγον ἐν τοιούτοις ἔσονται.

20. Συμφέρει ἑκάστῳ ὃ φέρει ἑκάστῳ ἡ τῶν ὅλων φύσις, καὶ τότεσυμφέρει ὅτε ἐκείνη φέρει.

21. Ἐρᾷ μὲν ὄμβρου γαῖα, ἐρᾷ δὲ ὁ σεμνὸς αἰθήρ, ἐρᾷ δὲ ὁ κόσμοςποιῆσαι ὃ ἂν μέλλῃ γίνεσθαι. λέγω οὖν τῷ κόσμῳ ὅτι σοὶ συνερῶ.μήτι δὲ οὕτω κἀκεῖνο λέγεται, ὅτι˙ φιλεῖ τοῦτο γίνεσθαι;

22. Ἤτοι ἐνταῦθα ζῇς καὶ ἤδη εἴθικας˙ ἢ ἔξω ὑπάγεις καὶ τοῦτοἤθελες˙ ἢ ἀποθνῄσκεις καὶ ἀπελειτούργησας. παρὰ δὲ ταῦταοὐδέν. οὐκοῦν εὐθύμει.

23. Ἐναργὲς ἔστω ἀεὶ τὸ ὅτι τοιοῦτο ἐκεῖνος ὁ ἀγρός ἐστι καὶ πῶςπάντα ἐστὶ τὰ αὐτὰ ἐνθάδε τοῖς ἐν ἄκρῳ τῷ ὄρει ἢ ἐπὶ τοῦ αἰγιαλοῦἢ ὅπου θέλεις. ἄντικρυς γὰρ εὑρήσεις τὰ τοῦ Πλάτωνος˙ “σηκὸνἐν ὄρει, φησί, περιβαλλόμενος καὶ βδάλλων βληχήματα.”

24. Τί ἐστί μοι τὸ ἡγεμονικόν μου καὶ ποῖόν τι αὐτὸ ἐγὼ ποιῶ νῦνκαὶ πρὸς τί ποτε αὐτῷ νῦν χρῶμαι; μήτι κενὸν νοῦ ἐστι; μήτιἀπόλυτον καὶ ἀπεσπασμένον κοινωνίας; μήτι προστετηκὸς καὶἀνακεκραμένον τῷ σαρκιδίῳ, ὥστε τούτῳ συντρέπεσθαι;

25. Ὁ τὸν κύριον φεύγων δραπέτης˙ κύριος δὲ ὁ νόμος καὶ ὁπαρανομῶν ‹ἄρα› δραπέτης. ἅμα καὶ ὁ λυπούμενος ἢ ὀργιζόμενοςἢ φοβούμενος οὐ βούλεταί τι γεγονέναι ἢ γίνεσθαι ἢ γενήσεσθαιτῶν ὑπὸ τοῦ τὰ πάντα διοικοῦντος τεταγμένων, ὅς ἐστι νόμος,νέμων ὅσα ἑκάστῳ ἐπιβάλλει. ὁ ἄρα φοβούμενος ἢ λυπούμενοςἢ ὀργιζόμενος δραπέτης.

26. Σπέρμα εἰς μήτραν ἀφεὶς ἀπεχώρησε καὶ λοιπὸν ἄλλη αἰτίαπαραλαβοῦσα ἐργάζεται καὶ ἀποτελεῖ βρέφος˙ ἐξ οἵου οἷον; πάλιν˙τροφὴν διὰ φάρυγγος ἀφῆκε καὶ λοιπὸν ἄλλη αἰτία παραλαβοῦσααἴσθησιν καὶ ὁρμὴν καὶ τὸ ὅλον ζωὴν καὶ ῥώμην καὶ ἄλλα, ὅσακαὶ οἷα, ποιεῖ. ταῦτα οὖν ἐν τοιαύτῃ ἐγκαλύψει γινόμενα θεωρεῖνκαὶ τὴν δύναμιν οὕτως ὁρᾶν, ὡς καὶ τὴν βρίθουσαν καὶ τὴνἀνωφερῆ ὁρῶμεν, οὐχὶ τοῖς ὀφθαλμοῖς, ἀλλ οὐχ ἧττον ἐναργῶς.

27. Συνεχῶς ἐπινοεῖν πῶς πάντα τοιαῦτα, ὁποῖα νῦν γίνεται, καὶπρόσθεν ἐγίνετο, καὶ ἐπινοεῖν γενησόμενα˙ καὶ ὅλα δράματα καὶσκηνὰς ὁμοειδεῖς, ὅσα ἐκ πείρας τῆς σῆς ἢ τῆς πρεσβυτέραςἱστορίας ἔγνως, πρὸ ὀμμάτων τίθεσθαι, οἷον αὐλὴν ὅληνἉδριανοῦ καὶ αὐλὴν ὅλην Ἀντωνίνου καὶ αὐλὴν ὅλην Φιλίππου,Ἀλεξάνδρου, Κροίσου˙ πάντα γὰρ ἐκεῖνα τοιαῦτα ἦν, μόνον δἰἑτέρων.

28. Φαντάζου πάντα τὸν ἐφ ᾡτινιοῦν λυπούμενον ἢ δυσαρεστοῦνταὅμοιον τῷ θυομένῳ χοιριδίῳ καὶ ἀπολακτίζοντι καὶ κεκραγότι˙ὅμοιος καὶ ὁ οἰμώζων ἐπὶ τοῦ κλινιδίου μόνος σιωπῇ. τὴν ἔνδεσινἡμῶν, καὶ ὅτι μόνῳ τῷ λογικῷ ζῴῳ δέδοται τὸ ἑκουσίως ἕπεσθαιτοῖς γινομένοις, τὸ δὲ ἕπεσθαι ψιλὸν πᾶσιν ἀναγκαῖον.

29. Κατὰ μέρος ἐφ ἑκάστου ὧν ποιεῖς ἐφιστάνων ἐπερώτα σεαυτὸνεἰ ὁ θάνατος δεινὸν διὰ τὸ τούτου στέρεσθαι.

30. Ὅταν προσκόπτῃς ἐπί τινος ἁμαρτίᾳ, εὐθὺς μεταβὰς ἐπιλογίζουτί παρόμοιον ἁμαρτάνεις˙ οἷον, ἀργύριον ἀγαθὸν εἶναι κρίνων‹ἢ› τὴν ἡδονὴν ἢ τὸ δοξάριον καὶ κατ εἶδος. τούτῳ γὰρ ἐπιβάλλωνταχέως ἐπιλήσῃ τῆς ὀργῆς, συμ‹προς›πίπτοντος τοῦ ὅτι βιάζεται˙τί γὰρ ποιήσει; ἤ, εἰ δύνασαι, ἄφελε αὐτοῦ τὸ βιαζόμενον.

31. Σατυρίωνα ἰδὼν Σωκρατικὸν φαντάζου ἢ Εὐτύχην ἢ Ὑμένα,καὶ Εὐφράτην ἰδὼν Εὐτυχίωνα ἢ Σιλουανὸν φαντάζου, καὶἈλκίφρονα Τροπαιοφόρον φαντάζου, καὶ Σευῆρον ἰδὼν Κρίτωναἢ Ξενοφῶντα φαντάζου, καὶ εἰς ἑαυτὸν ἀπιδὼν τῶν Καισάρωντινὰ φαντάζου, καὶ ἐφ ἑκάστου τὸ ἀνάλογον. εἶτα συμπροσπιπτέτωσοι˙ ποῦ οὖν ἐκεῖνοι; οὐδαμοῦ ἢ ὁπουδή. οὕτως γὰρσυνεχῶς θεάσῃ τὰ ἀνθρώπινα καπνὸν καὶ τὸ μηδέν, μάλισταἐὰν συμμνημονεύσῃς ὅτι τὸ ἅπαξ μεταβαλὸν οὐκέτι ἔσται ἐν τῷἀπείρῳ χρόνῳ. τί οὖν ἐντείνῃ; τί δ οὐκ ἀρκεῖ σοι τὸ βραχὺτοῦτο κοσμίως διαπερᾶσαι;

32. Οἵαν ὕλην καὶ ὑπόθεσιν φεύγεις˙ τί γάρ ἐστι πάντα ταῦταἄλλο πλὴν γυμνάσματα λόγου ἑωρακότος ἀκριβῶς καὶ φυσιολόγωςτὰ ἐν τῷ βίῳ; μένε οὖν, μέχρι ἐξοικειώσῃς σεαυτῷ καὶταῦτα, ὡς ὁ ἐῤῥωμένος στόμαχος πάντα ἐξοικειοῖ, ὡς τὸ λαμπρὸνπῦρ, ὅ τι ἂν ‹ἐμ›βάλῃς, φλόγα ἐξ αὐτοῦ καὶ αὐγὴν ποιεῖ.

33. Μηδενὶ ἐξέστω εἰπεῖν ἀληθεύοντι περὶ σοῦ ὅτι οὐχ ἁπλοῦς ἢὅτι οὐκ ἀγαθός, ἀλλὰ ψευδέσθω, ὅστις τούτων τι περὶ σοῦὑπολήψεται. πᾶν δὲ τοῦτο ἐπὶ σοί˙ τίς γὰρ ὁ κωλύων ἀγαθὸνεἶναί σε καὶ ἁπλοῦν; σὺ μόνον κρῖνον μηκέτι ζῆν, εἰ μὴ τοιοῦτοςἔσῃ˙ οὐδὲ γὰρ αἱρεῖ λόγος μὴ τοιοῦτον ὄντα.

34. Τί ἐστι τὸ ἐπὶ ταύτης τῆς ὕλης δυνάμενον κατὰ τὸ ὑγιέστατονπραχθῆναι ἢ ῥηθῆναι; ὅ τι γὰρ ἂν τοῦτο ᾖ, ἔξεστιν αὐτὸ πρᾶξαιἢ εἰπεῖν καὶ μὴ προφασίζου ὡς κωλυόμενος. Οὐ πρότερον παύσῃστένων πρὶν ἢ τοῦτο πάθῃς, ὅτι οἷόν ἐστι τοῖς ἡδυπαθοῦσιν ἡτρυφή, τοιοῦτό σοι τὸ ἐπὶ τῆς ὑποβαλλομένης καὶ ὑποπιπτούσηςὕλης ποιεῖν τὰ οἰκεῖα τῇ τοῦ ἀνθρώπου κατασκευῇ˙ ἀπόλαυσινγὰρ δεῖ ὑπολαμβάνειν πᾶν ὃ ἔξεστι κατὰ τὴν ἰδίαν φύσιν ἐνεργεῖν.πανταχοῦ δὲ ἔξεστι. τῷ μὲν οὖν κυλίνδρῳ οὐ πανταχοῦ δίδοταιφέρεσθαι τὴν ἰδίαν κίνησιν οὐδὲ τῷ ὕδατι οὐδὲ πυρὶ οὐδὲ τοῖςἄλλοις ὅσα ὑπὸ φύσεως ἢ ψυχῆς ἀλόγου διοικεῖται˙ τὰ γὰρδιείργοντα καὶ ἐνιστάμενα πολλά˙ νοῦς δὲ καὶ λόγος διὰ παντὸςτοῦ ἀντιπίπτοντος οὕτως πορεύεσθαι δύναται ὡς πέφυκε καὶ ὡςθέλει. ταύτην τὴν ῥᾳστώνην πρὸ ὀμμάτων τιθέμενος, καθ ἣνἐνεχθήσεται ὁ λόγος διὰ πάντων (ὡς πῦρ ἄνω, ὡς λίθος κάτω, ὡςκύλινδρος κατὰ πρανοῦς), μηκέτι μηδὲν ἐπιζήτει˙ τὰ γὰρ λοιπὰἐγκόμματα ἤτοι τοῦ σωματίου ἐστὶ τοῦ νεκροῦ, ἢ χωρὶςὑπολήψεως καὶ τῆς αὐτοῦ τοῦ λόγου ἐνδόσεως οὐ θραύει οὐδὲποιεῖ κακὸν οὐδ ὁτιοῦν. ἐπεί τοι καὶ ὁ πάσχων αὐτὸς κακὸς ἂνεὐθὺς ἐγίνετο˙ ἐπὶ γοῦν τῶν ἄλλων κατασκευασμάτων πάντων, ὅτι ἂν κακόν τινι αὐτῶν συμβῇ, παρὰ τοῦτο χεῖρον γίνεται αὐτὸτὸ πάσχον˙ ἐνταῦθα δέ, εἰ δεῖ εἰπεῖν, καὶ κρείττων γίνεται ὁἄνθρωπος καὶ ἐπαινετώτερος, ὀρθῶς χρώμενος τοῖς προσπίπτουσιν.ὅλως δὲ μέμνησο ὅτι τὸν φύσει πολίτην οὐδὲν βλάπτειὃ πόλιν οὐ βλάπτει, οὐδέ γε πόλιν βλάπτει ὃ νόμον οὐ βλάπτει˙τούτων δὲ τῶν καλουμένων ἀκληρη μάτων οὐδὲν βλάπτει νόμον.ὃ τοίνυν νόμον οὐ βλάπτει, οὔτε πόλιν οὔτε πολίτην.

35. Τῷ δεδηγμένῳ ὑπὸ τῶν ἀληθῶν δογμάτων ἀρκεῖ καὶ τὸβραχύτατον καὶ ἐν μέσῳ κείμενον εἰς ὑπόμνησιν ἀλυπίας καὶἀφοβίας, οἷον˙ φύλλα τὰ μέν τ ἄνεμος χαμάδις χέει˙ ὣς ἀνδρῶνγενεή. φυλλάρια δὲ καὶ τὰ τεκνία σου, φυλλάρια δὲ καὶ ταῦτατὰ ἐπιβοῶντα ἀξιοπίστως καὶ ἐπευφημοῦντα ἢ ἐκ τῶν ἐναντίωνκαταρώμενα ἢ ἡσυχῇ ψέγοντα καὶ χλευάζοντα, φυλλάρια δὲὁμοίως καὶ τὰ διαδεξόμενα τὴν ὑστεροφημίαν. πάντα γὰρ ταῦτα“ἔαρος ἐπιγίγνεται ὥρ”˙ εἶτα ἄνεμος καταβέβληκεν˙ ἔπειθ ὕληἕτερα ἀντὶ τούτων φύει. τὸ δὲ ὀλιγοχρόνιον κοινὸν πᾶσιν, ἀλλὰσὺ πάντα ὡς αἰώνια ἐσόμενα φεύγεις καὶ διώκεις. μικρὸν καὶκαταμύσεις, τὸν δὲ ἐξενεγκόντα σε ἤδη ἄλλος θρηνήσει.

36. Τὸν ὑγιαίνοντα ὀφθαλμὸν πάντα ὁρᾶν δεῖ τὰ ὁρατὰ καὶ μὴλέγειν˙ τὰ χλωρὰ θέλω˙ τοῦτο γὰρ ὀφθαλμιῶντός ἐστιν. καὶ τὴνὑγιαίνουσαν ἀκοὴν καὶ ὄσφρησιν εἰς πάντα δεῖ τὰ ἀκουστὰ καὶὀσφραντὰ ἑτοίμην εἶναι, καὶ τὸν ὑγιαίνοντα στόμαχον πρὸς πάντατὰ τρόφιμα ὁμοίως ἔχειν ὡς μύλην πρὸς πάντα ὅσα ἀλέσουσακατεσκεύασται. καὶ τοίνυν τὴν ὑγιαίνουσαν διάνοιαν πρὸς πάνταδεῖ τὰ συμβαίνοντα ἑτοίμην εἶναι, ἡ δὲ λέγουσα˙ τὰ τεκνία σῳζέσθω, καί˙ πάντες ὅ τι ἂν πράξω ἐπαινείτωσαν, ὀφθαλμός ἐστιτὰ χλωρὰ ζητῶν ἢ ὀδόντες τὰ ἁπαλά.

37. Οὐδείς ἐστιν οὕτως εὔποτμος ᾧ ἀποθνῄσκοντι οὐ παρεστήξονταίτινες ἀσπαζόμενοι τὸ συμβαῖνον κακόν. σπουδαῖοςκαὶ σοφὸς ἦν˙ μὴ τὸ πανύστατον ἔσται τις ὁ καθ αὑτὸν λέγων˙ἀναπνεύσομέν ποτε ἀπὸ τούτου τοῦ παιδαγωγοῦ; χαλεπὸς μὲνοὐδενὶ ἡμῶν ἦν, ἀλλὰ ᾐσθανόμην ὅτι ἡσυχῇ καταγινώσκει ἡμῶν.ταῦτα μὲν οὖν ἐπὶ τοῦ σπουδαίου, ἐφ ἡμῶν δὲ πόσα ἄλλα ἐστί,δἰ ἃ πολὺς ὁ ἀπαλλακτιῶν ἡμῶν. τοῦτο οὖν ἐννοήσεις ἀποθνῄσκων καὶ εὐκολώτερον ἐξελεύσῃ, λογιζόμενος˙ ἐκ τοιούτου βίουἀπέρχομαι, ἐν ᾧ αὐτοὶ οἱ κοινωνοί, ὑπὲρ ὧν τὰ τοσαῦτα ἠγωνισάμην,ηὐξάμην, ἐφρόντισα, αὐτοὶ ἐκεῖνοι θέλουσί με ὑπάγειν,ἄλλην τινὰ τυχὸν ἐκ τούτου ῥᾳστώνην ἐλπίζοντες. τί ἂν οὖν τιςἀντέχοιτο τῆς ἐνταῦθα μακροτέρας διατριβῆς; μὴ μέντοι διὰ τοῦτοἔλαττον εὐμενὴς αὐτοῖς ἄπιθι, ἀλλὰ τὸ ἴδιον ἔθος διασῴζων,φίλος καὶ εὔνους καὶ ἵλεως˙ καὶ μὴ πάλιν ὡς ἀποσπώμενος, ἀλλὥσπερ ἐπὶ τοῦ εὐθανατοῦντος εὐκόλως τὸ ψυχάριον ἀπὸ τοῦσώματος ἐξειλεῖται, τοιαύτην καὶ τὴν ἀπὸ τούτων ἀποχώρησινδεῖ γίνεσθαι˙ καὶ γὰρ τούτοις ἡ φύσις συνῆψε ‹σε› καὶ συνέκρινεν,ἀλλὰ νῦν διαλύει. διαλύομαι ὡς ἀπὸ οἰκείων μέν, οὐ μὴνἀνθελκόμενος ἀλλ ἀβιάστως˙ ἓν γὰρ καὶ τοῦτο τῶν κατὰ φύσιν.

38. Ἔθισον ἐπὶ παντός, ὡς οἷόν τε, τοῦ πρασσομένου ὑπό τινοςἐπιζητεῖν κατὰ σαυτόν˙ οǷτος τοῦτο ἐπὶ τί ἀναφέρει; ἄρχου δὲἀπὸ σαυτοῦ καὶ σαυτὸν πρῶτον ἐξέταζε.

39. Μέμνησο ὅτι τὸ νευροσπαστοῦν ἐστιν ἐκεῖνο τὸ ἔνδον ἐγκεκρυμμένον˙ἐκεῖνο ἐνέργεια, ἐκεῖνο ζωή, ἐκεῖνο, εἰ δεῖ εἰπεῖν,ἄνθρωπος. μηδέποτε συμπεριφαντάζου τὸ περικείμενον ἀγγειῶδεςκαὶ τὰ ὀργάνια ταῦτα τὰ περιπεπλασμένα˙ ὅμοια γάρ ἐστισκεπάρνῳ, μόνον διαφέροντα, καθότι προσφυῆ ἐστιν. ἐπεί τοιοὐ μᾶλλόν τι τούτων ὄφελός ἐστι τῶν μορίων χωρὶς τῆς κινούσηςκαὶ ἰσχούσης αὐτὰ αἰτίας, ἢ τῆς κερκίδος τῇ ὑφαντρίᾳ καὶ τοῦκαλάμου τῷ γράφοντι καὶ τοῦ μαστιγίου τῷ ἡνιόχῳ.

### Book XI
1. Τὰ ἴδια τῆς λογικῆς ψυχῆς˙ ἑαυτὴν ὁρᾷ, ἑαυτὴν διαρθροῖ,ἑαυτὴν ὁποίαν ἂν βούληται ποιεῖ, τὸν καρπὸν ὃν φέρει αὐτὴκαρποῦται (τοὺς γὰρ τῶν φυτῶν καρποὺς καὶ τὸ ἀνάλογον ἐπὶτῶν ζῴων ἄλλοι καρποῦνται), τοῦ ἰδίου τέλους τυγχάνει, ὅπουἂν τὸ τοῦ βίου πέρας ἐπιστῇ, οὐχ ὥσπερ ἐπὶ ὀρχήσεως καὶὑποκρίσεως καὶ τῶν τοιούτων ἀτελὴς γίνεται ἡ ὅλη πρᾶξις, ἐάντι ἐγκόψῃ, ἀλλ ἐπὶ παντὸς μέρους καὶ ὅπου ἂν καταληφθῇ, πλῆρεςκαὶ ἀπροσδεὲς ἑαυτῇ τὸ προτεθὲν ποιεῖ, ὥστε εἰπεῖν˙ ἐγὼ ἀπέχωτὰ ἐμά. ἔτι δὲ περιέρχεται τὸν ὅλον κόσμον καὶ τὸ περὶ αὐτὸνκενὸν καὶ τὸ σχῆμα αὐτοῦ καὶ εἰς τὴν ἀπειρίαν τοῦ αἰῶνοςἐκτείνεται καὶ τὴν περιοδικὴν παλιγγενεσίαν τῶν ὅλων ἐμπεριλαμβάνεικαὶ περινοεῖ καὶ θεωρεῖ ὅτι οὐδὲν νεώτερον ὄψονταιοἱ μεθ ἡμᾶς οὐδὲ περιττότερον εἶδον οἱ πρὸ ἡμῶν, ἀλλὰ τρόποντινὰ ὁ τεσσαρακοντούτης, ἐὰν νοῦν ὁποσονοῦν ἔχῃ, πάντα τὰγεγονότα καὶ τὰ ἐσόμενα ἑώρακε κατὰ τὸ ὁμοειδές. ἴδιον δὲλογικῆς ψυχῆς καὶ τὸ φιλεῖν τοὺς πλησίον καὶ ἀλήθεια καὶ αἰδὼςκαὶ τὸ μηδὲν ἑαυτῆς προτιμᾶν, ὅπερ ἴδιον καὶ νόμου˙ οὕτως ἄῤοὐδὲν διήνεγκε λόγος ὀρθὸς καὶ λόγος δικαιοσύνης.

2. Ὠιδῆς ἐπιτερποῦς καὶ ὀρχήσεως καὶ παγκρατίου καταφρονήσεις,ἐὰν τὴν μὲν ἐμμελῆ φωνὴν καταμερίσῃς εἰς ἕκαστον τῶνφθόγγων καὶ καθ ἕνα πύθῃ σεαυτοῦ, εἰ τούτου ἥττων εἶ˙διατραπήσῃ γάρ˙ ἐπὶ δὲ ὀρχήσεως τὸ ἀνάλογον ποιήσας καθἑκάστην κίνησιν ἢ σχέσιν, τὸ δ αὐτὸ καὶ ἐπὶ τοῦ παγκρατίου.ὅλως οὖν, χωρὶς ἀρετῆς καὶ τῶν ἀπ ἀρετῆς, μέμνησο ἐπὶ τὰ κατὰμέρος τρέχειν καὶ τῇ διαιρέσει αὐτῶν εἰς καταφρόνησιν ἰέναι,τὸ δ αὐτὸ καὶ ἐπὶ τὸν βίον ὅλον μεταφέρειν.

3. Οἵα ἐστὶν ἡ ψυχὴ ἡ ἕτοιμος, ἐὰν ἤδη ἀπολυθῆναι δέῃ τοῦσώματος, [καὶ] ἤτοι σβεσθῆναι ἢ σκεδασθῆναι ἢ συμμεῖναι. τὸδὲ ἕτοιμον τοῦτο ἵνα ἀπὸ ἰδικῆς κρίσεως ἔρχηται, μὴ κατὰ ψιλὴνπαράταξιν ὡς οἱ Χριστιανοί, ἀλλὰ λελογισμένως καὶ σεμνῶς καὶὥστε καὶ ἄλλον πεῖσαι, ἀτραγῴδως.

4. Πεποίηκά τι κοινωνικῶς; οὐκοῦν ὠφέλημαι. τοῦτο ἵνα ἀεὶπρόχειρον ἀπαντᾷ καὶ μηδαμοῦ παύου.

5. Τίς σου ἡ τέχνη; ἀγαθὸν εἶναι. τοῦτο δὲ πῶς ἄλλως γίνεται ἢἐκ θεωρημάτων, τῶν μὲν περὶ τῆς τοῦ ὅλου φύσεως, τῶν δὲ περὶτῆς ἰδίας τοῦ ἀνθρώπου κατασκευῆς.

6. Πρῶτον αἱ τραγῳδίαι παρήχθησαν ὑπομνηστικαὶ τῶν συμβαινόντωνκαὶ ὅτι ταῦτα οὕτως πέφυκε γίνεσθαι καὶ ὅτι, οἷς ἐπὶτῆς σκηνῆς ψυχαγωγεῖσθε, τούτοις μὴ ἄχθεσθε ἐπὶ τῆς μείζονοςσκηνῆς˙ ὁρᾶτε γὰρ ὅτι οὕτως δεῖ ταῦτα περαίνεσθαι καὶ ὅτιφέρουσιν αὐτὰ καὶ οἱ κεκραγότες˙ “ἰὼ Κιθαιρών.” καὶ λέγεται δέτινα ὑπὸ τῶν τὰ δράματα ποιούντων χρησίμως˙ οἷόν ἐστιν ἐκεῖνομάλιστα˙ εἰ δ ἠμελήθην ἐκ θεῶν καὶ παῖδ ἐμώ, ἔχει λόγον καὶτοῦτο˙ καὶ πάλιν˙ τοῖς πράγμασιν γὰρ οὐχὶ θυμοῦσθαι ‹χρεών›.καί˙ βίον θερίζειν ὥστε κάρπιμον στάχυν˙ καὶ ὅσα τοιαῦτα. μετὰδὲ τὴν τραγῳδίαν ἡ ἀρχαία κωμῳδία παρήχθη, παιδαγωγικὴνπαῤῥησίαν ἔχουσα καὶ τῆς ἀτυφίας οὐκ ἀχρήστως δἰ αὐτῆς τῆςεὐθυῤῥημοσύνης ὑπομιμνῄσκουσα˙ πρὸς οἷόν τι καὶ Διογένηςταυτὶ παρελάμβανεν. μετὰ ταῦτα τίς ἡ μέση κωμῳδία καὶ λοιπὸνἡ νέα πρὸς τί ποτε παρείληπται, ἣ κατ ὀλίγον ἐπὶ τὴν ἐκ μιμήσεωςφιλοτεχνίαν ὑπεῤῥύη, ἐπίστησον. ὅτι μὲν γὰρ λέγεται καὶ ὑπὸτούτων τινὰ χρήσιμα οὐκ ἀγνοεῖται, ἀλλὰ ἡ ὅλη ἐπιβολὴ τῆςτοιαύτης ποιήσεως καὶ δραματουργίας πρὸς τίνα ποτὲ σκοπὸνἀπέβλεψεν;

7. Πῶς ἐναργὲς προσπίπτει τὸ μὴ εἶναι ἄλλην βίου ὑπόθεσιν εἰςτὸ φιλοσοφεῖν οὕτως ἐπιτήδειον ὡς ταύτην, ἐν ᾗ νῦν ὢν τυγχάνεις.

8. Κλάδος τοῦ προσεχοῦς κλάδου ἀποκοπεὶς οὐ δύναται μὴ καὶτοῦ ὅλου φυτοῦ ἀποκεκόφθαι. οὕτω δὴ καὶ ἄνθρωπος ἑνὸςἀνθρώπου ἀποσχισθεὶς ὅλης τῆς κοινωνίας ἀποπέπτωκεν. κλάδονμὲν οὖν ἄλλος ἀποκόπτει˙ ἄνθρωπος δὲ αὐτὸς ἑαυτὸν τοῦ πλησίονχωρίζει μισήσας καὶ ἀποστραφείς, ἀγνοεῖ δὲ ὅτι καὶ τοῦ ὅλουπολιτεύματος ἅμα ἀποτέτμηκεν ἑαυτόν. πλὴν ἐκεῖνό γε δῶροντοῦ συστησαμένου τὴν κοινωνίαν Διός˙ ἔξεστι γὰρ ἡμῖν πάλινσυμφῦναι τῷ προσεχεῖ καὶ πάλιν τοῦ ὅλου συμπληρωτικοῖςγενέσθαι. πλεονάκις μέντοι γινόμενον τὸ κατὰ τὴν τοιαύτηνδιαίρεσιν δυσένωτον καὶ δυσαποκατάστατον ‹τὸ› ἀποχωροῦνποιεῖ. ὅλως τε οὐχ ὅμοιος ὁ κλάδος ὁ ἀπ ἀρχῆς συμβλαστήσαςκαὶ σύμπνους συμμείνας τῷ μετὰ τὴν ἀποκοπὴν αὖθις ἐγκεντρισθέντι,ὅ τι ποτὲ λέγουσιν οἱ φυτουργοί. Ὁμοθαμνεῖν μέν, μὴὁμοδογματεῖν δέ.

9. Οἱ ἐνιστάμενοι προιόντι σοι κατὰ τὸν ὀρθὸν λόγον ὥσπερ ἀπὸτῆς ὑγιοῦς πράξεως ἀποτρέψαι σε οὐ δυνήσονται, οὕτως μηδὲτῆς πρὸς αὐτοὺς εὐμενείας ἐκκρουέτωσαν, ἀλλὰ φύλασσε σεαυτὸνἐπ ἀμφοτέρων ὁμοίως, μὴ μόνον ἐπὶ τῆς εὐσταθοῦς κρίσεως καὶπράξεως, ἀλλὰ καὶ ἐπὶ τῆς πρὸς τοὺς κωλύειν ἐπιχειροῦντας ἢἄλλως δυσχεραίνοντας πρᾳότητος. καὶ γὰρ τοῦτο ἀσθενές, τὸχαλεπαίνειν αὐτοῖς, ὥσπερ τὸ ἀποστῆναι τῆς πράξεως καὶἐνδοῦναι καταπλαγέντα˙ ἀμφότεροι γὰρ ἐπίσης λιποτάκται, ὁ μὲνὑποτρέσας, ὁ δὲ ἀλλοτριωθεὶς πρὸς τὸν φύσει συγγενῆ καὶ φίλον.

10. Οὐκ ἔστι χείρων οὐδεμία φύσις τέχνης˙ καὶ γὰρ αἱ τέχναι τὰςφύσεις μιμοῦνται. εἰ δὲ τοῦτο, ἡ πασῶν τῶν ἄλλων τελεωτάτηκαὶ περιληπτικωτάτη φύσις οὐκ ἂν ἀπολείποιτο τῆς τεχνικῆςεὐμηχανίας. πᾶσαι δέ γε τέχναι τῶν κρειττόνων ἕνεκεν τὰ χείρωποιοῦσιν˙ οὐκοῦν καὶ ἡ κοινὴ φύσις. καὶ δὴ ἔνθεν μὲν γένεσιςδικαιοσύνης, ἀπὸ δὲ ταύτης αἱ λοιπαὶ ἀρεταὶ ὑφίστανται˙ οὐγὰρ τηρηθήσεται τὸ δίκαιον, ἐὰν ἤτοι διαφερώμεθα πρὸς τὰ μέσαἢ εὐεξαπάτητοι καὶ προπτωτικοὶ καὶ μεταπτωτικοὶ ὦμεν.

11. [Εἰ μὲν] Οὐκ ἔρχεται ἐπὶ σὲ τὰ πράγματα ὧν αἱ διώξεις καὶφυγαὶ θορυβοῦσί σε, ἀλλὰ τρόπον τινὰ αὐτὸς ἐπ ἐκεῖνα ἔρχῃ˙ τὸγοῦν κρῖμα τὸ περὶ αὐτῶν ἡσυχαζέτω κἀκεῖνα μενεῖ ἀτρεμοῦντακαὶ οὔτε διώκων οὔτε φεύγων ὀφθήσῃ.

12. Σφαῖρα ψυχῆς αὐτοειδής, ὅταν μήτε ἐκτείνηται ἐπί τι μήτεἔσω συντρέχῃ μήτε σπείρηται μήτε συνιζάνῃ, ἀλλὰ φωτὶ λάμπηταιᾧ τὴν ἀλήθειαν ὁρᾷ τὴν πάντων καὶ τὴν ἐν αὑτῇ.

13. Καταφρονήσει μού τις; ὄψεται. ἐγὼ δὲ ὄψομαι ἵνα μή τικαταφρονήσεως ἄξιον πράσσων ἢ λέγων εὑρίσκωμαι. μισήσει;ὄψεται. ἀλλὰ ἐγὼ εὐμενὴς καὶ εὔνους παντὶ καὶ τούτῳ αὐτῷἕτοιμος τὸ παρορώμενον δεῖξαι, οὐκ ὀνειδιστικῶς οὐδὲ ὡςκατεπιδεικνύμενος ὅτι ἀνέχομαι, ἀλλὰ γνησίως καὶ χρηστῶς, οἷοςὁ Φωκίων ἐκεῖνος, εἴ γε μὴ προσεποιεῖτο. τὰ ἔσω γὰρ δεῖ τοιαῦταεἶναι καὶ ὑπὸ τῶν θεῶν βλέπεσθαι ἄνθρωπον πρὸς μηδὲνἀγανακτικῶς διατιθέμενον μηδὲ δεινοπαθοῦντα. τί γάρ σοι κακόν,εἰ αὐτὸς νῦν ποιεῖς τὸ τῇ φύσει σου οἰκεῖον καὶ δέχῃ τὸ νῦν τῇτῶν ὅλων φύσει εὔκαιρον, ἄνθρωπος τεταμένος πρὸς τὸ γίνεσθαιδἰ ὅτου δὴ τὸ κοινῇ συμφέρον;

14. Ἀλλήλων καταφρονοῦντες ἀλλήλοις ἀρεσκεύονται καὶἀλλήλων ὑπερέχειν θέλοντες ἀλλήλοις ὑποκατακλίνονται.

15. Ὡς σαπρὸς καὶ κίβδηλος ὁ λέγων˙ ἐγὼ προῄρημαι ἁπλῶς σοιπροσφέρεσθαι. τί ποιεῖς, ἄνθρωπε; τοῦτο οὐ δεῖ προλέγειν. αὐτὸφανήσεται˙ ἐπὶ τοῦ μετώπου γεγράφθαι ὀφείλει˙ εὐθὺς ἡ φωνὴτοιοῦτον ἠχεῖν, εὐθὺς ἐν τοῖς ὄμμασιν ἐξέχειν, ὡς τῶν ἐραστῶνἐν τῷ βλέμματι πάντα εὐθὺς γνωρίζει ὁ ἐρώμενος. τοιοῦτον ὅλωςδεῖ τὸν ἁπλοῦν καὶ ἀγαθὸν εἶναι, οἷον γράσωνα, ἵνα ὁ παραστὰςἅμα τῷ προσελθεῖν, θέλει οὐ θέλει, αἴσθηται. ἐπιτήδευσις δὲἁπλότητος σκάλμη ἐστίν. οὐδέν ἐστιν αἴσχιον λυκοφιλίας˙πάντων μάλιστα τοῦτο φεῦγε. ὁ ἀγαθὸς καὶ ἁπλοῦς καὶ εὐμενὴςἐν τοῖς ὄμμασιν ἔχει ταῦτα καὶ οὐ λανθάνει.

16. Κάλλιστα διαζῆν, δύναμις αὕτη ἐν τῇ ψυχῇ, ἐὰν πρὸς τὰἀδιάφορά τις ἀδιαφορῇ. ἀδιαφορήσει δέ, ἐὰν ἕκαστον αὐτῶνθεωρῇ διῃρημένως καὶ ὁλικῶς καὶ μεμνημένος ὅτι οὐδὲν αὐτῶνὑπόληψιν περὶ αὐτοῦ ἡμῖν ἐμποιεῖ οὐδὲ ἔρχεται ἐφ ἡμᾶς, ἀλλὰτὰ μὲν ἀτρεμεῖ, ἡμεῖς δέ ἐσμεν οἱ τὰς περὶ αὐτῶν κρίσεις γεννῶντεςκαὶ οἷον γράφοντες ἐν ἑαυτοῖς, ἐξὸν μὲν μὴ γράφειν, ἐξὸν δέ, κἄνπου λάθῃ, εὐθὺς ἐξαλεῖψαι˙ ὅτι ὀλίγου χρόνου ἔσται ἡ τοιαύτηπροσοχὴ καὶ λοιπὸν πεπαύσεται ὁ βίος. τί μέντοι δύσκολον ἔχειταῦτα; εἰ μὲν γὰρ κατὰ φύσιν ἐστί, χαῖρε αὐτοῖς καὶ ῥᾴδια ἔσταισοι˙ εἰ δὲ παρὰ φύσιν, ζήτει τί ἐστί σοι κατὰ τὴν σὴν φύσιν καὶἐπὶ τοῦτο σπεῦδε κἂν ἄδοξον ᾖ˙ παντὶ γὰρ συγγνώμη τὸ ἴδιονἀγαθὸν ζητοῦντι.

17. Πόθεν ἐλήλυθεν ἕκαστον καὶ ἐκ τίνων ἕκαστον ὑποκειμένωνκαὶ εἰς τί μεταβάλλει καὶ οἷον ἔσται μεταβαλὸν καὶ ὡς οὐδὲν κακὸν πείσεται.

18. [Καὶ] Πρῶτον, τίς ἡ πρὸς αὐτούς μοι σχέσις καὶ ὅτι ἀλλήλωνἕνεκεν γεγόναμεν καὶ καθ ἕτερον λόγον προστησόμενος αὐτῶνγέγονα ὡς κριὸς ποίμνης ἢ ταῦρος ἀγέλης. ἄνωθεν δὲ ἔπιθι ἀπὸτοῦ˙ εἰ μὴ ἄτομοι, φύσις ἡ τὰ ὅλα διοικοῦσα˙ εἰ τοῦτο, τὰ χείρονατῶν κρειττόνων ἕνεκεν, ταῦτα δὲ ἀλλήλων.Δεύτερον δέ, ὁποῖοί τινές εἰσιν ἐπὶ τῆς τραπέζης, ἐν τῷ κλιναρίῳ,τἆλλα˙ μάλιστα δέ, οἵας ἀνάγκας δογμάτων κειμένας ἔχουσι˙καὶ αὐτὰ δὲ ταῦτα, μεθ οἵου τύφου ποιοῦσιν.Τρίτον, ὅτι, εἰ μὲν ὀρθῶς ταῦτα ποιοῦσιν, οὐ δεῖ δυσχεραίνειν˙εἰ δ οὐκ ὀρθῶς, δηλονότι ἄκοντες καὶ ἀγνοοῦντες˙ - πᾶσα γὰρψυχὴ ἄκουσα στέρεται, ὥσπερ τοῦ ἀληθοῦς, οὕτως καὶ τοῦ κατἀξίαν ἑκάστῳ προσφέρεσθαι - ἄχθονται γοῦν ἀκούοντες ἄδικοικαὶ ἀγνώμονες καὶ πλεονέκται καὶ καθάπαξ ἁμαρτητικοὶ περὶτοὺς πλησίον.Τέταρτον, ὅτι καὶ αὐτὸς πολλὰ ἁμαρτάνεις καὶ ἄλλος τοιοῦτοςεἶ˙ καὶ εἴ τινων δὲ ἁμαρτημάτων ἀπέχῃ, ἀλλὰ τήν γε ἕξινἐποιστικὴν ἔχεις, εἰ καὶ διὰ δειλίαν ἢ δοξοκοπίαν ἢ τοιοῦτό τικακὸν ἀπέχῃ τῶν ὁμοίων ἁμαρτημάτων.Πέμπτον, ὅτι οὐδὲ εἰ ἁμαρτάνουσι κατείληφας˙ πολλὰ γὰρ κατοἰκονομίαν γίνεται καὶ ὅλως πολλὰ δεῖ πρότερον μαθεῖν, ἵνα τιςπερὶ ἀλλοτρίας πράξεως καταληπτικῶς τι ἀποφήνηται.Ἕκτον, ὅτι, ὅταν λίαν ἀγανακτῇς ἢ καὶ δυσπαθῇς, ἀκαριαῖοςὁ ἀνθρώπινος βίος καὶ μετ ὀλίγον πάντες ἐξετάθημεν.Ἕβδομον, ὅτι οὐχ αἱ πράξεις αὐτῶν ἐνοχλοῦσιν ἡμῖν˙ ἐκεῖναιγάρ εἰσιν ἐν τοῖς ἐκείνων ἡγεμονικοῖς˙ ἀλλὰ αἱ ἡμέτεραιὑπολήψεις. ἆρον γοῦν καὶ θέλησον ἀφεῖναι τὴν ὡς περὶ δεινοῦκρίσιν καὶ ἀπῆλθεν ἡ ὀργή. πῶς οὖν ἀρεῖς; λογισάμενος ὅτι οὐκαἰσχρόν˙ ἐὰν γὰρ μὴ μόνον ᾖ τὸ αἰσχρὸν κακόν, ἀνάγκη καὶ σὲπολλὰ ἁμαρτάνειν καὶ λῃστὴν καὶ παντοῖον γίνεσθαι.Ὄγδοον, ὅσῳ χαλεπώτερα ἐπιφέρουσιν αἱ ὀργαὶ καὶ λῦπαι αἱἐπὶ τοῖς τοιούτοις, ἤπερ αὐτά ἐστιν ἐφ οἷς ὀργιζόμεθα καὶλυπούμεθα.Ἔνατον, ὅτι τὸ εὐμενὲς ἀνίκητον, ἐὰν γνήσιον ᾖ καὶ μὴ σεσηρὸςμηδὲ ὑπόκρισις. τί γάρ σοι ποιήσει ὁ ὑβριστικώτατος, ἐὰν διατελῇςεὐμενὴς αὐτῷ καί, εἰ οὕτως ἔτυχε, πρᾴως παραινῇς καὶμεταδιδάσκῃς εὐσχολῶν παῤ αὐτὸν ἐκεῖνον τὸν καιρὸν ὅτεκακοποιεῖν σε ἐπιχειρεῖ˙ “μή, τέκνον˙ πρὸς ἄλλο πεφύκαμεν˙ ἐγὼμὲν οὐ μὴ βλαβῶ, σὺ δὲ βλάπτῃ, τέκνον.” καὶ δεικνύναι εὐαφῶςκαὶ ὁλικῶς ὅτι τοῦτο οὕτως ἔχει, ὅτι οὐδὲ μέλισσαι αὐτὸ ποιοῦσινοὐδ ὅσα συναγελαστικὰ πέφυκε. δεῖ δὲ μήτε εἰρωνικῶς αὐτὸποιεῖν μήτε ὀνειδιστικῶς, ἀλλὰ φιλοστόργως καὶ ἀδήκτως τῇ ψυχῇκαὶ μὴ ὡς ἐν σχολῇ μηδὲ ἵνα ἄλλος παραστὰς θαυμάσῃ, ἀλλ ᾗτοι πρὸς μόνον καὶ ἐὰν ἄλλοι τινὲς περιεστήκωσι.Τούτων τῶν ἐννέα κεφαλαίων μέμνησο ὡς παρὰ τῶν Μουσῶνδῶρα εἰληφὼς καὶ ἄρξαι ποτὲ ἄνθρωπος εἶναι, ἕως ζῇς. φυλακτέονδὲ ἐπίσης τῷ ὀργίζεσθαι αὐτοῖς τὸ κολακεύειν αὐτούς˙ ἀμφότεραγὰρ ἀκοινώνητα καὶ πρὸς βλάβην φέρει. πρόχειρον δὲ ἐν ταῖςὀργαῖς ὅτι οὐχὶ τὸ θυμοῦσθαι ἀνδρικόν, ἀλλὰ τὸ πρᾷον καὶἥμερον ὥσπερ ἀνθρωπικώτερον, οὕτως καὶ ἀῤῥενικώτερον, καὶἰσχύος καὶ νεύρων καὶ ἀνδρείας τούτῳ μέτεστιν, οὐχὶ τῷἀγανακτοῦντι καὶ δυσαρεστοῦντι˙ ὅσῳ γὰρ ἀπαθείᾳ τοῦτοοἰκειότερον, τοσούτῳ καὶ δυνάμει, ὥσπερ τε ἡ λύπη ἀσθενοῦς,οὕτως καὶ ἡ ὀργή˙ ἀμφότεροι γὰρ τέτρωνται καὶ ἐνδεδώκασιν.Εἰ δὲ βούλει, καὶ δέκατον παρὰ τοῦ Μουσηγέτου δῶρον λάβε,ὅτι τὸ ἀξιοῦν μὴ ἁμαρτάνειν τοὺς φαύλους μανικόν˙ ἀδυνάτουγὰρ ἐφίεται. τὸ δὲ συγχωρεῖν ‹εἰς› ἄλλους μὲν εἶναι τοιούτους,ἀξιοῦν δὲ μὴ εἰς σὲ ἁμαρτάνειν, ἄγνωμον καὶ τυραννικόν.

19. Τέσσαρας μάλιστα τροπὰς τοῦ ἡγεμονικοῦ παραφυλακτέονδιηνεκῶς καὶ ἐπειδὰν φωράσῃς ἀπαλειπτέον, ἐπιλέγοντα ἐφἑκάστου οὕτως˙ τοῦτο τὸ φάντασμα οὐκ ἀναγκαῖον˙ τοῦτο λυτικὸνκοινωνίας˙ τοῦτο οὐκ ἀπὸ σαυτοῦ μέλλεις λέγειν˙ τὸ γὰρ μὴ ἀφἑαυτοῦ λέγειν ἐν τοῖς ἀτοπωτάτοις νόμιζε. τέταρτον δέ ἐστι καθὃ σεαυτῷ ὀνειδιεῖς, ὅτι τοῦτο ἡττωμένου ἐστὶ καὶ ὑποκατακλινομένουτοῦ ἐν σοὶ θειοτέρου μέρους τῇ ἀτιμοτέρᾳ καὶ θνητῇμοίρᾳ, τῇ τοῦ σώματος καὶ ταῖς τούτου παχείαις ἡδοναῖς.

20. Τὸ μὲν πνευματικόν σου καὶ τὸ πυρῶδες πᾶν, ὅσον ἐγκέκραται,καίτοι φύσει ἀνωφερῆ ὄντα, ὅμως πειθόμενα τῇ τῶν ὅλων διατάξειπαρακρατεῖται ἐνταῦθα ἐπὶ τοῦ συγκρίματος. καὶ τὸ γεῶδες δὲτὸ ἐν σοὶ πᾶν καὶ τὸ ὑγρόν, καίτοι κατωφερῆ ὄντα, ὅμως ἐγήγερταικαὶ ἕστηκε τὴν οὐχ ἑαυτῶν φυσικὴν στάσιν. οὕτως ἄρα καὶ τὰστοιχεῖα ὑπακούει τοῖς ὅλοις, ἐπειδάν που καταταχθῇ, βίᾳσυμμένοντα μέχρις ἂν ἐκεῖθεν πάλιν τὸ ἐνδόσιμον τῆς διαλύσεωςσημήνῃ. οὐ δεινὸν οὖν μόνον τὸ νοερόν σου μέρος ἀπειθὲς εἶναικαὶ ἀγανακτεῖν τῇ ἑαυτοῦ χώρᾳ; καίτοι οὐδέν γε βίαιον τούτῳἐπιτάσσεται, ἀλλὰ μόνα ὅσα κατὰ φύσιν ἐστὶν αὐτῷ˙ οὐ μέντοιἀνέχεται, ἀλλὰ τὴν ἐναντίαν φέρεται. ἡ γὰρ ἐπὶ τὰ ἀδικήματακαὶ τὰ ἀκολαστήματα καὶ τὰς ὀργὰς καὶ τὰς λύπας καὶ τοὺςφόβους κίνησις οὐδὲν ἄλλο ἐστὶν ἢ ἀφισταμένου τῆς φύσεως.καὶ ὅταν δέ τινι τῶν συμβαινόντων δυσχεραίνῃ τὸ ἡγεμονικόν,καταλείπει καὶ τότε τὴν ἑαυτοῦ χώραν˙ πρὸς ὁσιότητα γὰρ καὶθεοσέβειαν κατεσκεύασται οὐχ ἧττον ἢ πρὸς δικαιοσύνην. καὶγὰρ ταῦτα ἐν εἴδει ἐστὶ τῆς εὐκοινωνησίας, μᾶλλον δὲ πρεσβύτερατῶν δικαιοπραγημάτων.

21. “Ὣι μὴ εἷς καὶ ὁ αὐτός ἐστιν ἀεὶ τοῦ βίου σκοπός, οǷτος εἷςκαὶ ὁ αὐτὸς δἰ ὅλου τοῦ βίου εἶναι οὐ δύναται.” οὐκ ἀρκεῖ τὸεἰρημένον, ἐὰν μὴ κἀκεῖνο προσθῇς, ὁποῖον εἶναι δεῖ τοῦτον τὸνσκοπόν. ὥσπερ γὰρ οὐχ ἡ πάντων τῶν ὁπωσοῦν τοῖς πλείοσιδοκούντων ἀγαθῶν ὑπόληψις ὁμοία ἐστίν, ἀλλ ἡ τῶν τοιῶνδέτινων, τουτέστι τῶν κοινῶν, οὕτω καὶ τὸν σκοπὸν δεῖ τὸνκοινωνικὸν καὶ πολιτικὸν ὑποστήσασθαι. ὁ γὰρ εἰς τοῦτον πάσαςτὰς ἰδίας ὁρμὰς ἀπευθύνων πάσας τὰς πράξεις ὁμοίας ἀποδώσεικαὶ κατὰ τοῦτο ἀεὶ ὁ αὐτὸς ἔσται.

22. Τὸν μῦν τὸν ὀρεινὸν καὶ τὸν κατοικίδιον καὶ τὴν πτοίαν τούτουκαὶ διασόβησιν.

23. ‹Ὁ› Σωκράτης καὶ τὰ τῶν πολλῶν δόγματα Λαμίας ἐκάλει,παιδίων δείματα.

24. ‹Οἱ› Λακεδαιμόνιοι τοῖς μὲν ξένοις ἐν ταῖς θεωρίαις ὑπὸ τῇσκιᾷ τὰ βάθρα ἐτίθεσαν, αὐτοὶ δὲ οǷ ἔτυχεν, ἐκαθέζοντο.

25. Τῷ Περδίκκᾳ ὁ Σωκράτης περὶ τοῦ μὴ ἔρχεσθαι παῤ αὐτόν˙“ἵνα, ἔφη, μὴ τῷ κακίστῳ ὀλέθρῳ ἀπόλωμα”, τουτέστι, μὴ εὖπαθὼν οὐ δυνηθῶ ἀντευποιῆσαι.

26. Ἐν τοῖς τῶν Ἐπικουρείων γράμμασι παράγγελμα ἔκειτο συνεχῶςὑπομιμνῄσκεσθαι τῶν παλαιῶν τινος τῶν ἀρετῇ χρησαμένων.

27. Οἱ Πυθαγόρειοι˙ ἕωθεν εἰς τὸν οὐρανὸν ἀφορᾶν, ἵν ὑπομιμνῃσκώμεθα τῶν ἀεὶ κατὰ τὰ αὐτὰ καὶ ὡσαύτως τὸ ἑαυτῶν ἔργονδιανυόντων καὶ τῆς τάξεως καὶ τῆς καθαρότητος καὶ τῆςγυμνότητος˙ οὐδὲν γὰρ προκάλυμμα ἄστρου.

28. Οἷος ὁ Σωκράτης τὸ κῴδιον ὑπεζωσμένος, ὅτε ἡ Ξανθίππηλαβοῦσα τὸ ἱμάτιον ἔξω προῆλθεν˙ καὶ ἃ εἶπεν ὁ Σωκράτης τοῖςἑταίροις αἰδεσθεῖσι καὶ ἀναχωρήσασιν, ὅτε αὐτὸν εἶδον οὕτωςἐσταλμένον.

29. Ἐν τῷ γράφειν καὶ ἀναγινώσκειν οὐ πρότερον ἄρξεις πρὶνἀρχθῇς. τοῦτο πολλῷ μᾶλλον ἐν τῷ βίῳ.

30. Δοῦλος πέφυκας, οὐ μέτεστί σοι λόγου.

31. Ἐμὸν δ ἐγέλασσε φίλον κῆρ.

32. Μέμψονται δ ἀρετὴν χαλεποῖς βάζοντες ἔπεσσιν.

33. Σῦκον χειμῶνος ζητεῖν μαινομένου˙ τοιοῦτος ὁ [τὸ] παιδίονζητῶν, ὅτε οὐκέτι δίδοται.

34. Καταφιλοῦντα τὸ παιδίον δεῖν, ἔλεγεν ὁ Ἐπίκτητος, ἔνδονἐπιφθέγγεσθαι˙ “αὔριον ἴσως ἀποθανῇ.” - “δύσφημα ταῦτα.” -“οὐδὲν δύσφημον”, ἔφη, “φυσικοῦ τινος ἔργου σημαντικόν˙ ἢκαὶ τὸ τοὺς στάχυας θερισθῆναι δύσφημον.”

35. Ὄμφαξ, σταφυλή, σταφίς, πάντα μεταβολαί, οὐκ εἰς τὸ μὴ ὄν,ἀλλὰ εἰς τὸ νῦν μὴ ὄν.

36. Λῃστὴς προαιρέσεως οὐ γίνεται˙ τὸ τοῦ Ἐπικτήτου.

37. “Τέχνην”, ἔφη, “δεῖ περὶ τὸ συγκατατίθεσθαι εὑρεῖν καὶ ἐν τῷπερὶ τὰς ὁρμὰς τόπῳ τὸ προσεκτικὸν φυλάσσειν, ἵνα μεθὑπεξαιρέσεως ‹ὦσιν,› ἵνα κοινωνικαί, ἵνα κατ ἀξίαν, καὶ ὀρέξεωςμὲν παντάπασιν ἀπέχεσθαι, ἐκκλίσει δὲ πρὸς μηδὲν τῶν οὐκ ἐφἡμῖν χρῆσθαι.”

38. “Οὐ περὶ τοῦ τυχόντος οὖν”, ἔφη, “ἐστὶν ὁ ἀγών, ἀλλὰ περὶτοῦ μαίνεσθαι ἢ μή.”

39. Ὁ Σωκράτης ἔλεγεν˙ “τί θέλετε; λογικῶν ψυχὰς ἔχειν ἢ ἀλόγων;”“λογικῶν.” “τίνων λογικῶν; ὑγιῶν ἢ φαύλων;” “ὑγιῶν.” “τί οὖνοὐ ζητεῖτε;” “ὅτι ἔχομεν.” “τί οὖν μάχεσθε καὶ διαφέρεσθε;”

### Book XII
1. Πάντα ἐκεῖνα, ἐφ ἃ διὰ περιόδου εὔχῃ ἐλθεῖν, ἤδη ἔχειν δύνασαι, ἐὰν μὴ σαυτῷ φθονῇς. τοῦτο δέ ἐστιν, ἐὰν πᾶν τὸ παρελθὸν καταλίπῃς καὶ τὸ μέλλον ἐπιτρέψῃς τῇ προνοίᾳ καὶ τὸπαρὸν μόνον ἀπευθύνῃς πρὸς ὁσιότητα καὶ δικαιοσύνην.ὁσιότητα μέν, ἵνα φιλῇς τὸ ἀπονεμόμενον˙ σοὶ γὰρ αὐτὸ ἡ φύσις ἔφερεν καὶ σὲ τούτῳ˙ δικαιοσύνην δέ, ἵνα ἐλευθέρως καὶ χωρὶς περιπλοκῆς λέγῃς τε τἀληθῆ καὶ πράσσῃς τὰ κατὰ νόμον καὶ κατ ἀξίαν˙ μὴ ἐμποδίζῃ δέ σε μήτε κακία ἀλλοτρία μήτε ὑπόληψις μήτε φωνὴ μηδὲ μὴν αἴσθησις τοῦ περιτεθραμμένου σοι σαρκιδίου˙ ὄψεται γὰρ τὸ πάσχον. ἐὰν οὖν, ὅτε δήποτε πρὸς ἐξόδῳ γίνῃ, πάντα τὰ ἄλλα καταλιπὼν μόνον τὸ ἡγεμονικόν σου καὶ τὸ ἐν σοὶ θεῖον τιμήσῃς καὶ μὴ τὸ παύσασθαί ποτε ‹τοῦ› ζῆν φοβηθῇς, ἀλλὰ τό γε μηδέποτε ἄρξασθαι κατὰ φύσιν ζῆν, ἔσῃ ἄνθρωπος ἄξιος τοῦ γεννήσαντος κόσμου καὶ παύσῃ ξένος ὢν τῆς πατρίδος καὶ θαυμάζων ὡς ἀπροσδόκητα τὰ καθ ἡμέραν γινόμενα καὶ κρεμάμενος ἐκ τοῦδε καὶ τοῦδε.

2. Ὁ θεὸς πάντα τὰ ἡγεμονικὰ γυμνὰ τῶν ὑλικῶν ἀγγείων καὶ φλοιῶν καὶ καθαρμάτων ὁρᾷ˙ μόνῳ γὰρ τῷ ἑαυτοῦ νοερῷ μόνων ἅπτεται τῶν ἐξ ἑαυτοῦ εἰς ταῦτα ἐῤῥυηκότων καὶ ἀπωχετευμένων. ἐὰν δὲ καὶ σὺ τοῦτο ἐθίσῃς ποιεῖν, τὸν πολὺν περισπασμὸν σεαυτοῦ περιαιρήσεις˙ ὁ γὰρ μὴ τὰ περικείμενα κρεᾴδια ὁρῶν, ἦπού γε ἐσθῆτα καὶ οἰκίαν καὶ δόξαν καὶ τὴν τοιαύτην περιβολὴν καὶ σκηνὴν θεώμενος ἀσχολήσεται.

3. Τρία ἐστὶν ἐξ ὧν συνέστηκας˙ σωμάτιον, πνευμάτιον, νοῦς.τούτων τἆλλα μέχρι τοῦ ἐπιμελεῖσθαι δεῖν σά ἐστι, τὸ δὲ τρίτον μόνον κυρίως σόν. ‹δι›ὸ ἐὰν χωρίσῃς ἀπὸ σεαυτοῦ, τουτέστιν ἀπὸ τῆς σῆς διανοίας, ὅσα ἄλλοι ποιοῦσιν ἢ λέγουσιν ἢ ὅσα αὐτὸς ἐποίησας ἢ εἶπας καὶ ὅσα ὡς μέλλοντα ταράσσει σε καὶὅσα τοῦ περικειμένου σοι σωματίου ἢ τοῦ συμφύτου πνευματίουἀπροαίρετα πρόσεστιν καὶ ὅσα ἡ ἔξωθεν περιῤῥέουσα δίνηἑλίσσει, ὥστε τῶν συνειμαρμένων ἐξῃρημένην, καθαράν ‹τε› τὴν νοερὰν δύναμιν ‹καὶ› ἀπόλυτον ἐφ ἑαυτῆς ζῆν, ποιοῦσαν τὰ δίκαια καὶ θέλουσαν τὰ συμβαίνοντα καὶ λέγουσαν τἀληθῆ˙ἐὰν χωρίσῃς, φημί, τοῦ ἡγεμονικοῦ τούτου τὰ προσηρτημένα ἐκ προσπαθείας καὶ τοῦ χρόνου τὰ ἐπέκεινα ἢ τὰ παρῳχηκότα, ποιήσῃς τε σεαυτόν, οἷος ὁ Ἐμπεδόκλειος σφαῖρος κυκλοτερὴς μονίῃ περιγηθέι γαίων, μόνον τε ζῆν ἐκμελετήσῃς ὃ ζῇς, τουτέστι τὸ παρόν, δυνήσῃ τό γε μέχρι τοῦ ἀποθανεῖν ὑπολειπόμενον ἀταράκτως καὶ εὐμενῶς καὶ ἵλεως τῷ σαυτοῦ δαίμονι διαβιῶναι.

4. Πολλάκις ἐθαύμασα πῶς ἑαυτὸν μὲν ἕκαστος μᾶλλον πάντωνφιλεῖ, τὴν δὲ ἑαυτοῦ περὶ αὑτοῦ ὑπόληψιν ἐν ἐλάττονι λόγῳ τίθεταιἢ τὴν τῶν ἄλλων. ἐὰν γοῦν τινα θεὸς ἐπιστὰς ἢ διδάσκαλοςἔμφρων κελεύσῃ μηδὲν καθ αὑτὸν ἐνθυμεῖσθαι καὶ διανοεῖσθαιὃ μὴ ἅμα καὶ γεγωνίσκων ἐξοίσει, οὐδὲ πρὸς μίαν ἡμέραν τοῦτοὑπομενεῖ. οὕτως τοὺς πέλας μᾶλλον αἰδούμεθα, τί ποτε περὶἡμῶν φρονήσουσιν, ἢ ἑαυτούς.

5. Πῶς ποτε πάντα καλῶς καὶ φιλανθρώπως διατάξαντες οἱ θεοὶτοῦτο μόνον παρεῖδον, τὸ ἐνίους τῶν ἀνθρώπων καὶ πάνυχρηστοὺς καὶ πλεῖστα πρὸς τὸ θεῖον ὥσπερ συμβόλαια θεμένουςκαὶ ἐπὶ πλεῖστον δἰ ἔργων ὁσίων καὶ ἱερουργιῶν συνήθεις τῷθείῳ γενομένους, ἐπειδὰν ἅπαξ ἀποθάνωσι, μηκέτι αὖθις γίνεσθαι,ἀλλ εἰς τὸ παντελὲς ἀπεσβηκέναι; τοῦτο δὲ εἴπερ ἄρα καὶ οὕτωςἔχει, εὖ ἴσθι ὅτι, εἰ ὡς ἑτέρως ἔχειν ἔδει, ἐποίησαν ἄν˙ εἰ γὰρδίκαιον ἦν, ἦν ἂν καὶ δυνατόν, καὶ εἰ κατὰ φύσιν, ἤνεγκεν ἂναὐτὸ ἡ φύσις. ἐκ δὴ τοῦ μὴ οὕτως ἔχειν, εἴπερ οὐχ οὕτως ἔχει,πιστούσθω σοι τὸ μὴ δεῆσαι οὕτως γίνεσθαι˙ ὁρᾷς γὰρ καὶ αὐτὸςὅτι τοῦτο παραζητῶν δικαιολογῇ πρὸς τὸν θεόν˙ οὐκ ἂν δ οὕτωςδιελεγόμεθα τοῖς θεοῖς, εἰ μὴ ἄριστοι καὶ δικαιότατοι ἦσαν. εἰδὲ τοῦτο, οὐκ ἄν τι περιεῖδον ἀδίκως καὶ ἀλόγως ἠμελημένοντῶν ἐν τῇ διακοσμήσει.

6. Ἔθιζε καὶ ὅσα ἀπογινώσκεις. καὶ γὰρ ἡ χεὶρ ἡ ἀριστερὰ πρὸςτὰ ἄλλα διὰ τὸ ἀνέθιστον ἀργὸς οὖσα τοῦ χαλινοῦ ἐῤῥωμενέστερονἢ ἡ δεξιὰ κρατεῖ˙ τοῦτο γὰρ εἴθισται.

7. Ὁποῖον δεῖ καταληφθῆναι ὑπὸ τοῦ θανάτου καὶ σώματι καὶψυχῇ˙ τὴν βραχύτητα τοῦ βίου˙ τὴν ἀχάνειαν τοῦ ὀπίσω καὶπρόσω αἰῶνος˙ τὴν ἀσθένειαν πάσης ὕλης.

8. Γυμνὰ τῶν φλοιῶν θεάσασθαι τὰ αἰτιώδη˙ τὰς ἀναφορὰς τῶνπράξεων˙ τί πόνος˙ τί ἡδονή˙ τί θάνατος˙ τί δόξα˙ τίς οὐχ ἑαυτῷἀσχολίας αἴτιος˙ πῶς οὐδεὶς ὑπ ἄλλου ἐμποδίζεται˙ ὅτι πάνταὑπόληψις.

9. Ὅμοιον εἶναι [δεῖ] ἐν τῇ τῶν δογμάτων χρήσει παγκρατιαστῇ,οὐχὶ μονομάχῳ˙ ὁ μὲν γὰρ τὸ ξίφος ᾧ χρῆται ἀποτίθεται καὶἀναιρεῖται˙ ὁ δὲ τὴν χεῖρα ἀεὶ ἔχει καὶ οὐδὲν ἄλλο ἢ συστρέψαιαὐτὴν δεῖ.

10. Αὐτὰ τὰ πράγματα ὁρᾶν, διαιροῦντα εἰς ὕλην, αἴτιον,ἀναφοράν.

11. Ἡλίκην ἐξουσίαν ἔχει ἄνθρωπος μὴ ποιεῖν ἄλλο ἢ ὅπερ μέλλειὁ θεὸς ἐπαινεῖν, καὶ δέχεσθαι πᾶν ὃ ἂν νέμῃ αὐτῷ ὁ θεός, ‹ὡς›τὸ ἑξῆς τῇ φύσει.

12. Μήτε θεοῖς μεμπτέον˙ οὐδὲν γὰρ ἑκόντες ἢ ἄκοντες ἁμαρτάνουσι˙μήτε ἀνθρώποις˙ οὐδὲν γὰρ οὐχὶ ἄκοντες. ὥστε οὐδενὶμεμπτέον.

13. Πῶς γελοῖος καὶ ξένος ὁ θαυμάζων καὶ ὁτιοῦν τῶν ἐν τῷ βίῳγινομένων.

14. Ἤτοι ἀνάγκη εἱμαρμένης καὶ ἀπαράβατος τάξις ἢ πρόνοιαἱλάσιμος ἢ φυρμὸς εἰκαιότητος ἀπροστάτητος. εἰ μὲν οὖνἀπαράβατος ἀνάγκη, τί ἀντιτείνεις; εἰ δὲ πρόνοια ἐπιδεχομένητὸ ἱλάσκεσθαι, ἄξιον ἑαυτὸν ποίησον τῆς ἐκ τοῦ θείου βοηθείας.εἰ δὲ φυρμὸς ἀνηγεμόνευτος, ἀσμένιζε ὅτι ἐν τοιούτῳ τῷκλύδωνι αὐτὸς ἔχεις ἐν ἑαυτῷ τινα νοῦν ἡγεμονικόν, κἂν παραφέρῃσε ὁ κλύδων, παραφερέτω τὸ σαρκίδιον, τὸ πνευμάτιον,

15. τἆλλα˙ τὸν γὰρ νοῦν οὐ παροίσει. ἦ τὸ μὲν τοῦ λύχνου φῶς,μέχρι σβεσθῇ, φαίνει καὶ τὴν αὐγὴν οὐκ ἀποβάλλει, ἡ δὲ ἐν σοὶἀλήθεια καὶ δικαιοσύνη καὶ σωφροσύνη προαποσβήσεται;

16. Ἐπὶ τοῦ φαντασίαν παρασχόντος ὅτι ἥμαρτε˙ τί δαὶ οἶδα εἰτοῦτο ἁμάρτημα; εἰ δὲ καὶ ἥμαρτεν, ὅτι ‹οὐ› κατέκρινεν αὐτὸςἑαυτόν, καὶ οὕτως ὅμοιον τοῦτο τῷ καταδρύπτειν τὴν ἑαυτοῦὄψιν;Ὅτι ὁ μὴ θέλων τὸν φαῦλον ἁμαρτάνειν ὅμοιος τῷ μὴ θέλοντιτὴν συκῆν ὀπὸν ἐν τοῖς σύκοις φέρειν καὶ τὰ βρέφη κλαυθμυρίζεσθαικαὶ τὸν ἵππον χρεμετίζειν καὶ ὅσα ἄλλα ἀναγκαῖα. τίγὰρ πάθῃ τὴν ἕξιν ἔχων τοιαύτην; εἰ οὖν γοργὸς εἶ, ταύτην θεράπευσον.

17. Εἰ μὴ καθήκει, μὴ πράξῃς˙ εἰ μὴ ἀληθές ἐστι, μὴ εἴπῃς. ἡ γὰρὁρμή σου ἔστω εἰς τὸ πάν‹τως› ἀεὶ ὁρᾶν, τί ἐστιν αὐτὸ ἐκεῖνο τὸτὴν φαντασίαν σοι ποιοῦν, καὶ ἀναπτύσσειν διαιροῦντα εἰς τὸαἴτιον, εἰς τὸ ὑλικόν, εἰς τὴν ἀναφοράν, εἰς τὸν χρόνον ἐντὸς οǷπεπαῦσθαι αὐτὸ δεήσει.

18. Αἴσθου ποτὲ ὅτι κρεῖττόν τι καὶ δαιμονιώτερον ἔχεις ἐν σαυτῷτῶν τὰ πάθη ποιούντων καὶ καθάπαξ τῶν νευροσπαστούντωνσε. τί μου νῦν ἐστιν ἡ διάνοια; μὴ φόβος; μὴ ὑποψία; μὴ ἐπιθυμία;μὴ ἄλλο τι τοιοῦτον;

19. Πρῶτον τὸ μὴ εἰκῇ μηδὲ ἄνευ ἀναφορᾶς. δεύτερον τὸ μὴ ἐπἄλλο τι ἢ ἐπὶ τὸ κοινωνικὸν τέλος τὴν ἀναγωγὴν ποιεῖσθαι.

20. Ὅτι μετ οὐ πολὺ οὐδεὶς οὐδαμοῦ ἔσῃ οὐδὲ τούτων τι ἃ νῦνβλέπεις οὐδὲ τούτων τις τῶν νῦν βιούντων˙ ἅπαντα γὰρμεταβάλλειν καὶ τρέπεσθαι καὶ φθείρεσθαι πέφυκεν, ἵνα ἕτεραἐφεξῆς γίνηται.

21. Ὅτι πάντα ὑπόληψις καὶ αὕτη ἐπὶ σοί. ἆρον οὖν ὅτε θέλειςτὴν ὑπόληψιν καὶ ὥσπερ κάμψαντι τὴν ἄκραν γαλήνη, σταθερὰπάντα καὶ κόλπος ἀκύμων.

22. Μία καὶ ἡτισοῦν ἐνέργεια κατὰ καιρὸν παυσαμένη οὐδὲν κακὸνπάσχει, καθὸ πέπαυται˙ οὐδὲ ὁ πράξας τὴν πρᾶξιν ταύτην καταὐτὸ τοῦτο, καθὸ πέπαυται, κακόν τι πέπονθεν. ὁμοίως οὖν τὸἐκ πασῶν τῶν πράξεων σύστημα, ὅπερ ἐστὶν ὁ βίος, ἐὰν ἐν καιρῷπαύσηται, οὐδὲν κακὸν πάσχει κατ αὐτὸ τοῦτο, καθὸ πέπαυται˙οὐδὲ ὁ καταπαύσας ἐν καιρῷ τὸν εἱρμὸν τοῦτον κακῶς διετέθη.τὸν δὲ καιρὸν καὶ τὸν ὅρον δίδωσιν ἡ φύσις, ποτὲ μὲν καὶ ἡ ἰδία,ὅταν ἐν γήρᾳ, πάντως δὲ ἡ τῶν ὅλων, ἧς τῶν μερῶν μεταβαλλόντωννεαρὸς ἀεὶ καὶ ἀκμαῖος ὁ σύμπας κόσμος διαμένει. καλὸν δὲἀεὶ πᾶν καὶ ὡραῖον τὸ συμφέρον τῷ ὅλῳ. ἡ οὖν κατάπαυσις τοῦβίου ἑκάστῳ οὐ κακὸν μὲν ὅτι οὐδὲ αἰσχρόν, εἴπερ καὶἀπροαίρετον καὶ οὐκ ἀκοινώνητον˙ ἀγαθὸν δὲ εἴπερ τῷ ὅλῳκαίριον καὶ συμφέρον καὶ συμφερόμενον. οὕτως γὰρ καὶθεοφόρητος ὁ φερόμενος κατὰ ταὐτὰ θεῷ καὶ ἐπὶ ταὐτὰ τῇ γνώμῃφερόμενος.

23. Τρία ταῦτα δεῖ πρόχειρα ἔχειν˙ ἐπὶ μὲν ὧν ποιεῖς, [εἰ] μήτεεἰκῇ μήτε ἄλλως ἢ ὡς ἂν ἡ Δίκη αὐτὴ ἐνήργησεν˙ ἐπὶ δὲ τῶνἔξωθεν συμβαινόντων, ὅτι ἤτοι κατ ἐπιτυχίαν ἢ κατὰ πρόνοιαν˙οὔτε δὲ τῇ ἐπιτυχίᾳ μεμπτέον οὔτε τῇ προνοίᾳ ἐγκλητέον. δεύτεροντό˙ ὁποῖον ἕκαστον ἀπὸ σπέρματος μέχρι ψυχώσεως καὶ ἀπὸψυχώσεως μέχρι τοῦ τὴν ψυχὴν ἀποδοῦναι καὶ ἐξ οἵων ἡσύγκρισις καὶ εἰς οἷα ἡ λύσις. τρίτον εἰ ἄφνω μετέωρος ἐξαρθεὶςκατασκέψαιο τὰ ἀνθρώπεια καὶ τὴν πολυτροπίαν [ὅση]κατανοήσαις, ὅτι καταφρονήσεις συνιδὼν ἅμα καὶ ὅσον τὸπεριοικοῦν ἐναερίων καὶ ἐναιθερίων˙ καὶ ὅτι, ὁσάκις ἂν ἐξαρθῇς,ταὐτὰ ὄψῃ˙ τὸ ὁμοειδές, τὸ ὀλιγοχρόνιον˙ ἐπὶ τούτοις ὁ τῦφος.

24. Βάλε ἔξω τὴν ὑπόληψιν˙ σέσωσαι. τίς οὖν ὁ κωλύων ἐκβάλλειν;

25. Ὅταν δυσφορῇς ἐπί τινι, ἐπελάθου τοῦ, ὅτι πάντα κατὰ τὴντῶν ὅλων φύσιν γίνεται, καὶ τοῦ, ὅτι τὸ ἁμαρτανόμενον ἀλλότριον,καὶ ἐπὶ τούτοις τοῦ, ὅτι πᾶν τὸ γινόμενον οὕτως ἀεὶ ἐγίνετο καὶγενήσεται καὶ νῦν πανταχοῦ γίνεται˙ τοῦ, ὅση ἡ συγγένειαἀνθρώπου πρὸς πᾶν τὸ ἀνθρώπειον γένος˙ οὐ γὰρ αἱματίου ἢσπερματίου, ἀλλὰ νοῦ κοινωνία. ἐπελάθου δὲ καὶ τοῦ, ὅτι ὁἑκάστου νοῦς θεὸς καὶ ἐκεῖθεν ἐῤῥύηκεν˙ τοῦ, ὅτι οὐδὲν ἴδιονοὐδενός, ἀλλὰ καὶ τὸ τεκνίον καὶ τὸ σωμάτιον καὶ αὐτὸ τὸψυχάριον ἐκεῖθεν ἐλήλυθεν˙ τοῦ, ὅτι πάνθ ὑπόληψις˙ τοῦ, ὅτιτὸ παρὸν μόνον ἕκαστος ζῇ καὶ τοῦτο ἀποβάλλει.

26. Συνεχῶς ἀναπολεῖν τοὺς ἐπί τινι λίαν ἀγανακτήσαντας, τοὺςἐν μεγίσταις δόξαις ἢ συμφοραῖς ἢ ἔχθραις ἢ ὁποιαισοῦν τύχαιςἀκμάσαντας˙ εἶτα ἐφιστάνειν˙ ποῦ νῦν πάντα ἐκεῖνα; καπνὸςκαὶ σποδὸς καὶ μῦθος ἢ οὐδὲ μῦθος. συμπροσπιπτέτω δὲ καὶ τὸτοιοῦτο πᾶν, οἷον˙ Φάβιος Κατουλλῖνος ἐπ ἀγροῦ καὶ ΛούσιοςΛοῦπος ἐν τοῖς κήποις καὶ Στερτίνιος ἐν Βαίαις καὶ Τιβέριος ἐνΚαπρέαις καὶ Οὐήλιος Ῥοῦφος καὶ ὅλως ἡ πρὸς ὁτιοῦν μετοἰήσεως διαφορά˙ καὶ ὡς εὐτελὲς πᾶν τὸ κατεντεινόμενον καὶὅσῳ φιλοσοφώτερον τὸ ἐπὶ τῆς δοθείσης ὕλης ἑαυτὸν δίκαιον,σώφρονα, θεοῖς ἑπόμενον ἀφελῶς παρέχειν˙ ὁ γὰρ ἐπὶ ἀτυφίᾳτῦφος τυφόμενος πάντων χαλεπώτατος.

27. Πρὸς τοὺς ἐπιζητοῦντας˙ ποῦ γὰρ ἰδὼν τοὺς θεοὺς ἢ πόθενκατειληφὼς ὅτι εἰσὶν οὕτω σέβεις; πρῶτον μὲν καὶ ὄψει ὁρατοίεἰσιν˙ ἔπειτα μέντοι οὐδὲ τὴν ψυχὴν τὴν ἐμαυτοῦ ἑώρακα καὶὅμως τιμῶ˙ οὕτως οὖν καὶ τοὺς θεούς, ἐξ ὧν τῆς δυνάμεως αὐτῶνἑκάστοτε πειρῶμαι, ἐκ τούτων ὅτι τε εἰσὶ καταλαμβάνω καὶαἰδοῦμαι.

28. Σωτηρία βίου ἕκαστον δἰ ὅλου αὐτὸ τί ἐστιν ὁρᾶν, τί μὲναὐτοῦ τὸ ὑλικόν, τί δὲ τὸ αἰτιῶδες˙ ἐξ ὅλης τῆς ψυχῆς τὰ δίκαιαποιεῖν καὶ τἀληθῆ λέγειν. τί λοιπὸν ἢ ἀπολαύειν τοῦ ζῆνσυνάπτοντα ἄλλο ἐπ ἄλλῳ ἀγαθόν, ὥστε μηδὲ τὸ βραχύτατονδιάστημα ἀπολείπειν;

29. Ἒν φῶς ἡλίου, κἂν διείργηται τοίχοις, ὄρεσιν, ἄλλοις μυρίοις.μία οὐσία κοινή, κἂν διείργηται ἰδίως ποιοῖς σώμασι μυρίοις.μία ψυχή, κἂν φύσεσι διείργηται μυρίαις καὶ ἰδίαις περιγραφαῖς.μία νοερὰ ψυχή, κἂν διακεκρίσθαι δοκῇ. τὰ μὲν οὖν ἄλλα μέρητῶν εἰρημένων, οἷον πνεύματα καὶ ὑποκείμενα ἀναίσθητα, καὶἀνοικείωτα ἀλλήλοις˙ καίτοι κἀκεῖνα τὸ ἑνοῦν συνέχει καὶ τὸἐπὶ τὰ αὐτὰ βρῖθον. διάνοια δὲ ἰδίως ἐπὶ τὸ ὁμόφυλον τείνεταικαὶ συνίσταται καὶ οὐ διείργεται τὸ κοινωνικὸν πάθος.

30. Τί ἐπιζητεῖς; τὸ διαγίνεσθαι; ἀλλὰ τὸ αἰσθάνεσθαι; τὸ ὁρμᾶν;τὸ αὔξεσθαι; τὸ λήγειν αὖθις; τὸ φωνῇ χρῆσθαι; τὸ διανοεῖσθαι;τί τούτων πόθου σοι ἄξιον δοκεῖ; εἰ δὲ ἕκαστα εὐκαταφρόνητα,πρόιθι ἐπὶ τελευταῖον τὸ ἕπεσθαι τῷ λόγῳ καὶ τῷ θεῷ. ἀλλὰμάχεται τὸ τιμᾶν ταῦτα, τὸ ἄχθεσθαι εἰ διὰ τοῦ τεθνηκέναιστερήσεταί τις αὐτῶν.

31. Πόστον μέρος τοῦ ἀπείρου καὶ ἀχανοῦς αἰῶνος ἀπομεμέρισταιἑκάστῳ˙ τάχιστα γὰρ ἐναφανίζεται τῷ ἀιδίῳ˙ πόστον δὲ τῆς ὅληςοὐσίας˙ πόστον δὲ τῆς ὅλης ψυχῆς˙ ἐν πόστῳ δὲ βωλαρίῳ τῆςὅλης γῆς ἕρπεις. πάντα ταῦτα ἐνθυμούμενος μηδὲν μέγα φαντάζουἢ τό, ὡς μὲν ἡ σὴ φύσις ἄγει ποιεῖν, πάσχειν δὲ ὡς ἡ κοινὴ φύσιςφέρει.

32. Πῶς ἑαυτῷ χρῆται τὸ ἡγεμονικόν; ἐν γὰρ τούτῳ τὸ πᾶν ἐστι.τὰ δὲ λοιπὰ ἢ προαιρετικά ἐστιν ἢ ἀπροαίρετα, νεκρὰ καὶ καπνός.

33. Πρὸς θανάτου καταφρόνησιν ἐγερτικώτατον ὅτι καὶ οἱ τὴνἡδονὴν ἀγαθὸν καὶ τὸν πόνον κακὸν κρίνοντες ὅμως τούτουκατεφρόνησαν.

34. Ὣι τὸ εὔκαιρον μόνον ἀγαθὸν καὶ ᾧ τὸ πλείους κατὰ λόγονὀρθὸν πράξεις ἀποδοῦναι τῷ ὀλιγωτέρας ἐν ἴσῳ ἐστὶ καὶ ᾧ τὸνκόσμον θεωρῆσαι πλείονι ἢ ἐλάσσονι χρόνῳ οὐ διαφέρει, τούτῳοὐδὲ ὁ θάνατος φοβερόν.

35. Ἄνθρωπε, ἐπολιτεύσω ἐν τῇ μεγάλῃ ταύτῃ πόλει˙ τί σοιδιαφέρει, εἰ πέντε ἔτεσιν ‹ἢ πεντήκοντα›; τὸ γὰρ κατὰ τοὺς νόμουςἴσον ἑκάστῳ. τί οὖν δεινόν, εἰ τῆς πόλεως ἀποπέμπει σε οὐτύραννος οὐδὲ δικαστὴς ἄδικος, ἀλλ ἡ φύσις ἡ εἰσαγαγοῦσα,οἷον εἰ κωμῳδὸν ἀπολύοι τῆς σκηνῆς ὁ παραλαβὼν στρατηγός;- “ἀλλ οὐκ εἶπον τὰ πέντε μέρη, ἀλλὰ τὰ τρία.” - “καλῶς εἶπας˙ἐν μέντοι τῷ βίῳ τὰ τρία ὅλον τὸ δρᾶμά ἐστι.” τὸ γὰρ τέλειονἐκεῖνος ὁρίζει ὁ τότε μὲν τῆς συγκρίσεως, νῦν δὲ τῆς διαλύσεωςαἴτιος˙ σὺ δὲ ἀναίτιος ἀμφοτέρων. ἄπιθι οὖν ἵλεως˙ καὶ γὰρ ὁἀπολύων ἵλεως.

## Translation — Mouseia

> Mouseia's complete machine-assisted Musean translation, made directly from the complete Greek text across all twelve books and 488 sections for fidelity, Stoic precision, modern clarity, quiet beauty, and structure.

### Book I

1. From my grandfather Verus: goodness of heart, and freedom from anger.

2. From the reputation and remembrance of my father: modesty, and manliness.

3. From my mother: reverence for the divine, generosity, and abstention—not only from doing wrong, but even from entertaining the thought of it; and, further, simplicity in my way of life, far removed from the habits of the rich.

4. From my great-grandfather: not to attend the public schools, but to employ good teachers at home; and to understand that on such things one must spend unstintingly.

5. From my tutor: not to become a partisan of Green or Blue, of Palm or Shield; to endure hardship and need little; to work with my own hands and mind my own affairs; and to be slow to admit slander.

6. From Diognetus: freedom from vain pursuits; distrust of what wonder-workers and sorcerers say about incantations, the expulsion of spirits, and such things; not to breed quails for fighting or be carried away by pursuits of that kind; to tolerate frank speech; to make philosophy my own; to hear first Baccheius, then Tandasis and Marcianus; to write dialogues as a boy; and to desire a camp bed and a hide, and all else belonging to the Greek discipline.

7. From Rusticus: to grasp that my character needed correction and care; not to stray into sophistic ambition, nor write treatises on doctrines, nor deliver little exhortatory discourses, nor make a show of myself as an ascetic or benefactor in order to impress; to withdraw from rhetoric, poetry, and verbal display; not to parade about the house in formal dress or indulge in things of that kind; to write letters simply, like the very letter he wrote from Sinuessa to my mother; to be ready to recall and reconcile with those who have grown angry and done wrong, as soon as they themselves are willing to return; to read with precision, not content with a broad impression, and not hastily assent to those who talk around a subject; and to encounter the notes of Epictetus, which he shared with me from his own collection.

8. From Apollonius: freedom and an unwavering refusal to leave anything to chance; to look to nothing else, not even for a moment, but reason; to remain always the same—in acute pain, in the loss of a child, in long illnesses; and to see clearly in a living example that the same person can be at once most ardent and relaxed; not to grow impatient when explaining; to see a man who plainly regarded his experience and facility in communicating doctrines as the least of his gifts; and to learn how one should receive what are taken for favors from friends—neither surrendering oneself on their account nor passing them by without feeling.

9. From Sextus: benevolence; the example of a household governed as a father’s house; the conception of living according to nature; dignity without affectation; attentive care for friends; tolerance of ordinary people and of those who form opinions without reflection; an ease with everyone that made his company more pleasing than any flattery, while at that very time he inspired the deepest respect in those present; the ability, with sure comprehension and method, to discover and arrange the principles necessary for life; never to give even the appearance of anger or any other passion, but to be at once utterly free of passion and full of natural affection; to speak well of others without noise, and to possess great learning without display.

10. From Alexander the grammarian: to refrain from fault-finding, and not reproachfully to pounce on those who uttered a barbarism, a solecism, or some discordant expression, but tactfully to introduce only the very wording that should have been used—in the form of a reply, or a confirming addition, or a joint discussion of the matter itself rather than the word, or by some other graceful reminder of the same kind.

11. From Fronto: to recognize the envy, duplicity, and hypocrisy that belong to tyranny; and that, in general, those whom we call our patricians are somehow deficient in natural affection.

12. From Alexander the Platonist: not often, and never without necessity, to say to someone or write in a letter, “I am busy”; nor continually to use such a pretext to evade the duties arising from our relations with those who share our life, pleading the pressure of circumstances.

13. From Catulus: not to treat lightly a friend’s accusation, even if he happens to accuse without reason, but to try to restore the accustomed bond; to praise one’s teachers wholeheartedly, as is recorded of Domitius and Athenodotus; and to love one’s children truly.

14. From Severus: love of family, love of truth, and love of justice; through him, to know Thrasea, Helvidius, Cato, Dio, and Brutus; and to conceive a polity of equal law, governed by equality and equal freedom of speech, and a kingship honoring above all the liberty of the governed. From him also: steadiness and vigor in the esteem of philosophy; beneficence, unstinting generosity, and good hope; confidence that one is loved by one’s friends; openness with those who met with his disapproval; and that his friends never had to guess what he wanted or did not want—it was plain.

15. From Maximus: mastery of himself, and never to be swept away by anything; good cheer in every circumstance, including illness; a character well balanced, gentle, and venerable; the uncomplaining accomplishment of what lay before him; that everyone trusted that he thought as he spoke and acted without ill intent; never to wonder or be stunned, never to hurry or hesitate, never to be at a loss or downcast or grimly smiling, nor, in turn, angry or suspicious; beneficence, forgiveness, and truthfulness; to give the impression of a man naturally straight rather than one straightened out; and that no one could ever have thought himself looked down on by him, nor ventured to think himself better than he; graciousness in …

16. From my father: gentleness, and an unshaken constancy in decisions reached after careful examination; freedom from vanity about what passes for honor; love of work and perseverance; a readiness to hear those who had something to contribute to the common good; an undeviating care to allot each person what accorded with his worth; the experience to know where effort was needed and where relaxation; putting an end to his passions for boys; his fellow-feeling, and his allowing his friends neither to dine with him on every occasion nor necessarily to accompany him on his journeys, while those who had stayed behind because some duty required it always found him unchanged; his searching exactness and persistence in deliberation—not abandoning an inquiry too soon, content with the impressions nearest at hand; his gift for keeping his friends, being neither quick to tire of them nor infatuated with them; his self-sufficiency in everything, and his brightness of spirit; his foresight from far off, and his quiet ordering in advance of even the smallest details; the way acclamations and every form of flattery were checked in his presence; his constant watch over the necessities of government, his economy in public expenditure, and his endurance of the blame such conduct brought; toward the gods, no superstition, and toward human beings, no courting the crowd, currying favor, or pandering to the mob, but sobriety in all things and steadfastness, with no lapse into bad taste and no appetite for novelty; his use, without pretension and without apology, of the things that make life easier and that fortune had supplied in abundance, so that when they were present he took them naturally, and when they were absent he felt no need of them; the fact that no one could have called him a sophist, a household wit, or a pedant, but rather a mature man, complete, beyond flattery, capable of presiding over his own affairs and those of others.

Besides these: his respect for those who practiced philosophy in truth, while neither reproaching the rest nor being easily led by them; his ease in company and his graciousness, never cloying; his measured care for his own body, neither as one enamored of life, nor for adornment, nor yet neglectfully, but so that through his own attentiveness he had very little need of medicine, drugs, or external applications; above all, his ungrudging deference to those who possessed some particular power—eloquence, for example, or knowledge of laws, customs, or other matters drawn from history—and his eagerness to help them, so that each might win distinction according to his own excellence; his doing everything in accordance with ancestral ways, without even cultivating the appearance of preserving ancestral ways; furthermore, his not being easily shifted or tossed from one thing to another, but lingering over the same places and the same tasks; and after the attacks of headache, his returning at once fresh and vigorous to his accustomed work; his having not many secrets, but very few and very rare ones, and those only for the public good; his prudence and measure in presenting spectacles, undertaking public works, making distributions, and the like—the conduct of a man whose eye was fixed upon what needed to be done itself, not upon the good repute to be won from its doing.

He did not bathe at untimely hours; he had no passion for building; he did not invent refinements in food, or in the weave and color of clothes, or in the beauty of bodies. His dress at Lorium, when he came up from the lower country house; and most of what he did at Lanuvium; how he treated the tax collector at Tusculum when the man appealed to him—and his whole manner was of this kind. Nothing harsh, nothing implacable, nothing violent, nothing that could ever make one say, “to the point of sweating”; rather, everything individually distinguished and reasoned out as if at leisure—untroubled, ordered, strong, and in harmony with itself.

What is remembered of Socrates would fit him: he was able both to abstain from and to enjoy those things from which many are too weak to abstain and to whose enjoyment they too readily yield. But to remain strong, to endure, and to keep one’s sobriety in either case belongs to a man with a sound and unconquerable soul—as Maximus showed in his illness.

17. From the gods: to have good grandfathers, good parents, a good sister, good teachers, good members of the household, kinsmen, friends—almost everyone around me, good; and that I did not rush into doing wrong to any of them, although I had a disposition from which, had the occasion arisen, I might indeed have done some such thing. But it was the gods’ kindness that no conjunction of circumstances occurred which would have exposed me.

That I was not brought up any longer in my grandfather’s concubine’s household; that I preserved the bloom of youth, did not become a man before my time, but even let the time extend beyond it.

That I was placed under a ruler and father who was to strip away all my conceit and bring me to understand that it is possible to live at court without requiring bodyguards, distinctive robes, torches, statues, and displays of that kind, or any similar pomp; that one may draw one’s life very close to that of a private citizen and yet be no less dignified or energetic in dealing, as a ruler, with what must be done for the common good.

That I was blessed with such a brother—one able by his character to awaken me to the care of myself, while at the same time delighting me with his respect and affection.

That my children were not born without natural ability or deformed in body.

That I made no greater progress in rhetoric, poetry, and the other pursuits in which I might perhaps have become absorbed, had I felt myself advancing smoothly in them.

That I acted in time to establish those who had brought me up in the rank I thought they desired, and did not put them off with the hope that, since they were still young, I would do it later.

That I came to know Apollonius, Rusticus, and Maximus.

That the nature of a life according to Nature was vividly and repeatedly presented to me, so that—as far as the gods and the gifts, assistance, and inspirations proceeding from them are concerned—nothing now prevents me from living according to Nature; and if I still fall short of it at all, the fault is my own, because I do not keep watch over the gods’ reminders and all but direct teachings.

That my body has held out so long under such a life.

That I touched neither Benedicta nor Theodotus; and that later, too, when I fell into erotic passions, I recovered my health.

That, though I was often angry with Rusticus, I did nothing further for which I would have repented.

That my mother, though destined to die young, nevertheless lived her final years with me.

That whenever I wished to assist someone in poverty or in need of anything else, I never had to hear that I lacked the money from which it could be done; and that no similar need ever befell me myself, requiring me to receive help from another.

That my wife is as she is: so compliant, so affectionate, so unpretending.

That I had an ample supply of suitable tutors for my children.

That remedies were granted through dreams—among others, remedies against spitting blood and against vertigo—and the message at Caieta: “As you shall use...”

That when I longed for philosophy, I did not fall into the hands of some sophist, nor settle down to writing treatises, dissecting syllogisms, or occupying myself with celestial phenomena.

For all these things require “the gods’ help and fortune.”

### Book II

1. At dawn, say beforehand to yourself: I shall meet a meddler, an ingrate, an insolent man, a deceiver, an envier, one who shuns fellowship. All these traits have befallen them through ignorance of good and evil. But I have beheld the nature of the good—that it is beautiful—and of evil—that it is shameful—and the nature of the wrongdoer himself: that he is akin to me, not by the same blood or seed, but by sharing in mind and in a portion of the divine. Therefore none of them can harm me, for no one can clothe me in shame; nor can I be angry with my kinsman or hate him. For we were born to work together, like feet, like hands, like eyelids, like the rows of upper and lower teeth. To work against one another, then, is contrary to nature; and resentment and aversion are forms of working against one another.

2. Whatever this thing is that I am, it is a little flesh, a little breath, and the ruling faculty. As for the flesh, hold it in contempt: gore and little bones, a woven skein, a mesh of sinews, tiny veins, and arteries. Consider the breath too, what sort of thing it is: wind—not even always the same, but at every moment vomited out and sucked in again. The third, then, is the ruling faculty. Let the books go; be pulled no longer—this has not been granted you. Instead, think in this way, as one already dying: you are old; no longer let this faculty be enslaved, no longer let it be twitched like a puppet by an impulse hostile to fellowship, no longer resent what fate has brought in the present or look suspiciously upon what is to come.

3. The works of the gods are full of providence. The works of chance are not without nature, nor without a co-spinning and entanglement with all that providence orders. Everything flows from there; and joined to it are necessity and what benefits the whole cosmos, of which you are a part. For every part of nature, what the nature of the whole brings is good, as is whatever preserves that nature. And the cosmos is preserved by transformations: those of the elements, and likewise those of the things compounded from them. Let these things suffice you; let them always be your principles. Cast away your thirst for books, so that you may die not murmuring, but truly gracious and grateful to the gods from your heart.

4. Remember how long you have been postponing these things, and how often the gods have granted you extensions that you have not used. At last you must perceive of what cosmos you are a part, from what governor of the cosmos you came forth as an outflow, and that a boundary has been drawn around your allotted time. If you do not use it to emerge into the clear, it will pass away—and you will pass away—and no further chance will come.

5. At every hour, take steadfast care—as a Roman and a man—to carry out the task in hand with exact... and unaffected dignity, with loving care, freedom, and justice, and to secure for yourself release from every other impression. You will secure it if you perform each action as though it were the last of your life, freed from all aimlessness, from every passionate recoil away from the reason that chooses, from pretence, self-love, and discontent with what has fallen to your share. You see how few are the things which, once mastered, enable a person to live a smoothly flowing and god-revering life; for the gods themselves will ask nothing more of one who guards these things.

6. You do yourself violence, do yourself violence, O soul; and you will have no further season in which to honor yourself. Each person’s life is a moment, and yours is almost spent—yet you do not revere yourself, but place your good fortune in the souls of others.

7. Are things that strike you from outside scattering your attention? Then grant yourself the leisure to learn some further good thing, and cease drifting. But now you must guard against another kind of circling too: for those who are wearied by life and have no goal toward which they direct every impulse and, without exception, every impression, babble even in their deeds.

8. A person is seldom seen in misery for failing to attend to what is happening in another’s soul; but those who do not follow closely the movements of their own soul must necessarily be miserable.

9. Always remember these things: what the nature of the whole is, and what my own nature is; how this stands toward that; what kind of part it is, and of what kind of whole; and that no one can hinder you from always doing and saying what follows the nature of which you are a part.

10. Theophrastus, philosophically comparing wrongdoings—as such things might be compared in more ordinary terms—says that offences committed from desire are graver than those committed from anger. For one who is angry appears to turn away from reason with a certain pain and an inward contraction of which he is unaware; but one who goes wrong from desire, conquered by pleasure, appears somehow more undisciplined and more effeminate in his wrongdoing. Rightly, then, and worthily of philosophy, he said that an offence attended by pleasure merits a greater charge than one attended by pain. In general, the first is more like someone who has suffered a prior wrong and has been forced by pain into anger; the other has launched himself into wrongdoing from the outset, carried toward some act by desire.

11. Do and say and think each thing as one who may even now depart from life. But to go away from humankind, if gods exist, is nothing terrible; for they would not clothe you in evil. If, however, they do not exist, or if human affairs do not concern them, why should I live in a cosmos empty of gods or empty of providence? Yet they do exist, and human affairs do concern them; and so that a human being may not fall into what is truly evil, they placed the whole power in his own hands. And if anything among the remaining things were evil, they would have provided for that as well, so that it would lie within everyone’s power not to fall into it. (But how could what does not make a human being worse make a human life worse?) The nature of the whole would not have overlooked these things through ignorance; nor would she have known of them yet lacked the power to guard against or correct them. Nor would she have erred so greatly, through either incapacity or want of skill, that good and evil should befall good people and bad alike, confusedly and without distinction. Yet death and life, fame and obscurity, pain and pleasure, wealth and poverty—all these befall good people and bad alike, being neither beautiful nor shameful. Therefore they are neither good nor evil.

12. How swiftly everything vanishes back into what it came from: the bodies themselves into the cosmos, and their memories into eternity. What all things perceived by the senses are like—especially those that entice by pleasure, terrify by pain, or are loudly acclaimed by vanity; how cheap they are, how contemptible, soiled, perishable, and dead—these are matters for the mind’s power to dwell upon. And what are those people whose judgments and voices bestow good repute and ill repute? What is it to die? If one looks at death alone and, by dividing the conception, dissolves the phantoms associated with it, one will no longer suppose it to be anything but a work of nature. Whoever fears a work of nature is a child; and death is not only nature’s work, but also serves her good. How the human being touches god, through what part of himself, and how that human part must be disposed when he does.

13. Nothing is more wretched than one who makes the circuit of everything, “searching out,” as the poet says, “the depths beneath the earth,” and seeking by conjecture what lies in the souls of those around him, yet fails to perceive that it is enough to remain with the divinity within himself and serve it faithfully. Its service is to keep it pure of passion, aimlessness, and discontent with what comes from gods and human beings. What comes from the gods deserves reverence for its excellence; what comes from human beings deserves affection for our kinship—and sometimes, in a certain way, pity as well, because of their ignorance of good and evil. This impairment is no less severe than the one that takes away the power to distinguish white from black.

14. Even if you were to live three thousand years, and ten thousand times as many, still remember that no one loses any life but the one he is living, nor lives any life but the one he loses. Thus the longest life comes to the same as the shortest. For the present is equal for all; therefore what passes away is equal, and what is lost proves to be no more than an instant. No one could lose either the past or the future: how could anyone be deprived of what he does not possess?

Always remember, then, these two things. First: all things from eternity are of one kind and return in cycles, and it makes no difference whether one sees the same things in a hundred years, in two hundred, or through infinite time. Second: the longest-lived and the soonest dead lose an equal amount. For the present is the only thing of which a person is to be deprived, if indeed this alone is what he has—and no one loses what he does not have.

15. That everything is judgment. The objections raised against Monimus the Cynic are plain enough; plain, too, is the value of the saying, if one accepts what is wholesome in it only so far as it is true.

16. The human soul violates itself most of all when, so far as it can, it becomes an abscess and, as it were, a tumor upon the cosmos. For to resent anything that comes to pass is to revolt from Nature, within whom the individual natures of all other things are severally contained.

Next, when it turns away from another human being, or even moves against him with intent to harm—as do the souls of those in anger.

Third, it violates itself when it is overcome by pleasure or pain.

Fourth, when it plays a part, and does or says anything under a mask and without truth.

Fifth, when it lets any act or impulse of its own go forth toward no aim, but does whatever it does at random and without due attention—though even the smallest actions ought to be governed by reference to the end. And the end for rational creatures is to follow the reason and ordinance of the most ancient city and commonwealth.

17. The span of human life is a point; its substance, a flow; its perception, dim; the whole body’s composition, quick to rot; the soul, a wanderer; fortune, hard to fathom; fame, undiscerning. In sum: all that belongs to the body is a river; all that belongs to the soul, dream and delusion; life is warfare and a stranger’s sojourn; and fame hereafter is oblivion.

What, then, can escort us on our way? One thing, and one alone: philosophy. And this consists in keeping the divinity within inviolate and unharmed, master of pleasures and pains; doing nothing at random, nothing falsely or with pretence; needing no other person to do something or leave it undone; and further, receiving whatever befalls and is allotted as coming from that same source from which it came itself. Above all, it awaits death with a gracious mind, as nothing but the release of the elements from which every living creature is composed. If there is nothing terrible for the elements themselves in each one’s ceaseless change into another, why should anyone look askance at the change and dissolution of them all? It accords with nature; and nothing that accords with nature is evil.

### Book III

1. It is not only this that must be reckoned: that with each passing day life is being spent, and a smaller part of it is left. This too must be reckoned: that even if one should live longer, it is uncertain whether the mind will still remain equally sufficient for understanding affairs and for that contemplation which tends toward experience of things divine and human. For if the mind begins to wander, there will be no lack of breathing, feeding, receiving impressions, feeling impulses, and all else of that kind; but the power to make use of oneself, to calculate precisely the measures of duty, to articulate what appears before us, to consider whether the time has already come to conduct oneself out of life, and all else of this kind—which has the utmost need of a reason trained by exercise—is extinguished beforehand. We must hurry, then, not only because at every moment we draw nearer to death, but also because our comprehension of things and our ability to follow them may cease before it comes.

2. We should also watch for such things as these: even what arises incidentally from things coming into being by nature possesses a certain grace and allure. When bread is baking, for example, parts of it split open; and these very fissures, though in a way they lie outside the baker’s intended result, have their own fitting beauty and peculiarly stir our appetite for the food. Again, figs gape when they are ripest; and in olives ripening on the tree, the very nearness of decay adds a beauty of its own to the fruit. So too the bending heads of grain, the lion’s knitted brow, the foam flowing from boars’ mouths, and many other things: viewed each by itself, they are far from comely, yet because they attend what comes to pass by nature, they adorn it besides and charm the soul. Thus, if someone has feeling and a deeper apprehension for what comes to pass in the Whole, scarcely anything even among incidental consequences will fail to appear to him somehow pleasingly composed. Such a person will look upon the real gaping jaws of wild beasts with no less pleasure than upon the images painters and sculptors display in imitation; with his own discerning eyes he will be able to see in an old woman and an old man a certain prime and ripeness.. and the lovely bloom in children. And many such things—not persuasive to everyone—will present themselves to the one alone who has become genuinely intimate with nature and her works.

3. Hippocrates, after healing many illnesses, fell ill himself and died. The Chaldaeans foretold the deaths of many; then destiny overtook them too. Alexander, Pompey, and Gaius Caesar, after so many times utterly destroying whole cities and cutting down many tens of thousands of cavalry and infantry in battle, one day departed from life themselves. Heraclitus, after all his inquiries into nature concerning the world’s conflagration, died with his insides filled with water and his body smeared in cow dung. Lice killed Democritus; other lice killed Socrates. What of it? You embarked, you sailed, you have come to harbor: disembark. If into another life, nowhere is empty of gods, not even there. If into insensibility, you will cease enduring pains and pleasures and serving a vessel so much worse than that which serves it: the one is mind and divinity; the other, earth and gore.

4. Do not wear away the portion of life that remains to you in impressions concerning other people, unless you refer them to some common good. For you deprive yourself of another work.. whenever you imagine what this person is doing and why, what he is saying, what he is thinking, what he is contriving, and all else of the kind that makes you stray from attending to your own ruling faculty.

You must therefore keep out of the train of your impressions whatever is aimless and futile, and above all whatever is meddlesome and malicious. Accustom yourself to imagine only such things that, if someone were suddenly to ask, “What are you thinking now?” you could at once answer frankly, “This” or “That”; so that your very words would immediately make it plain that all within you is simple and benevolent, worthy of a social being who gives no care to impressions of pleasure or, in a word, self-indulgence, nor to any contentiousness, envy, suspicion, or anything else whose presence in your mind you would blush to acknowledge.

For such a man—no longer postponing his place among the best—is a kind of priest and servant of the gods. He makes use also of the power established within him, which keeps a human being unstained by pleasures, unwounded by any pain, untouched by every outrage, insensible to every wickedness: an athlete in the greatest contest, never to be thrown by any passion; steeped to the depths in justice; welcoming with his whole soul all that happens and all that is allotted; and seldom, and never without some great necessity serving the common good, imagining what another person says or does or thinks.

For he makes only what is his own his field of action, and continually considers what is spun together with him from the Whole. The former he makes noble, and the latter he is convinced is good; for the lot allotted to each is carried along with him and carries him along. He remembers also that every rational being is kin, and that care for all human beings accords with human nature; yet he must not hold fast to the opinion of everyone, but only of those who avowedly live in agreement with nature. As for those who do not so live, he keeps in mind what they are like at home and outside it, by night and by day, and with what sort of people they mingle. So he takes no account of praise from such people, who are not even pleasing to themselves.

5. Act neither unwillingly, nor without regard for fellowship, nor without examination, nor while pulled in contrary directions. Let no affectation adorn your thought. Be neither a torrent of words nor a busybody.

And let the god within you be guardian of a being manly and mature, a citizen, a Roman, a ruler—one who has taken up his post like a man awaiting the recall from life, ready to be released, needing neither an oath nor any human witness. Let there be cheerfulness within, and no need of service from outside, no need of the repose that others provide. You must therefore stand upright, not be held upright.

6. If, in human life, you find anything better than justice, truth, self-command, courage—and, in a word, than your mind’s contentment with itself in whatever it enables you to do according to right reason, and with destiny in whatever is apportioned without your choosing—if, I say, you see anything better than this, turn toward it with your whole soul and enjoy the supreme good you have found.

But if nothing appears better than the guardian spirit established within you—which has brought its own impulses under its rule, examines its impressions, has drawn itself away, as Socrates used to say, from the persuasions of the senses, has subjected itself to the gods, and gives humanity its care—if you find everything else smaller and cheaper than this, give no room to anything else. Once you incline and turn aside toward it, you will no longer be able, without distraction, to honor above all that good which is your own, truly yours. For it is not right to set against the good of a rational and civic being anything of another kind whatsoever: the praise of the crowd, for example, or offices, wealth, or the enjoyment of pleasures. All these, even if for a little while they seem to accord with it, suddenly gain mastery and sweep us away.

But you, I say, choose the better simply and freely, and hold fast to it. “Yet the better is what benefits.” If it benefits you as a rational being, preserve it; if only as an animal, declare that plainly, and keep your judgment free of conceit. Only make sure that your examination is secure.

7. Never value as your own advantage anything that will one day compel you to break faith, abandon reverence, hate someone, grow suspicious, curse, play a part, or desire anything that needs walls and curtains. The one who has chosen before all else his own mind and guardian spirit, and the sacred rites of that spirit’s virtue, makes no tragedy of life, does not groan, and will need neither solitude nor crowds. Most important, he will live neither pursuing nor fleeing. Whether his soul remains enclosed in the body for a longer span or a shorter one matters to him not at all. Even if he must depart at once, he will go as readily released as he would undertake any other act that can be performed with reverence and good order. Throughout his life he guards against this alone: that his mind should ever take on a disposition alien to a rational and civic creature.

8. In the mind of one disciplined and cleansed you would find nothing suppurating, nothing bruised, nothing festering underneath. Nor does destiny overtake his life unfinished, as one might say of an actor in tragedy who leaves before completing his part and playing the drama through. There is, moreover, nothing servile in him, nothing affected, nothing fastened on, nothing torn away, nothing liable to judgment, nothing skulking in a den.

9. Revere your power of judgment. In it lies everything: that no judgment should ever again arise in your ruling faculty contrary to nature and to the constitution of a rational creature. This power promises deliberation without rashness, kinship with humankind, and a following in the steps of the gods.

10. Cast all else away, then, and hold fast to these few things alone. Remember this as well: each of us lives only this present instant, a point of time; all the rest has either been lived or lies unseen. Small, then, is the span each person lives; small the corner of earth where he lives; small even the longest fame to come—and that too passes down through a succession of little human beings who will very soon be dead, who do not know even themselves, much less one who died long, long ago.

11. To the guiding principles already spoken, let one more be added: always make a definition or outline of whatever presents itself to your impression, so that you may see it as it is in its essence—naked, whole, divided through and through—and tell yourself its proper name and the names of the things from which it was compounded and into which it will be dissolved.

For nothing so creates greatness of mind as the ability to test, methodically and truthfully, each thing that meets us in life, and always to look into it so as to grasp at once what kind of universe this is, what kind of use the thing provides within it, what value it has for the Whole, and what value for the human being—a citizen of the highest city, of which all other cities are like households. What is this thing now making an impression on me? From what is it compounded? How long is it naturally fitted to remain? What virtue does it require of me—gentleness, courage, truthfulness, good faith, simplicity, self-sufficiency, or another?

Therefore, at each event one must say: “This comes from a god; this comes through the conjunction of events, the interweaving thread spun with them, and a meeting and chance of this kind; this comes from one of my own tribe and kind and fellowship, though he does not know what accords with his own nature. But I do know. Therefore I treat him with goodwill and justice, according to the natural law of fellowship; and at the same time, among things neither good nor bad, I aim at the value proper to each.”

12. If you perform the work at hand in obedience to right reason—earnestly, vigorously, with goodwill—and allow no side concern to intrude, but keep your own guardian spirit standing pure, as though you might have to return it even now; if you bind yourself to this, expecting nothing and fleeing nothing, content with your present activity according to nature and with heroic truth in all you say and utter, you will live well. And no one has the power to prevent it.

13. As physicians always keep their instruments and blades ready to hand for sudden demands of treatment, so keep your principles ready for understanding things divine and human, and for doing everything, even the smallest thing, in remembrance of the bond between the two. For you will not perform any human act well without referring it also to the divine, nor the reverse.

Wander no more. For you are not going to read your notebooks, nor the deeds of the ancient Romans and Greeks, nor the extracts from writings that you were laying aside for your old age. Hasten, then, toward the goal; abandon empty hopes and, if you care at all for yourself, come to your own aid while you still may.

14. Wander no more. For you are not going to read your notebooks, nor the deeds of the ancient Romans and Greeks, nor the extracts from writings that you were laying aside for your old age. Hasten, then, toward the goal; abandon empty hopes and, if you care at all for yourself, come to your own aid while you still may.

15. They do not know how much is signified by “to steal,” “to sow,” “to buy,” “to be at rest,” “to see what must be done”—a seeing accomplished not with the eyes, but with another kind of sight.

16. Body, soul, mind: sensations belong to the body, impulses to the soul, judgments to the mind. To receive the stamp of impressions is shared even by grazing beasts; to be jerked by the strings of impulse, even by wild animals, androgynes, Phalaris, and Nero; and to have the mind as guide toward duties that appear before it, even by those who acknowledge no gods, those who abandon their country, and those who do ‹anything whatever› once they have shut their doors.

If, then, all the rest is shared with those already named, what remains as the good person’s own is this: to love and welcome what befalls him and what is spun together with him; not to soil the guardian spirit established within his breast, nor trouble it with a mob of impressions, but to keep it serene, following God in seemly order, uttering nothing contrary to truth and doing nothing contrary to justice. And though everyone distrusts him, doubting that he lives simply, modestly, and with a cheerful heart, he is neither angry with any of them nor turned aside from the road that leads to life’s end—where he must arrive pure, tranquil, ready to be released, joined without force in harmony with his own allotted fate.

### Book IV

1. The ruling power within, when it is disposed according to nature, stands so toward whatever happens that it always shifts with ease to what is possible and what is given. For it cherishes no material marked out beforehand, but sets out toward preferred things with reservation; and whatever is brought against it, it makes into material for itself—like a fire when it masters what falls upon it, though a little lamp would have been quenched by the same. A blazing fire swiftly makes its own whatever is heaped upon it, consumes it, and rises higher from those very things.

2. Let no act be done at random, nor otherwise than in accordance with a principle that brings the art to completion.

3. People seek retreats for themselves in country places, on shores, among mountains; and you too are accustomed to long for such things above all. But this is altogether most unsophisticated, since you may, at whatever hour you wish, retreat into yourself. For nowhere does a human being retreat to greater quiet or freedom from affairs than into his own soul—especially one who has within him things upon which he need only gaze to find himself at once in perfect ease; and by ease I mean nothing other than good order. Continually, then, grant yourself this retreat and renew yourself. Let the truths that first meet your gaze be brief and fundamental, enough at once to wash away all distress and send you back without resentment toward those things to which you return.

For what will you resent? Human wickedness? Recall the judgment that rational creatures have come into being for one another; that forbearance is a part of justice; that people go wrong unwillingly; and how many who once were enemies, suspicious, hateful, locked in combat, now lie stretched out and turned to ash. Be still at last.

Or do you resent what is allotted from the Whole? Renew the disjunction: either providence or atoms; and remember all the proofs that the cosmos is as it were a city.

Will bodily things still lay hold of you? Consider that the mind does not mingle with the breath, whether it moves smoothly or roughly, once the mind has recovered itself and recognized its own authority; and consider, besides, all that you have heard and assented to concerning pain and pleasure.

Will your scrap of reputation distract you? Look at the swiftness with which all things are forgotten; the abyss of infinite time on either side; the emptiness of applause; the fickleness and lack of judgment in those who seem to speak well of us; and the narrowness of the place within which fame is confined. For the whole earth is a point, and what a tiny corner of it is this inhabited land—and here, how few and what sort are those who will praise you?

Remember, then, to withdraw into this little field of your own. Above all, do not wrench or strain yourself; be free, and look upon things as a man, as a human being, as a citizen, as a mortal creature. And among the truths nearest at hand, into which you will gaze, let these two stand: first, that things do not touch the soul, but stand outside it, motionless, while disturbances arise solely from the judgment within; second, that all these things you see will, in almost no time, change and be no more. Keep constantly in mind how many transformations you yourself have already witnessed.

The cosmos is alteration; life is judgment.

4. If the power of understanding is common to us, then reason, by which we are rational, is also common. If so, then the reason that commands what is to be done or not done is common. If so, law too is common. If so, we are citizens. If so, we share in some commonwealth. If so, the cosmos is as it were a city—for in what other common polity will anyone say that the whole human race shares? And from there, from this common city, comes our very power of understanding, reason, and law—or from where? For just as the earthy part of me has been apportioned from some earth, the watery from another element, the breath-like from some source, and the warm and fiery from its own particular source—for nothing comes from nothing, just as nothing departs into nonbeing—so too the power of understanding comes from somewhere.

5. Death is a thing like birth, a mystery of nature: a joining of the same elements, a dissolution into the same. In all respects it is nothing one should be ashamed of, for it is neither contrary to what follows for an intelligent creature nor contrary to the reason of its constitution.

6. Such things, by necessity, naturally come from such people; whoever does not wish it wishes the fig tree to have no sap. And in all things remember this: within the briefest time, both you and this man will be dead, and shortly afterward not even your names will remain.

7. Take away the judgment, and “I have been harmed” is taken away; take away “I have been harmed,” and the harm is taken away.

8. What does not make a man worse than he is does not make his life worse either, nor does it harm him from without or within. The nature of what is beneficial was bound to do this.

9. “Everything that happens, happens justly.” If you watch closely, you will find it so. I do not mean only that it follows in due sequence, but that it accords with justice, as though allotted by one who assigns to each what is deserved. Keep watch, then, as you began; and whatever you do, do it together with this: being good—good in the proper sense in which the good person is conceived. Preserve this in every act.

10. Do not form such judgments as the insolent man forms, or as he wishes you to form; see things instead as they truly are.

11. Two kinds of readiness must always be yours: one, to do only what the reason of kingship and lawgiving proposes for the benefit of humankind; the other, to change your position if someone is at hand to correct you and lead you away from some belief. Yet this change must always arise from some persuasive ground, such as justice or the common good; and only things of that kind should be preferred—not anything merely because it appeared pleasant or glorious.

12. “Do you possess reason?”
“I do.”
“Why, then, do you not use it? For if reason is doing its own work, what else do you want?”

13. You came into being as a part. You will vanish again into that which generated you—or rather, through transformation you will be taken back into its generative reason.

14. Many grains of incense upon the selfsame altar: one fell into the fire sooner, another later. It makes no difference.

15. Within ten days you will seem a god to these very people to whom you now seem a beast and an ape, if you return to your principles and to reverence for reason.

16. Do not live as though you were destined for ten thousand years. What is due hangs over you. While you live, while it is possible, become good.

17. How much leisure is gained by the man who does not watch what his neighbor has said or done or thought, but only what he himself is doing, to ensure that this very thing is just and reverent, or worthy of the good man; not casting about for a dark character, but running straight along the line, unswerving.

18. The man enthralled by fame after death does not picture to himself that every person who remembers him will very soon be dead as well, and then in turn the one who succeeds that person, until all memory is extinguished as it passes through lives that flare up and go out. But suppose those who will remember you are immortal, and the memory immortal: what is that to you? I do not even say, “What is it to the dead?”—but to the living, what is praise, except perhaps as an instrument of some practical ordering? For now, out of season, you are letting pass the gift of nature, which rests on no other account. In short...

19. Whatever is beautiful in any way is beautiful from itself, and ends in itself, with praise no part of it. What is praised, then, becomes neither worse nor better. I say this even of things called beautiful in the more ordinary sense—material objects, for example, and works fashioned by art. And what is beautiful in truth—what need has it of anything? No more than law does, no more than truth, no more than goodwill or self-respect. Which of these is beautiful because it is praised, or spoiled because it is blamed? Does an emerald become inferior to itself if it is not praised? And what of gold, ivory, purple, a lyre, a little knife, a floweret, a sapling?

20. If souls endure, how has the air held them from all eternity? And how does the earth hold the bodies of those buried through so vast an age? For just as here, after the bodies remain awhile, their alteration and dissolution make room for other dead, so the souls translated into the air remain together for a time, then change, diffuse, and kindle, being taken back into the generative reason of the Whole; and in this way they make room for those who come to dwell there after them. Such an answer might be given on the assumption that souls endure.

But we must consider not only the multitude of bodies buried in this fashion, but also the multitude of animals eaten each day by us and by other animals. How vast a number is consumed and, in a manner, buried in the bodies of those they nourish; and yet there is room to receive them, through their conversion into blood, through their transformation into what is airy or fiery.

What is the means of investigating the truth of this? Division into the material and the causal.

21. Do not drift away, but in every impulse render what justice requires, and with every impression preserve the power of apprehending what is true.

22. All that accords with you accords with me, O Cosmos. Nothing is early for me, nothing late, that is timely for you. All is fruit to me that your seasons bear, O Nature: from you are all things, in you all things, into you all things. One man says,

“Beloved city of Cecrops”;

and will you not say,

“Beloved city of Zeus”?

23. “Do few things,” he says, “if you would keep a tranquil heart.” But might it not be better to do what is necessary, and all that the reason of a being political by nature chooses, and in the manner it chooses? For this brings not only the serenity born of acting well, but also that born of doing few things. Most of what we say and do is unnecessary; remove it, and one will have more leisure and less disturbance. So at every occasion we must remind ourselves: Is this, perhaps, not among the necessary things? And we must remove not only unnecessary actions, but unnecessary impressions as well; for then no superfluous actions will follow in their train.

24. Put it to the test: see how the life of the good man fares for you—the man content with what is apportioned from the Whole, satisfied with the justice of his own action and the goodwill of his own disposition.

25. You have looked at those things; now look at these. Do not trouble yourself. Make yourself simple. Someone does wrong? He does wrong to himself. Something has happened to you? Good. From the beginning, everything that happens was assigned to you and woven into your thread from the Whole. To sum it all up: life is short. The present must be won with sound judgment and justice. Be sober, yet at ease.

26. Either an ordered cosmos, or a medley tumbled together—yet still a cosmos. Or can an order subsist in you, but disorder in the Whole, when all things are so distinct, so diffused, and so bound in sympathy?

27. A black character; an effeminate character; a tortuous character; beastly, cattle-like, childish, witless, counterfeit, buffoonish, huckstering, tyrannical.

28. If one who does not know the beings within the cosmos is a stranger to it, no less a stranger is one who does not know what comes to pass within it. A fugitive is one who flees the reason of civic fellowship; blind, one who shuts the eye of understanding; a beggar, one who needs another and does not have within himself all that life requires; an abscess on the cosmos, one who withdraws and severs himself from the reason of our common nature by resenting what happens—for the same nature brings this forth that brought you forth; a splinter from the city, one who splinters his own soul away from the soul of rational beings, which is one.

29. One man practices philosophy without a tunic, another without a book. Here is another, half-naked: “I have no bread,” he says, “and still I abide by reason.” But I have the nourishment that learning gives, and do not abide by it.

30. Love the modest craft you have learned, and take your rest in it. Pass through what remains of life as one who, with his whole soul, has entrusted all that is his to the gods, while making himself neither tyrant nor slave to any human being.

31. Picture, for argument’s sake, the age of Vespasian, and you will see all the same things: people marrying, raising children, falling ill, dying, waging war, keeping festivals, trading, farming, flattering, behaving arrogantly, suspecting, plotting, praying for certain people to die, grumbling at their present lot, falling in love, hoarding treasure, coveting consulships and thrones. And now that life of theirs is nowhere at all. Pass next to the age of Trajan: again, all the same things; that life too is dead. In the same way, survey the inscriptions of other ages and of whole peoples, and see how many, after straining to the utmost, soon fell and were dissolved into the elements. Above all, recall those you yourself knew tugging at empty things, abandoning the work that accorded with their own constitution instead of holding fast to it and finding it enough. But here it is necessary to remember that the attention given to each action has its own proper worth and measure. For then you will not lose heart, provided you spend no more time than is fitting on lesser things.

32. Words once familiar are now strange glosses; so too the names of those once hymned by all are now, in a way, strange glosses: Camillus, Caeso, Volesus, Dentatus; then, little by little, Scipio and Cato as well; then Augustus; then Hadrian and Antoninus. For all things fade, and swiftly pass into legend; swiftly, too, utter oblivion buries them. And I say this of those who somehow shone with wondrous brilliance. As for all the rest, the moment they breathed their last, they were “out of sight, out of hearing.” And what, in any case, is everlasting remembrance? Emptiness altogether. On what, then, must we expend our earnest care? This one thing: a just mind; actions for the common good; speech incapable of falsehood; and a disposition that welcomes everything that happens as necessary, as familiar, as flowing from a source and origin of this very kind.

33. Give yourself willingly into Clotho’s hands, and let her entwine you with whatever affairs she chooses.

34. Everything is for a day—both what remembers and what is remembered.

35. Contemplate continually how all things come to be through change, and train yourself to understand that the nature of the Whole loves nothing so much as changing what exists and making new things like it. For everything that exists is, in a certain way, the seed of what will arise from it. Yet you imagine that seeds are only those cast into earth or womb—and that is far too limited a view.

36. Soon you will be dead, and still you are neither simple nor untroubled, neither free of the suspicion that anything outside can harm you, nor gracious toward all; nor do you place wisdom in this alone: acting justly.

37. Look through into their ruling minds—even those of the discerning—and see what things they shun and what they pursue.

38. No evil of yours can subsist in another person’s ruling mind, nor indeed in any turn or alteration of what surrounds you. Where, then? Wherever within you lies the faculty that judges things to be evils. So let it make no such judgment, and all is well. Even if the nearest thing to it, this little body, is cut, burned, festers, or rots, still let the part that judges these things remain at rest—that is, let it decide that whatever can happen equally to a bad person and a good one is neither evil nor good. For whatever happens equally to one who lives contrary to nature and to one who lives according to nature is itself neither according to nature nor contrary to it.

39. Continually conceive of the cosmos as one living creature, containing one substance and one soul; how all things are delivered up into its single field of perception; how by one impulse it does all things; how all that comes to be shares in causing everything else that comes to be; and what a weaving together, what an interwinding, there is.

40. You are a little soul carrying a corpse, as Epictetus used to say.

41. For things coming to be through change there is no evil, just as for things arising from change there is no good.

42. Time is a river of things coming to be, a violent current: no sooner has each thing appeared than it is swept away; another is swept past, and another will be borne along.

43. Everything that happens is as customary and familiar as the rose in spring and fruit in summer. Such too are sickness and death, slander and conspiracy, and all that delights or grieves the foolish.

44. What follows always comes fittingly upon what went before. For this is not like some mere tally of disconnected items, joined only by necessity, but a rational coherence. And just as existing things have been ordered into a harmonious whole, so events display not a bare succession, but a wondrous kinship.

45. Always remember the saying of Heraclitus: that earth’s death is to become water, water’s death to become air, air’s death to become fire—and the reverse. Remember also the one who forgets where the road leads; and that they are at odds with what they encounter most continually—the Logos that governs the Whole; and that the things they meet each day appear strange to them; and that we must not act and speak as though asleep, for even then we seem to act and speak; and that we must not be like children of our parents—that is, follow blindly merely what we have received.

46. Suppose one of the gods told you that you would die tomorrow, or at all events the day after tomorrow. Unless you were utterly ignoble, you would no longer make much of dying the day after tomorrow rather than tomorrow—for how great is the interval? In the same way, consider it no great matter whether you die many years from now or tomorrow.

47. Consider continually how many physicians have died, after so often knitting their brows over the sick; how many astrologers, after solemnly foretelling the deaths of others; how many philosophers, after endlessly arguing about death or immortality; how many champions, after killing multitudes; how many tyrants, after wielding power over human lives with dreadful arrogance, as though they themselves were immortal; and how many whole cities have, so to speak, died—Helice, Pompeii, Herculaneum, and countless others. Pass in review also all whom you yourself have known, one after another: one man buried another and then was laid out himself; another buried him—and all within a little while. The sum of it is this: always look upon human things as fleeting and cheap—yesterday a drop of mucus, tomorrow cured flesh or ash. Pass, then, through this instant of time according to nature, and reach your end graciously, as a ripe olive might fall, blessing the earth that bore it and grateful to the tree that gave it growth.

48. Be like the headland against which the waves break without cease: it stands fast, and around it the water’s fury falls asleep.

“Unfortunate am I, that this has happened to me.” Not so—but rather: “Fortunate am I, that though this has happened to me, I remain untouched by grief, neither shattered by the present nor afraid of what is to come.” For such a thing could have happened to anyone; but not everyone could have remained untouched by grief because of it. Why, then, is the one a misfortune rather than the other a good fortune? And do you call anything a human misfortune if it is not a failure of human nature? Or does something seem to you a failure of human nature when it does not run counter to the purpose of that nature? Well, then: you have learned its purpose. Does what has happened prevent you from being just, great-hearted, self-controlled, thoughtful, unerring, undeceived, honorable, free—and all the rest whose presence together enables human nature to possess what is its own?

Remember, then, whenever anything would lead you into grief, to make use of this conviction: this is not misfortune; to bear it nobly is good fortune.

49. A commonplace aid, yet an effective one, toward contempt for death is to call to mind those who clung tenaciously to life. What more have they now than those who died before their time? Somewhere, by now, they surely lie—Caedicianus, Fabius, Julianus, Lepidus, or any others of that kind—men who carried many to burial and then were carried out themselves. All in all, the interval is small; and through how much, in what company, and in what a little body it is endured! Do not, then, regard it as a matter... Look behind you at the boundless reach of time, and ahead at another infinity. Within that expanse, what difference is there between one who lives three days and one who lives three lifetimes?

50. Always run by the shortest way; and the shortest is the way according to nature. Thus speak and act in everything by the soundest rule. For such a purpose releases you from drudgery and campaigning, from every contrivance and affectation.

### Book V

1. At dawn, when you wake reluctantly, have this ready to hand: I am rising to a human being’s work. Am I still resentful, then, if I am going to do what I was born for, what I was brought into the world to do? Or was I fashioned for this—to lie under the covers and keep myself warm?

“But this is more pleasant.”

Were you born, then, for pleasure—for being acted upon, in short, and not for action? Do you not see the little plants, the little birds, the ants, the spiders, the bees, each doing its own work, each in its own way helping to order the world? And then you refuse to do what belongs to a human being; you do not hasten toward what accords with your own nature.

“But one must rest as well.”

One must; I say so too. Yet nature has given rest its measure, just as it has given measures to eating and drinking. And still you go beyond those measures, beyond what is enough; but in your actions you no longer go beyond—there you stop short of what you can do. For you do not love yourself; if you did, you would also love your nature and what it wills. Others, loving their crafts, consume themselves in their proper tasks, unwashed and unfed. Do you value your own nature less than the engraver values engraving, the dancer dancing, the lover of money his silver, or the lover of empty fame his scrap of glory? When these people are impassioned, they would sooner forgo food and sleep than fail to increase the things to which they are devoted. But to you, do actions for the common good seem cheaper, and worth less effort?

2. How easy it is to thrust away and erase every troubling or alien impression, and at once to be in perfect calm.

3. Judge yourself worthy of every word and deed that accords with nature, and do not let the blame or talk that follows from certain people lead you aside. If the doing or saying is noble, do not deem yourself unworthy of it. They have their own ruling mind and follow an impulse of their own. Do not look around at that, but complete your straight course, following both your own nature and the nature common to all; for the road of both is one.

4. I journey on through what accords with nature until, fallen, I come to rest—breathing my last into that from which I draw breath each day, and falling upon that from which my father gathered the seed, my mother the blood, and my nurse the milk; that from which, day after day for so many years, I am fed and watered; that which bears me as I tread upon it and make such manifold use of what it gives.

5. They have no sharpness of yours to admire. So be it. But there are many other things of which you cannot say, “I was not born for this.” Offer, then, what lies wholly within your power: integrity, dignity, endurance of hardship, indifference to pleasure, no grievance against your lot, few needs, goodwill, freedom, simplicity, freedom from idle talk, greatness of spirit. Do you not see how many things you are already able to offer—things for which no lack of natural gift or aptitude can serve as an excuse—and yet you still remain beneath them by choice? Or are you compelled by some defect in your natural make-up to grumble, to be miserly, to flatter, to accuse your little body, to curry favor, to vaunt yourself, and to let your soul be tossed about so much? No, by the gods. You could have been rid of these long ago. At most, perhaps, you need only be faulted for being somewhat slow and hard to follow. But this too must be trained, without making light of your slowness or taking a secret pleasure in it.

6. One person, when he has done someone a good turn, is quick to set the favor down to that person’s account. Another is not quick to do this, yet inwardly regards the man as a debtor and knows what he has done. A third, in a certain sense, does not even know what he has done, but is like a vine that has borne a cluster of grapes and seeks nothing more once it has borne its own fruit. A horse has run, a hound has followed the scent, a bee has made honey—and a human being, having done good, does not make a record of it, but passes on to another act, as the vine passes on to bearing another cluster in its season.

We ought, then, to be among those who do this in a certain sense without watching themselves do it.

“Yes, but this very thing must be watched: for it is characteristic,” he says, “of a social being to be conscious that he is acting for the common good—and, by Zeus, to want his fellow also to be conscious of it.”

“What you say is true, but you are misconstruing what is now being said. For that reason you will be one of those I mentioned before; they too are led astray by a certain rational plausibility. But if you are willing to understand what the saying means, do not fear that this will make you neglect any act for the common good.”

7. A prayer of the Athenians:

“Rain, rain, beloved Zeus,
on the Athenians’ ploughland
and on their plains.”

Either we should not pray, or we should pray like this—simply and freely.

8. What is meant by saying, “Asclepius prescribed this man riding, or cold baths, or going barefoot,” is the same as saying, “The nature of the whole prescribed this man illness, or disability, or loss, or something else of that kind.” For there too, “prescribed” means something like this: “It assigned him this as fitting for his health”; and here, what befalls each person has in some fashion been assigned to him as fitting for his destiny. Indeed, we speak of things “befalling” us just as craftsmen say that squared stones in walls or pyramids “come together,” when, in a given arrangement, they fit one another.

For there is one harmony embracing all. And just as the cosmos, a body of this kind, is completed from all bodies, so destiny, a cause of this kind, is completed from all causes. Even the wholly unlearned understand what I mean, for they say, “This was what came his way.” Then this was coming his way, and this was prescribed for him. Let us accept such things, therefore, as we accept what Asclepius prescribes. Many of his prescriptions too are harsh, yet we welcome them in hope of health.

Regard the accomplishment and fulfillment of what the common nature intends as you regard your own health; and in this spirit welcome everything that happens, even if it seems severe, because it leads toward that end: toward the health of the cosmos and the prosperous course and success of Zeus. For he would not have brought this to anyone unless it contributed to the whole; nor does any nature bring about something unfitted to what it governs.

For two reasons, then, you should cherish what befalls you. First, because it happened to you, was prescribed for you, and stood in some relation to you, spun together from above out of the most ancient causes. Second, because even what comes separately to each person is a cause of the good course, the fulfillment—and, by Zeus, the very continuance—of the one who governs the whole. For the complete whole is maimed if you sever even the smallest thing from the coherence and continuity of its parts—and likewise of its causes. And you do sever it, so far as you can, whenever you are discontented; in a manner, you destroy it.

9. Do not grow disgusted, do not give up, do not lose heart if acting in every case from right judgments does not become unbroken practice for you. When you are knocked away, return again; be glad if most of what you do is worthier of a human being; love that to which you return. Do not return to philosophy as to a schoolmaster, but as sore-eyed people turn to the sponge and the egg, as another turns to a poultice, another to a soothing rinse. In this way you will make no display of obedience to reason, but will find rest in it.

Remember that philosophy wants only what your nature wants, while you wanted something else, contrary to nature. What could be more gracious than what nature wants? Is it not by seeming gracious that pleasure makes us fall? But look and see whether greatness of soul is not more gracious, and freedom, simplicity, fair-mindedness, reverence. What is more gracious than wisdom itself, when you consider how unerring and smooth in all things is the power that apprehends and knows?

10. Things themselves lie beneath such a veil that more than a few philosophers—and no ordinary ones—have judged them wholly beyond comprehension; even the Stoics themselves find them difficult to comprehend. And every assent of ours is liable to shift—for where is the person who never shifts? Pass on, then, to the objects themselves: how brief their life, how little their worth, how they may be in the possession of a male prostitute, a whore, or a robber. Next, turn to the characters of those who live with you: even the most gracious of them can scarcely be endured, to say nothing of how a person can scarcely endure himself.

In such darkness and filth, amid so great a flux of substance and time, of motion and all that moves, I cannot conceive what could possibly be highly valued or taken seriously at all. On the contrary, one must console oneself and await the natural dissolution, without chafing at the delay, but finding rest in these two things alone: first, that nothing will befall me which is not in accord with the nature of the whole; second, that it is within my power to do nothing against my own god and daimon. No one can force me to transgress against him.

11. What use am I now making of my soul? At every turn, ask yourself this again, and examine what is now present in this part of me they call the ruling faculty. Whose soul do I have now? A child’s? A youth’s? A little woman’s? A tyrant’s? A beast of burden’s? A wild beast’s?

12. You may grasp the character of what the multitude takes for goods from this as well. If someone were to conceive certain things as truly good—wisdom, temperance, justice, courage—then, with these already in mind, he could no longer bear to hear the phrase “under the weight of good things,” for it would not fit. But if someone first calls to mind the things that appear good to the multitude, he will listen on and readily accept the comic poet’s words as a natural conclusion. The multitude too perceives the distinction in this way. Otherwise, the first saying would not jar upon us and be rejected, while in the case of wealth and the lucky gifts that serve luxury or reputation, we accept it as pointed and wittily expressed.

Go on, then, and ask whether things should be honored and judged good when, once they are called to mind, it can aptly be added that the man who possesses them, from sheer abundance, “has nowhere to shit.”

13. I am composed of a causal principle and a material one. Neither will perish into nonbeing, just as neither arose out of nonbeing. Every part of me, then, will by transformation be assigned to some part of the cosmos; that in turn will change into some other part of the cosmos, and so onward to infinity. Through such transformation I too came into being, and those who begot me—and, tracing back, into another infinity. Nothing prevents us from speaking this way, even if the cosmos is governed in cycles with finite bounds.

14. Reason and the rational art are powers sufficient to themselves and to the works that accord with them. They set out, then, from their own proper source and make their way toward the end before them. That is why actions of this kind are called right actions: the name signifies the straightness of the road.

15. None of these things is to be prized by a human being if it does not befit a human being precisely as human. They are not requirements of humanity; human nature does not profess them, nor are they fulfillments of human nature. Therefore neither does the human end lie in them, nor what completes that end—the good. Further, if any of them truly befitted a human being, it would not be fitting to look down upon them and rise above them; the one who makes himself independent of them would not be praiseworthy; nor, if these things were good, would anyone who deprived himself of any one of them be good. But as things are, the more a person strips himself of these and other things like them—or, when stripped of any of them, bears the loss—the better he is.

16. As are the impressions you picture again and again, so will your mind become; for the soul is dyed by its impressions. Dye it, then, in the unbroken succession of impressions such as these: wherever it is possible to live, there it is also possible to live well; it is possible to live at court; therefore it is also possible to live well at court. And again: that for whose sake each thing has been fashioned, toward that it has been fashioned; toward what it has been fashioned, it is borne; where it is borne, there lies its end; and where its end lies, there too lie each thing’s advantage and good. The good of a rational creature, then, is fellowship. For it has long been shown that we came into being for fellowship. Or was it not plain that the lower things exist for the sake of the higher, and the higher for one another? Living things are higher than lifeless things, and rational beings higher than living things.

17. To pursue the impossible is madness; and it is impossible that bad people should not do things of this kind.

18. Nothing happens to anyone that the person is not naturally made to bear. The same things happen to another, and either because he does not recognize what has happened, or because he makes a display of greatness of soul, he stands firm and remains uninjured. Is it not dreadful, then, that ignorance and vanity should prove stronger than practical wisdom?

19. Things themselves do not touch the soul in the least. They have no entrance into the soul, nor can they turn or move it. The soul alone turns and moves itself; and whatever judgments it deems itself worthy of making, such does it make for itself the things that stand before it.

20. In one respect, a human being is the being most akin to us, insofar as we must do people good and bear with them. But insofar as some obstruct the works proper to me, a human being becomes for me one of the indifferent things, no less than the sun, the wind, or a wild animal. These may obstruct some activity, but they cannot obstruct impulse or disposition, because of the reservation and the power to turn. For the mind turns and shifts every hindrance to activity into what takes precedence: what checked the deed becomes a means to the deed, and what barred the road becomes a means along that road.

21. Honor what is sovereign in the cosmos: that which makes use of all things and governs all things. In the same way, honor what is sovereign in you: it is of one kind with that cosmic power. For in you too, this is what makes use of everything else, and by this your life is governed.

22. What does no harm to the city does no harm to the citizen. Whenever the impression arises that you have been harmed, apply this rule: if the city is not harmed by this, neither am I harmed; but if the city is harmed, do not be angry—show the one who harms the city what he has failed to see.

23. Often consider the swiftness with which things that are and things coming to be are swept along and carried out of sight. For substance is like a river in unceasing flow; its activities are in continual change, its causes in ten thousand turnings, and almost nothing stands still—not even what is nearest. Consider too the gaping infinity of past and future, in which all things vanish from view. How, then, is one not a fool who amid such things is puffed with pride, or pulled this way and that, or cries out in distress, as though troubled by something enduring and destined to last?

24. Remember the substance of the whole, of which you partake in the smallest measure; the whole of time, from which a brief and momentary interval has been marked off for you; and fate—what infinitesimal part of it are you?

25. Another does wrong. What is that to me? He shall see to it: his disposition is his own, his action his own. I now have what universal nature wills me now to have, and I do what my own nature wills me now to do.

26. Let the governing and sovereign part of your soul remain unchanged by any smooth or rough motion in the flesh, and let it not blend with it; let it draw a boundary around itself and confine those pressures to the bodily parts. But when, through that other sympathy natural to a united body, they rise into the mind, you must not try to resist the sensation, since it is natural. Only let the governing part add from itself no judgment that the sensation concerns either good or evil.

27. “To live with the gods.” The one who lives with the gods continually shows them a soul content with what is allotted, and doing all that the divine spirit wills—the spirit Zeus gave to each person as guardian and guide, a fragment of himself. This is each person’s mind and reason.

28. Are you angry with the man who reeks of sweat? Angry with the man whose breath stinks? What can he do to you? Such is his mouth, such are his armpits; from such things, such an odor must arise. “But the man has reason,” you say, “and, if he pays attention, can understand how he offends.” Good for you. Then you too have reason: move a rational disposition by your rational disposition; show him, remind him. If he listens, you will cure him, and there will be no need for anger.
Neither a tragic actor nor a whore.

29. As you intend to live once you have gone away, so you may live here. But if they do not allow it, then depart from life itself—yet as one suffering no evil. “There is smoke, and I leave.” Why regard this as any great affair? But until something of that kind drives me out, I remain free, and no one will prevent me from doing what I will; and I will what accords with the nature of a rational and social creature.

30. The mind of the whole is social. Accordingly, it made the lower things for the sake of the higher, and joined the higher to one another in harmony. You see how it subordinated and coordinated, allotted to each according to its worth, and gathered the sovereign beings into concord with one another.

31. How have you borne yourself until now toward gods, parents, brother, wife, children, teachers, tutors, friends, kin, and servants? Can it be said of you, toward them all, down to this day:

“Neither to do anyone a lawless deed, nor speak one”?

Call to mind, too, all that you have passed through, and all you have proved able to endure; that the story of your life is full now, and your service complete; how many beautiful things you have seen; how many pleasures and pains you have looked beyond; how many honors you have passed by; and toward how many ungrateful people you have shown gratitude.

32. Why should unskilled and untaught souls throw a skilled and knowing soul into confusion? What soul, then, is skilled and knowing? The one that knows beginning and end, and the Reason that reaches through the whole of being and, through all eternity, orders the universe in appointed cycles.

33. A little while, and you are ash or skeleton—and either a name, or not even a name; and a name is a sound and its echo. The things prized so highly in life are empty, rotten, petty: puppies snapping at one another, quarrelsome children, laughing and then at once in tears.

But Faith and Reverence and Justice and Truth
have gone to Olympus from the broad-wayed earth.

What, then, still holds you here, if sensible things are quick to change and never still, the senses dim and easily stamped with impressions, the little soul itself an exhalation from blood, and good repute among such beings an emptiness? What, then? Await with grace either extinction or removal. And until the time for it arrives, what is enough? What else but to revere the gods and bless them; to do good to human beings, to bear with them and refrain from them; and to remember that whatever lies within the bounds of this scrap of flesh and wisp of breath is neither yours nor in your power?

34. You can always flow well, if you can also fare well upon the way—if your judgments and actions follow the way. Two things are common to the soul of god and human being and every rational creature: not to be obstructed by another, and to find its good in a disposition and action governed by justice, letting desire come to rest there.

35. If this is neither a vice of mine, nor an activity arising from vice in me, and if the common good is not harmed, why am I troubled over it? And what harm has come to the common good?

36. Do not be swept away wholesale by an impression. Help as far as you can and as the matter deserves; and even if people suffer loss in things indifferent, do not picture the loss itself as harm—for that is a bad habit. Rather, as the old man, when he left, asked back for his foster-child’s spinning top, remembering that it was a spinning top, so must you do here.

And when you are crying out upon the Rostra: Human being, have you forgotten what these things were?

“Yes—but to them they matter desperately.”

Must you, for that reason, become a fool as well?

37. “Once, wherever I was overtaken, I was a man blessed with a good lot.”

But to be blessed with a good lot is to allot a good lot to yourself; and a good lot is this: good turns of the soul, good impulses, good actions.

### Book VI

1. The substance of the whole is compliant and readily turned; and the reason that governs it has in itself no cause for doing evil, for it has no evil in it. It does nothing badly, nor is anything harmed by it. By its rule all things come to be and reach their end.

2. Let it make no difference to you whether you do what is fitting while shivering or warm, whether drowsy or amply rested, whether spoken ill of or praised, whether dying or doing something else. For dying too is one of the acts of life. So in this act as well, it is enough to dispose the present moment well.

3. Look within. Let neither the distinctive quality of anything nor its worth escape you.

4. All that lies before us will change with utmost speed and either rise as vapor, if substance is one, or be scattered abroad.

5. The governing reason knows its own disposition, what it is doing, and upon what material it works.

6. The finest way to defend yourself is not to become like them.

7. Take delight and find renewed repose in one thing: passing from one action for the common good to another action for the common good, with God in mind.

8. The ruling faculty is that which awakens and turns itself, makes itself whatever it wills to be, and makes everything that happens appear to it as it wills.

9. Each thing reaches its end according to the nature of the whole—not according to some other nature, whether enclosing it from without, contained within it, or suspended apart outside.

10. Either a potion of confusion, mutual entanglement, and dispersal—or unity, order, and providence. If the former, why should I desire to linger in a random compound and such a welter? What else should concern me but how one day “to become earth”? And why be troubled? Dispersal will reach me, whatever I do. But if the latter is true, I revere, stand firm, and put my trust in the One who governs.

11. Whenever circumstances compel you to be thrown, as it were, into disorder, return swiftly to yourself, and do not fall out of rhythm beyond what necessity demands. For you will gain a stronger command of the harmony by continually returning to it.

12. If you had both a stepmother and a mother, you would attend to the former, yet your return to your mother would be constant. Such for you now are the court and philosophy. Return here often and rest beside her: through her, what happens there seems bearable to you, and you are bearable amid it.

13. As when, in regard to delicacies and such foods, one receives the impression: this is the corpse of a fish, that the corpse of a bird or a pig; and again: Falernian wine is a little grape juice, and the purple-bordered robe is sheep’s hair dyed with the blood of a shellfish; and, in sexual union: the rubbing of an entrail and, with a kind of spasm, the discharge of a little mucus. Such are the impressions that reach down to the things themselves and pass right through them, so that one sees what they truly are. So must you act throughout your whole life: wherever things make too persuasive an appearance, strip them bare, look closely upon their cheapness, and remove the story by which they glorify themselves. For conceit is a formidable deceiver, and just when you think yourself most occupied with serious matters, you are most thoroughly bewitched. See, at any rate, what Crates says about Xenocrates himself.

14. Most things admired by the multitude fall under the broadest kinds of things held together by structure or nature: stones, timber, fig trees, vines, olive trees. What those of slightly better judgment admire falls under things held together by soul: owning flocks, herds, or simply a multitude of slaves. What the still more cultivated admire falls under things held together by a rational soul—not insofar as it is rational, however, but insofar as it is skilled in some craft or clever in some other way. But one who honors a soul that is rational and civic no longer turns toward any of those other things. Above all, he preserves his own soul in a rational and social disposition and movement, and works together toward that end with every soul of the same kind.

15. Some things hasten to be born, others hasten to have been; and of what is coming to be, something has already gone out. Ceaseless currents and alterations renew the cosmos, just as the unbroken sweep of time keeps boundless eternity forever new. In this river, where no one may stand still, which of these things racing past could one prize? It would be like beginning to love one of the little birds flying by: already it has vanished from sight. Such too is each person’s life—an exhalation from blood, a drawing-in from air. For as it is to take in air once and give it back, which we do at every moment, so it is also to give back the whole power of breath which you acquired yesterday or the day before, when you were newly born, to that place from which you first drew it.

16. Neither transpiring like plants is worthy of honor, nor breathing like grazing beasts and wild animals; nor being stamped by impressions; nor being jerked by impulse like a puppet; nor gathering in herds; nor feeding—for that is akin to discharging the waste of food. What, then, is worthy of honor? To be applauded? No. Then neither to be applauded by tongues, for the acclaim of the many is the clatter of tongues. So you have relinquished petty fame as well. What remains worthy of honor? This, I think: to move and be held in check according to your proper constitution—the end toward which all care and craft lead. (For every craft aims at this: that what it fashions should be well suited to the work for which it was fashioned. The gardener and the keeper of the vine, the horse trainer and the keeper of the dog, seek this.) And toward what do education and teaching hasten? Here, then, lies what is worthy of honor. If this stands well, you will secure none of those other things for yourself. Will you not stop honoring many other things too? Otherwise you will be neither free, self-sufficient, nor untroubled by passion. You will inevitably envy and be jealous, regard with suspicion those able to take those things away, and scheme against those who possess what you honor. In short, whoever lacks any such thing must be in turmoil and, besides, must often blame the gods. But reverence and honor for your own understanding will make you acceptable to yourself, well attuned to your fellows, and in accord with the gods—that is, praising all that they apportion and ordain.

17. Upward, downward, round about sweep the courses of the elements. But virtue’s motion lies in none of these: it is something more divine, advancing by a road hard to conceive, and journeying well.

18. What a thing it is that they do. They are unwilling to speak well of the people who live in their own time and in their company, yet they set great store by being spoken well of themselves by later generations—people they have never seen and never will. But this comes close to being grieved that earlier generations, too, did not speak your praises.

19. Do not suppose that, because something is hard for you yourself to accomplish, it is impossible for a human being; rather, if something is possible and proper for a human being, consider it attainable by you as well.

20. In the training ground someone has raked us with a nail or, crashing his head against ours, dealt us a blow; yet we neither mark him for it, nor take offense, nor afterward regard him suspiciously as a plotter. We do guard against him, but not as an enemy and not with suspicion: we simply give way with goodwill. Let something like this happen in the other parts of life as well: let us make allowance for much in those who are, as it were, training beside us. For we may, as I said, move out of the way without either suspecting or hating.

21. If anyone can refute me and show me that my judgment or action is not right, I shall gladly change; for I seek the truth, by which no one was ever harmed. Harm comes to the one who persists in his own deception and ignorance.

22. I do the duty that is mine; other things do not draw me aside. For they are either lifeless, irrational, or else astray and ignorant of the road.

23. Toward irrational animals—and toward things and material objects generally—I act, as one who has reason toward what has none, with nobility and freedom; toward human beings, because they have reason, I act as a fellow member of the community; and in all things I call upon the gods. Do not concern yourself with how long you will go on doing this: even three such hours are enough.

24. Alexander the Macedonian and his muleteer, once dead, came to the same condition: either they were taken back into the same seminal principles of the universe, or they were scattered alike among the atoms.

25. Consider how many bodily and psychic events occur together in each one of us within the same indivisible instant; and then you will not wonder that many more—rather, that all things coming to be within the one all-embracing whole that we call the universe—subsist in it at once.

26. If someone asks you how the name Antoninus is written, will you not pronounce each letter distinctly? What, then, if they grow angry—will you grow angry in return? Will you not calmly proceed to count out every letter? Remember, then, that here too every duty is completed from a certain number of parts. You must observe these, remain undisturbed, and not answer vexation with vexation, but bring the task before you to completion by the proper course.

27. How cruel it is not to permit human beings to pursue what appears to them fitting and beneficial. And yet, in a way, you do not allow them to do this whenever you are indignant that they go wrong; for they are invariably borne toward what they take to be fitting and beneficial to themselves. “But it is not so.” Then teach them and show them, without indignation.

28. Death: a repose from the resistance of sensation, from the puppet-twitching of impulse, from the coursing of thought, and from service to the flesh.

29. It is shameful, in a life in which your body has not yet given out, for your soul to give out before it.

30. See that you are not Caesar-dyed, not stained through; for it happens. Keep yourself, then, simple, good, uncorrupted, grave, unadorned, a friend to justice, reverent toward the gods, kindly, affectionate, steadfast in the work that is fitting. Strive to remain the person philosophy wished to make you. Revere the gods; preserve human beings. Life is brief; the one fruit of earthly life is a holy disposition and actions for the common good.

In everything, be a pupil of Antoninus: remember his vigor in doing what accords with reason; his evenness everywhere; his holiness; the serenity of his face; his gentleness; his freedom from empty glory; his devotion to comprehending affairs. Remember how he would let absolutely nothing pass before he had first inspected it thoroughly and understood it clearly; how he bore those who blamed him unjustly, without blaming them in return; how he hurried toward nothing; how he admitted no slanders; how exact an examiner he was of character and conduct, never reproachful, never easily alarmed, never suspicious, never sophistical; how little contented him—in lodging, bedding, clothing, food, and service; how hardworking and forbearing he was; how, because of his simple diet, he could remain at the same task until evening without even needing to relieve himself outside the customary hour; the firmness and constancy of his friendships; his tolerance of those who openly opposed his opinions, and his delight if anyone showed him something better; and how reverent he was toward the gods, without superstition—so that your last hour may come upon you with a conscience as clear as his.

31. Sober up, call yourself back, and wake again. Once you realize that dreams were troubling you, look upon these things, now awake, as you looked upon those.

32. I am composed of a little body and a soul. To the little body, then, all things are indifferent, for it cannot itself make distinctions. To the mind, all that is not its own activity is indifferent; but all that is its own activity lies within its power. And even among these, it is occupied only with the present; for its future and past activities are themselves already indifferent.

33. Pain is not contrary to nature for the hand or the foot, so long as the foot performs the work of a foot and the hand the work of a hand. In the same way, pain is not contrary to nature for a human being as a human being, so long as he performs the work of a human being; and if it is not contrary to his nature, neither is it an evil for him.

34. What mighty pleasures have been enjoyed by robbers, sexual debauchees, men who struck their fathers, and tyrants.

35. Do you not see how artisans in the common trades accommodate themselves up to a point to laypeople, yet nevertheless hold fast to the principle of their craft and will not endure abandoning it? Is it not dreadful if the architect and the physician show greater reverence for the principle of their own craft than a human being shows for his own—the principle he shares with the gods?

36. Asia, Europe—corners of the cosmos. Every sea—a drop of the cosmos. Athos—a clod of the cosmos. All the present—a point in eternity. All things are small, easily turned, vanishing away.

All things come from there, set in motion by that common governing principle, or following as consequences. And so the lion’s gaping jaws, poison, and everything that does harm—like the thorn, like the mire—are outgrowths of those august and beautiful things. Do not imagine them, then, alien to that which you revere, but reckon up the source of all things.

37. Whoever has seen the present has seen all things: all that has come to be from eternity, and all that will be into infinity. For all are of one kind and one form.

38. Often call to mind the interconnection of all things in the cosmos and their relation to one another. For in a way all things are interwoven with one another, and in this respect all are dear to one another: one thing follows upon another because of the tensional movement, the common breath, and the unity of substance.

39. Fit yourself to the circumstances allotted with you; and love the people allotted with you—but truly.

40. Every instrument, tool, and vessel is sound when it performs the work for which it was fashioned, though in its case the craftsman is elsewhere. But in things held together by nature, the power that fashioned them is within and remains there. You should therefore revere her all the more, and believe that, if your condition and conduct accord with her will, everything is as your mind would have it. And in the same way, the Whole has its own affairs as its mind would have them.

41. Whatever among the things outside your choice you suppose to be good or evil, it follows necessarily that, when you encounter such an evil or fail to attain such a good, you will blame the gods and hate those people who are, or whom you suspect of becoming, the causes of the failure or the encounter. Indeed, we commit many injustices because of the distinctions we make concerning these things. But if we judge only what is up to us to be good or evil, no cause remains either to accuse a god or to take a hostile stand against a human being.

42. We all work together toward one result: some knowingly and with understanding, others without knowing it—just as Heraclitus, I think, says that even sleepers are workers and fellow-workers in what comes to pass in the cosmos. Each contributes in a different way; and contributing in superabundance are the faultfinder and the one who tries to resist and undo what comes to pass—for the cosmos had need even of such a person. It remains, then, for you to understand among which you rank yourself. For he who governs the Whole will certainly make good use of you and receive you as some part of the company of workers and contributing powers. But do not you become the sort of part played by the cheap and ridiculous line in the drama that Chrysippus mentions.

43. Does the Sun claim the work of the Rain-god as his to do? Does Asclepius claim the work of the Fruit-bearer? And what of each of the stars? Are they not different, yet fellow-workers toward the same end?

44. If the gods have deliberated about me and what must happen to me, they have deliberated well. For a god without counsel is not easy even to conceive; and for what reason would they be moved to harm me? What advantage would come of it either to them or to the common good, for which they care above all? But if they have not deliberated about me individually, they have certainly deliberated about the common good; and since these things happen as consequences of that, I ought to welcome and cherish them.

But suppose they deliberate about nothing—an impious thing to believe; or else let us neither sacrifice nor pray nor swear nor do any of the other things we do at every turn as though the gods were present and living beside us. Yet suppose, then, that they deliberate about none of our concerns: I am still able to deliberate about myself, and mine is the consideration of what is beneficial. What benefits each being is what accords with its own constitution and nature; and my nature is rational and civic.

As Antoninus, my city and fatherland is Rome; as a human being, the cosmos. Therefore only what benefits these cities is good for me.

45. Whatever happens to each being benefits the Whole. That would suffice. But if you watch closely, you will also see this to be generally true: whatever happens to one human being benefits other human beings as well. Here, however, let “benefit” be understood more broadly in the case of things indifferent.

46. Just as the spectacles in the amphitheatre and places of that kind grow wearisome to you because the same things are always seen, and their sameness makes the sight cloying, so you suffer throughout the whole of life. For everything, above and below, is the same and comes from the same things. How long, then?

47. Continually reflect that people of every kind, pursuing every kind of life and belonging to every nation, have died; descend in thought as far as Philistion, Phoebus, and Origanion. Pass now to the other tribes. We must indeed change our abode to where so many formidable orators lie, so many grave philosophers—Heraclitus, Pythagoras, Socrates—so many heroes of earlier days, and after them so many generals and tyrants. And besides these, Eudoxus, Hipparchus, Archimedes, and other natures acute, great-minded, industrious, cunning, overbearing—even mockers of humanity’s perishable, day-long life, such as Menippus and all his kind. Of them all, reflect that they have long lain there. What, then, is terrible in this for them? And what of those whose very names are wholly unknown?

One thing here is worth much: to live out your life with truth and justice, gracious toward liars and the unjust.

48. When you wish to gladden yourself, call to mind the excellences of those who live with you: the energy of one, the modesty of another, another’s generosity, and something else in another. For nothing gladdens us so much as the images of the virtues shining through the characters of those who share our lives, gathered together as thickly as may be. Therefore keep them ready to hand.

49. Surely you are not aggrieved that you weigh only so many pounds and not three hundred? Then neither be aggrieved that you must live only so many years and no more. As you cherish the portion of substance marked off for you, so too cherish the portion of time.

50. Try to persuade them; yet act even against their will whenever the reason of justice leads that way. But if someone uses force to withstand you, pass over into gracious acceptance and freedom from distress; make use of the obstruction for another virtue, and remember that your impulse was made with reservation and that you were not reaching for the impossible. What, then, were you reaching for? An impulse of a certain kind. And this you attain: that toward which we were moved has come to pass.

51. The lover of fame takes another’s activity for his own good; the lover of pleasure, his own passive feeling; but the one who has understanding, his own action.

52. You are free to form no judgment about this, and not to trouble your soul; for things themselves have no nature capable of producing our judgments.

53. Train yourself to stay close to what another is saying, without inserting thoughts of your own, and, as far as possible, enter the speaker’s soul. What does not benefit the hive does not benefit the bee.

54. If the sailors spoke ill of the man steering them, or the sick of the man treating them, would he attend to anything else? How else could he himself bring about the safety of those aboard, or the health of those under his care?

55. How many of those with whom I entered the cosmos have already gone away.

56. To those with jaundice, honey tastes bitter; to those bitten by a rabid dog, water is terrifying; and to little children, a ball is beautiful. Why, then, am I angry? Or do you think delusion has less power than bile has in the jaundiced, or venom in one bitten by a rabid dog?

57. No one will prevent you from living according to the reason of your own nature; nothing will happen to you contrary to the reason of the common nature.

58. What sort of people they are whom they wish to please; for what things they strive to prevail, and through what actions. How swiftly the age will cover everything—and how much it has covered already.

### Book VII

1. What is vice? It is what you have often seen. And whatever happens, keep this ready at hand: this is what you have often seen. Everywhere, up and down, you will find the same things—the things that fill histories ancient, middle, and recent; the things that now fill cities and households. Nothing new: all familiar, and all short-lived.

2. The principles live. For how else can they die, unless the impressions that answer to them are extinguished—impressions it is always in your power to kindle again? I am able to form the judgment about this that I ought to form. If I am able, why am I troubled? What lies outside my mind has no bearing at all upon my mind. Learn this, and you stand upright. You are free to come alive again. Look once more upon things as you used to look upon them: in this consists coming alive again.

3. The empty bustle of a procession; dramas on a stage; flocks, herds, spear-fights; a little bone tossed to puppies; a morsel of bread into fishponds; the toils and burden-bearing of ants; the scurryings of startled flies; little puppets jerked by strings. Amid all this, then, you must stand with goodwill and without disdain, yet follow closely this truth: each person’s worth is the worth of the things upon which he has set his zeal.

4. We must follow what is said word by word, and what is done impulse by impulse: in the latter case, seeing at once toward what aim the act is referred; in the former, watching closely what is meant.

5. Is my mind sufficient for this, or not? If it is sufficient, I use it for the task as an instrument given me by the nature of the Whole. If it is not, then either I yield the task to someone able to accomplish it better—unless some other duty forbids—or I do it as I can, taking to my side someone who, with the service of my ruling faculty, can achieve what is now timely and useful for the community. For whatever I may do, whether by myself or with another, must strain toward this alone: what serves the common good and accords with it.

6. How many once crowned with hymns have already been surrendered to oblivion; and how many who sang their praises have long since passed away.

7. Do not be ashamed to receive help. Your charge is to perform the duty that falls to you, like a soldier in an assault upon the walls. What, then, if you are lame and cannot scale the battlement alone, but can do it with another?

8. Do not let the future trouble you. You will come to meet it, if need be, bearing the same reason that you now employ upon the present.

9. All things are interwoven with one another, and the bond is sacred; scarcely anything is alien to anything else. For they have been marshalled together, and together they adorn one ordered world. There is one cosmos made of all things, one god through all things, one substance and one law—one reason shared by all rational creatures—and one truth, if indeed there is also one perfection for creatures of one kind who partake of the same reason.

10. Everything embodied in matter vanishes with all speed into the substance of the Whole; every cause is with all speed taken back into the reason of the Whole; and the memory of everything is with all speed buried in eternity.

11. For a rational creature, the act according to nature and the act according to reason are one and the same.

12. Upright—or being set upright.

13. As the limbs of the body are in beings united, so rational beings, though separate, stand in the same relation: they were fashioned for one common work. This thought will strike you more deeply if you often say to yourself: “I am a member of the system formed by rational beings.” But if, by a change of letter, you call yourself merely a part, you do not yet love human beings from the heart; doing good does not yet gladden you in its own right. You still do it simply as a duty, not yet as doing good to yourself.

14. Let whatever will assail from without whatever is capable of suffering from that assault. Those things, if they choose, may complain when they have suffered. But I, unless I judge what has happened to be an evil, have not yet been harmed; and it is in my power not to judge it so.

15. Whatever anyone may do or say, I must be good—as though gold, or emerald, or purple were forever saying this: “Whatever anyone may do or say, I must be emerald and keep my own color.”

16. The ruling faculty does not trouble itself; by which I mean, it does not frighten itself... into desire. If anyone else can make it afraid or grieve it, let him do so; for the faculty itself will not, by its own judgment, turn itself toward such changes. Let the little body take care, if it can, that it suffers nothing; and if it does suffer, let it say so. But the little soul that feels fear and grief—the faculty that judges these matters as a whole—will suffer nothing, for you will not force it into such a judgment. In itself the ruling faculty is free of need, unless it creates a need for itself; and in the same way it is untroubled and unhindered, unless it troubles and hinders itself.

17. Happiness is a good spirit—or a good indwelling divinity. What, then, are you doing here, impression? Go away, by the gods, as you came; I have no need of you. You have come according to your ancient custom. I am not angry with you. Only depart.

18. Does someone fear change? What can come to be without change? And what is dearer or more akin to the nature of the Whole? Can you yourself bathe unless the wood undergoes change? Can you be nourished unless the food undergoes change? Can anything else useful be accomplished without change? Do you not see, then, that your own changing is of the same kind, and equally necessary to the nature of the Whole?

19. Through the substance of the Whole, as through a winter torrent, all bodies pass—grown together with the Whole and working with it, as our limbs work with one another. How many Chrysippuses, how many Socrateses, how many Epictetuses eternity has already swallowed down. Let the same thought arise in you concerning every human being and every thing whatsoever.

20. One thing alone distracts me: that I may myself do something the constitution of a human being does not will, or do it in a way it does not will, or do what it does not will now.

21. Near is your forgetting of all things; near, all things’ forgetting of you.

22. It is proper to a human being to love even those who stumble. This becomes possible when it occurs to you that they are your kin; that they go wrong through ignorance and against their will; that before long both you and they will be dead; and, above all, that they have not harmed you—for they have not made your ruling faculty worse than it was before.

23. The nature of the Whole, from the substance of the Whole as from wax, has now molded a little horse; then, melting it down, it used the same material for a little tree; next for a little man; next for something else. And each of these held its shape for the briefest time. There is nothing dreadful for the little box in being taken apart, any more than in being put together.

24. The scowl upon a face is deeply against nature. When it appears again and again, the expression dies within, or at last is quenched, so that it cannot be kindled at all. Try to grasp from this very fact that it is against reason. For if even the awareness of going wrong is lost, what reason remains for living?

25. Everything you see will, in a moment, be changed by the nature that governs the Whole. From its substance she will make other things, and from their substance still others, so that the world may be forever young.

26. Whenever someone wrongs you, consider at once what he took to be good or evil when he did the wrong. Once you see that, you will pity him; you will neither be astonished nor angry. For either you still suppose the same thing to be good as he does, or something of the same kind—and then you must forgive him—or you no longer suppose such things to be good and evil, and then it will be easier to be gracious to one whose sight has gone astray.

27. Do not picture what is absent as already yours. Instead, reckon up the finest things among those that are present, and, in gratitude for them, remind yourself how eagerly they would be sought if they were not here. Yet guard yourself at the same time: by taking such delight in them, do not grow accustomed to prize them so highly that, if ever they are absent, you are thrown into turmoil.

28. Gather yourself into yourself. The rational ruling mind has it in its nature to suffice for itself when it acts justly, and by that very act to possess serenity.

29. Erase the impression. Halt the puppet-play. Draw a boundary around the present span of time. Recognize what is happening, whether to you or to another. Divide and analyze the thing before you into cause and matter. Think of your final hour. Leave the wrong committed by that man there, where the wrongdoing arose.

30. Let your understanding extend alongside the words being spoken. Let your mind enter into what is being done, and into the one who does it.

31. Brighten yourself with simplicity, with reverence, and with indifference toward all that lies between virtue and vice. Love the human race. Follow God. He says that “all things are by convention, while in truth there are only the elements”; but it is enough to remember that all things stand by convention. Very few things, then.

32. On death: dispersal, if there are atoms; if there is unity, either extinction or migration.

33. On pain: what cannot be borne carries us off; what lingers can be borne. The understanding preserves its own serenity by withdrawing its judgment, and the ruling mind has become no worse. As for the parts afflicted by pain, let them pronounce upon it, if they can.

34. On fame: look into their minds—what sort of minds they are, what things they shun, what things they pursue. And consider how, just as dunes driven one upon another conceal those that came before, so in life what came earlier is swiftly covered by what is borne in after it.

35. “Then for one whose understanding is magnificent, whose vision embraces all time and all substance, do you think human life can seem a great thing?”
“Impossible,” he said.
“Then such a man will not consider death anything dreadful either?”
“Not in the least.”

36. “It is kingly to do good and be spoken of badly.”

37. It is shameful that the face should obey, taking form and beauty as the understanding commands, while the understanding does not give form and beauty to itself by its own command.

38. For one must not be angry with things: they care nothing for it.

39. May you grant joys
both to the deathless gods and to us.

40. To reap life like a fruitful ear of grain:
one comes to be, another does not.

41. If the gods have neglected me and my children,
even this has its reason.

42. For the good is with me,
and so is justice.

43. One must not join in lamentation,
nor groan in sympathy.

44. “But I would answer him with a just argument: ‘You do not speak well, sir, if you think that a man of even the slightest worth should calculate the risk of living or dying, rather than consider this alone whenever he acts: whether his actions are just or unjust, the deeds of a good man or a bad one.’”

45. “For this, men of Athens, is the truth: wherever a man has stationed himself because he judges it the best place, or wherever his commander has stationed him, there, as I see it, he must remain and face the danger, counting neither death nor anything else before disgrace.”

46. “But, my good man, consider whether nobility and goodness may be something other than saving and being saved. Perhaps the man who is truly a man should let go of this concern for living however long a time, and should not cling fondly to life. Entrusting these matters to God, and believing the women when they say that not one of us can escape destiny, he should thereafter consider how he may live in the best way the time he is to live.”

47. Survey the courses of the stars as though you ran their circuits with them, and continually contemplate the elements changing into one another. Images such as these cleanse away the grime of life upon the ground.

48. And when your thought turns to human beings, you should look also upon the things of earth as though from some height above: herds, armies, farms, marriages, separations, births, deaths, the clamor of law courts, deserted lands, varied nations of foreigners, festivals, lamentations, marketplaces—the whole medley, ordered into one world out of opposites.

49. Look back upon what has gone before, upon the countless transformations of ruling powers. You may also foresee what is to come: it will be wholly of the same kind and cannot depart from the rhythm of what is happening now. And so it is all one whether you study human life for forty years or for ten thousand. What more will you see?

50. What springs from earth returns to earth;
what blossoms from ethereal seed
has passed again to heaven’s sphere.

51. Or this: the loosening of the reciprocal entanglements among the atoms, and a scattering of this kind among the elements that cannot suffer.

52. With food and drink and sorceries
they turn the channel from its course, so as not to die.
But the wind that blows from God we must endure,
with toils that draw no lamentation.

53. “More accomplished in horsemanship”—but not more companionable, nor more reverent, nor better ordered amid events, nor more gracious toward the oversights of those nearby.

54. Wherever a work can be brought to completion in accordance with the reason shared by gods and human beings, there is nothing to fear. For wherever benefit may be gained through an activity that proceeds successfully and advances in keeping with our constitution, no harm is to be suspected there.

55. Everywhere and without cease, it is yours to be reverently content with the present conjunction of events, to deal justly with the people now before you, and to bring all your skill to the present impression, so that nothing unexamined may slip inside.

56. Do not cast about among the ruling minds of others. Look instead straight toward the end to which nature leads you: the nature of the Whole through what befalls you, and your own through what is to be done by you. What each must do follows from its constitution. Now all other things have been constituted for the sake of rational beings—as in every other case the lesser exists for the sake of the greater—and rational beings for one another.

The social, then, is foremost in the human constitution. Second is resistance to the body’s persuasions. For it belongs to rational and intelligent movement to set its own bounds and never be overcome by movement either of sensation or of impulse. Both of those are animal; but intelligent movement claims primacy and will not be mastered by them. Rightly so, since by nature it knows how to use them all. Third in the rational constitution is freedom from rash assent and deception.

Let the ruling mind, holding fast to these, finish its course straight ahead; then it possesses what is its own.

57. As one already dead, who until this moment has not lived, live the remainder, this surplus granted you, according to nature.

58. Love only what befalls you and is spun together with your life. What could be more fitting?

59. At every event, keep before your eyes those to whom the same things happened, and who then were aggrieved, astonished, full of complaint. And now—where are they? Nowhere. What then? Do you too wish to be like them? Why not leave alien changes of temper to those who cause and undergo such changes, and devote yourself wholly to the question of how to use these events? For you will use them well, and they will become material for you. Only attend, and resolve to be beautiful in your own eyes in everything you do; and remember both truths: what you do is not indifferent, but that on which the action is exercised is indifferent.

60. Dig within. Within is the spring of the good, forever able to well up, if forever you dig.

61. The body too should be firmly composed, not scattered loose either in motion or at rest. Just as the mind preserves an intelligent and seemly bearing in the face, something of the same kind should be required of the whole body. Yet all this must be maintained without affectation.

62. The art of living is more like wrestling than dancing: it must stand ready and unfallen against whatever strikes, even what could not be foreseen.

63. Continually pause to consider: who are these people whose testimony you desire, and what sort of ruling minds do they possess? Then you will neither blame those who go astray unwillingly nor require their confirming voice, once you have looked into the sources of their judgments and impulses.

64. “Every soul,” he says, “is deprived of truth against its will.” So too of justice, self-command, goodwill, and every virtue of that kind. It is utterly necessary to remember this without cease; for then you will be gentler toward everyone.

65. In the face of every pain, have this ready at hand: it is not shameful, nor does it make the governing intelligence worse; for it does not corrupt it either as rational or as social. And with most pains let the saying of Epicurus come to your aid: pain is neither unbearable nor everlasting, if you remember its limits and do not enlarge it by adding opinion.

Remember also that many things which are the same as pain escape our notice as such, though we chafe at them—for example drowsiness, oppressive heat, and loss of appetite. So whenever one of these displeases you, say to yourself: “You are surrendering to pain.”

66. See that you never feel toward the inhuman as the inhuman feel toward humankind.

67. How do we know whether Telauges may not have had a better disposition than Socrates? It is not enough that Socrates died a more celebrated death, debated more adroitly with the sophists, endured the whole night in the frost with greater fortitude, appeared more nobly resolved to refuse when ordered to arrest the man of Salamis, and “swaggered in the streets”—a report one might very well pause over, if indeed it was true.

What must be examined is this: what sort of soul did Socrates have? Could he be content with being just in his relations with human beings and devout in his relations with the gods—neither idly indignant at human vice nor enslaved to anyone’s ignorance; neither receiving what was apportioned from the Whole as something alien nor enduring it as unbearable; neither letting his mind be drawn into sympathy with the sufferings of his scrap of flesh?

68. Nature has not blended you into the bodily compound so completely that you are forbidden to set your own boundary and make what is yours subject to yourself. Remember this always, and remember also that a happy life rests on very few things. And because you have given up hope of becoming a dialectician and a student of nature, do not therefore despair of being free, self-respecting, social, and obedient to God. For it is entirely possible to become a godlike human being and be recognized by no one.

69. To live out your life unforced, in the fullness of a glad heart—even if everyone shouts whatever they please, even if wild beasts tear apart the little limbs of this lump of matter grown around you. Amid all this, what prevents the mind from preserving itself in calm, in true judgment of what surrounds it, and in readiness to use what is laid before it? Thus judgment may say to what encounters it: “This is what you are in essence, though in common opinion you may appear otherwise”; and use may say to what falls in its way: “I was seeking you. For whatever is present is always material for my rational and civic virtue, and, altogether, for the art proper to a human being or a god.” Everything that happens is at home with god or human being: it is neither novel nor hard to handle, but familiar and fruitful.

70. The perfection of character consists in this: to pass each day as though it were the last, neither fevered nor benumbed nor playing a part.

71. The gods are immortal, yet they do not chafe at having, throughout so vast an eternity, always and inevitably to endure so many people of such a kind—so base in their multitudes. More than that: they care for them in every way. But you, who are on the point of coming to an end, lose heart—and you yourself are one of the base?

72. It is absurd not to flee your own vice—which is possible—yet to flee the vice of others—which is impossible.

73. Whatever the rational and social faculty finds to be neither intelligent nor social, it reasonably judges beneath itself.

74. When you have done someone good and another has received that good, what third thing beyond these do you still seek—as fools do: to have the reputation of doing good, or to gain a return?

75. No one wearies of being benefited, and to benefit another is an action according to nature. So do not weary of being benefited in the very act by which you benefit another.

76. The nature of the whole set itself toward the making of the cosmos. Now, either everything that comes to be comes about by consequence, or else even the sovereign things toward which the governing principle of the cosmos directs its own impulse are without reason. Remembering this will make you calmer in many things.

### Book VIII

1. Let this too lead you away from vanity: you can no longer claim to have lived your whole life—or even your life from youth onward—as a philosopher. To many others, and to yourself as well, it has become plain that you are far from philosophy. You have become entangled, then, so that it is no longer easy for you to win the reputation of a philosopher; your station, too, stands in the way. So if you have truly seen where the matter lies, let go of what people will think of you, and be content if, for whatever remains of your life, however much it may be, you live as your nature wills. Consider, then, what it wills, and let nothing else distract you. For by experience you know how many paths you have wandered without finding the good life anywhere—not in arguments, not in wealth, not in reputation, not in enjoyment: nowhere. Where, then, is it? In doing what human nature seeks. And how will you do that? By holding convictions from which your impulses and actions arise. What convictions? Those concerning goods and evils: that nothing is good for a human being unless it makes him just, self-controlled, courageous, and free; and nothing evil unless it makes him the opposite of these.

2. At every action ask yourself: How does this stand with me? Will I regret it? A little while, and I am dead, and everything has vanished from the scene. What more do I seek, if the work now before me is the work of a rational and social creature, living under the same law as god?

3. Alexander, Gaius, and Pompey—what were they beside Diogenes, Heraclitus, and Socrates? For these men saw things themselves, their causes and their materials, and their ruling minds were self-sufficient; but the others—how many things demanded their care, and to how many were they enslaved.

4. They will do the same things none the less, even if you burst apart.

5. First, do not be troubled: everything comes to pass according to the nature of the Whole, and in a little while you will be no one, nowhere, as Hadrian and Augustus are no longer. Then fix your gaze upon the matter and see it for what it is; remember that you must be a good human being, and what human nature requires, and do it without turning aside. Speak as seems most just to you—only with goodwill, modesty, and without pretence.

6. The nature of the Whole has this for its work: to transfer what is here to there, to transform it, to lift it from here and carry it there. Everything is change; yet the distributions are equitable. Everything is familiar—there is no cause to fear some novelty.

7. Every nature is content with itself when its course runs well. A rational nature runs well when it assents to no impression that is false or uncertain; when it directs its impulses solely toward works for the common good; when it confines desire and aversion to what is in our power alone; and when it welcomes everything allotted by the common nature. For it is a part of that nature, as the nature of a leaf is part of the plant’s nature—except that the leaf’s nature is part of a nature without perception or reason, and liable to hindrance, while human nature is part of a nature unhindered, intelligent, and just, since it apportions to each an equal and merited share of time, substance, cause, activity, and circumstance. But take care: do not look in every case for equality between one single thing and another; compare rather the sum of all that belongs to one with the whole gathered sum belonging to the other.

8. You have no leisure to read. But you do have leave to curb arrogance; you do have leave to rise above pleasures and pains; you do have leave to stand beyond petty fame; you do have leave not to rage at the insensible and ungrateful—and more, to care for them.

9. Let no one hear you complain again of life at court—not even you yourself.

10. Regret is a kind of self-reproach for having let something useful pass by. But the good must be something useful, and the good and noble man must care for it. Yet no good and noble man would regret having let a pleasure pass by. Pleasure, therefore, is neither useful nor good.

11. What is this thing in itself, in its own constitution? What in it is substance and material, and what is causal? What does it do within the cosmos, and for how long does it subsist?

12. When you find it hard to rise from sleep, remind yourself that to render social acts accords with your constitution and with human nature, while sleep is shared even by irrational animals. And what accords with each being’s nature is more its own, more native to it—and, indeed, more pleasing.

13. Continually, and with every impression if possible, examine its nature, its effect upon you, and its logic.

14. Whenever you meet someone, say to yourself at once: What convictions does this man hold about goods and evils? For if he holds certain convictions about pleasure and pain and what produces each, about fame and obscurity, death and life, it will not seem wonderful or strange to me if he acts in certain ways; and I shall remember that he is compelled to act so.

15. Remember: just as it is shameful to be startled when the fig tree bears figs, so it is when the cosmos bears those things it was made to bear. It is shameful, too, for a physician to be startled when a man has fallen into fever, or for a helmsman when a contrary wind has risen.

16. Remember that to change your position and follow the one who sets you right is no less an act of freedom. For the action is yours, fulfilled according to your own impulse and judgment—and therefore according to your own mind.

17. If it lies with you, why do you do it? If it lies with another, whom do you blame—the atoms or the gods? Either is madness. No one is to be blamed. If you can, set him right; if you cannot do that, then set the matter itself right; and if you cannot do even that, what use remains in blame? Nothing should be done without purpose.

18. What dies does not fall outside the cosmos. If it remains here and changes here, here too it is dissolved into the everlasting elements—the elements of the cosmos and of you. And they too change, and do not murmur.

19. Each thing came into being for something—a horse, a vine. Why are you astonished? The Sun too will say, “I came into being for some work,” and so will the other gods. For what, then, did you come into being? For pleasure? See whether the thought can endure.

20. Nature has aimed at each thing’s ending no less than at its beginning and the course between, like one who tosses up a ball. What good, then, comes to the little ball as it rises, or what evil as it descends—or even when it has fallen? What good comes to a bubble while it holds together, or what evil when it dissolves? And the same holds for a lamp.

21. Turn it inside out and look at what it is—what it becomes when it has grown old, when it has fallen sick, when it has prostituted itself. Short-lived alike are the praiser and the praised, the rememberer and the remembered; and all this in one corner of this region, where not even everyone agrees, nor does anyone agree even with himself. And the whole earth is a point.

22. Attend to the thing before you—or to the action, or the judgment, or what the words signify. You suffer this justly: you would rather become good tomorrow than be good today.

23. Am I doing something? I do it, referring the act to the good of humankind. Does something befall me? I receive it, referring it to the gods and to the fountain of all things, from which every event is spun together.

24. As bathing appears to you—oil, sweat, filth, slimy water, everything nauseating—so is every part of life and every substance beneath it.

25. Lucilla buried Verus, then Lucilla; Secunda buried Maximus, then Secunda; Epitynchanus buried Diotimus, then Epitynchanus; Antoninus buried Faustina, then Antoninus. Everything is so. Celer buried Hadrian, then Celer. And those men of piercing intellect, or prophetic sight, or swollen pride—where are they? Such piercing minds as Charax, Demetrius the Platonist, Eudaemon, and any other like them. All creatures of a day, long dead: some not remembered even briefly; some transformed into legends; some already faded even out of legend. Remember, then, that your little compound must either be scattered, or your little breath extinguished, or else removed and assigned its place elsewhere.

26. A human being’s gladness is to do what belongs to a human being. And what belongs to a human being is goodwill toward one’s own kind, disdain for the movements of the senses, discrimination among persuasive impressions, contemplation of the nature of the Whole and of all that comes to pass in accordance with it.

27. Three relations: one to what causally surrounds us; one to the divine cause, from which all things befall all; and one to those who share our life.

28. Pain is an evil either to the body—then let the body declare it—or to the soul. But the soul can preserve its own clear sky and calm, and refuse the judgment that pain is evil. For every judgment, impulse, desire, and aversion is within, and no evil climbs up into that citadel.

29. Erase your impressions, continually saying to yourself: It is now in my power that there be in this soul no wickedness, no desire, no disturbance of any kind; but, seeing everything as it is, I use each thing according to its worth. Remember this authority of yours, given by nature.

30. In the Senate and before anyone at all, speak with decorum, not display; let your speech be sound.

31. The court of Augustus: wife, daughter, descendants, forebears, sister, Agrippa, kinsmen, household, friends, Areius, Maecenas, physicians, priests—the death of an entire court. Then pass on to the others... not the death of one man, but of whole lines, such as the Pompeys. And there is that inscription placed upon tombs: “The last of his line.” Consider how intensely those before them strove to leave some successor, and yet someone must inevitably be the last. Here again, the death of an entire line.

32. Life must be composed one action at a time; and if each action achieves what is its own, so far as it can, be content. That it should achieve its own no one can prevent.
“But something external will stand in the way.”
Nothing can stand in the way of acting justly, temperately, and with due reason.
“But perhaps some other exercise of action will be obstructed.”
Yet through welcoming the obstacle itself, and through an understanding turn toward what is given, another action is immediately set in its place—one that fits the composition of which we speak.

33. Receive without conceit; release without resistance.

34. If ever you have seen a severed hand or foot, or a head cut off and lying somewhere apart from the rest of the body, that is what a person makes of himself, so far as he can, when he refuses what befalls him and tears himself away, or when he does something against the common good. You have cast yourself out somewhere from the unity of nature: you grew as a part, but now you have cut yourself off. Yet here is the exquisite thing: you can unite yourself again. To no other part has God granted that, once divided and cut away, it may come together again. Consider the goodness with which he has honored the human being: he made it depend upon the person not to be torn from the Whole in the first place, and, once torn away, to return again, grow together, and recover the station of a part.

35. As with the other powers that the nature of the Whole has allotted to each rational being, so too we have received this power from her. For just as she turns around everything that obstructs and opposes her, weaves it into fate’s order, and makes it a part of herself, so the rational creature can make every obstacle material for itself and use it for whatever purpose it originally set in motion.

36. Do not let the image of your whole life confound you. Do not embrace in a single thought all the painful things, in kind and number, that have probably occurred and will occur. With each present thing, ask yourself: What in this task is unbearable, past endurance? You will blush to confess it. Then remind yourself that neither the future nor the past weighs upon you, but always the present; and this is reduced to littleness if you circumscribe it alone and put your mind to the test, should it claim that it cannot withstand even this, stripped bare.

37. Can it be that Panthea or Pergamus now sits beside the coffin of Verus? Or Chabrias or Diotimus beside Hadrian’s? Absurd. And if they sat there, would the dead perceive it? And if they perceived it, would they take pleasure in it? And if they took pleasure, would the mourners therefore be immortal? Was it not fated for them too first to become old women and old men, and then to die? And once they had died, what were the dead to do afterward? All this is grease and gore in a bag.

38. “If you can see keenly, then look,” he says, “judging with the wisest judgments.”

39. In the constitution of the rational creature I see no virtue that rises in revolt against justice; but against pleasure I see self-mastery.

40. If you remove your judgment concerning what seems to grieve you, you yourself stand in the safest place.
“What is this self?”
Reason.
“But I am not reason.”
So be it. Then let reason itself not grieve itself; and if something else in you fares badly, let that form its own judgment about itself.

41. An obstruction of perception is an evil for animate nature. An obstruction of impulse is likewise an evil for animate nature. There is also something else that obstructs, and is an evil to, the vegetative constitution. Just so, then, an obstruction of mind is an evil for an intelligent nature. Now apply all these things to yourself. Does pain or pleasure touch you? Perception will see to it. Has an obstacle arisen against your impulse? If you launched the impulse without reservation, the harm is already yours as a rational being; but if you include the common good, you have not yet been harmed or obstructed. Yet no one else is accustomed to obstruct what belongs to the mind itself: neither fire, nor iron, nor tyrant, nor abuse, nor anything whatever touches it, once it has become “a sphere, rounded and steadfast.”

42. I am not worthy of causing myself grief; for I have never willingly caused grief to another.

43. One thing delights one person, another thing another. My delight is to keep my governing faculty sound: turning away from no human being and from nothing that befalls humanity, but looking upon and receiving everything with kindly eyes, and using each thing according to its worth.

44. Look: grant this present time to yourself. Those who pursue posthumous fame all the more fail to reckon that the people to come will be just such people as those they find burdensome now—and they too will die. What, in the end, is it to you if those people echo with such voices or hold such an opinion of you?

45. Take me up and cast me wherever you will. There I shall keep my own daimon gracious and serene—that is, content, if its condition and activity follow the order of its own constitution. Is this thing truly worth my soul’s being in a bad state because of it, and becoming worse than itself: abased, craving, enslaved, terrified? What will you find that is worth such a price?

46. Nothing can befall a human being that is not a human eventuality; nor an ox what is not proper to an ox, nor a vine what is not proper to a vine, nor a stone what is not proper to a stone. If, then, what befalls each is both customary and natural to it, why be resentful? The common nature has brought you nothing you cannot bear.

47. If you are grieved by something external, it is not the thing that troubles you, but your judgment about it; and it is in your power to erase that judgment now. But if something in your own disposition grieves you, who prevents you from correcting your belief? Likewise, if you grieve because you are not doing some particular thing that appears sound to you, why not act rather than grieve?
“But something stronger stands in the way.”
Then do not grieve, for the cause of its not being done does not lie with you.
“But life is not worth living if this is not done.”
Then depart from life with goodwill, as even the one who does the deed must die, and be gracious at the same time toward those who stand in your way.

48. Remember that the governing faculty becomes unconquerable when, gathered into itself, it is content with itself and does nothing it does not will—even if its resistance is irrational. What, then, when it also judges a matter with reason and circumspection? For this reason the mind freed from passions is a citadel: a human being has no stronger refuge, and whoever takes shelter there is thereafter beyond capture. One who has not seen this is ignorant; one who has seen it and does not take shelter is unfortunate.

49. Say nothing more to yourself than the first impressions announce. You have been told that someone speaks ill of you. That is what was announced; it was not announced that you have been harmed. I see that the child is ill. I see that; I do not see that the child is in danger. Remain always, then, with the first impressions, and add nothing from within yourself, and nothing happens to you. Or rather, add what belongs to one who recognizes each thing that comes to pass within the cosmos.

50. A cucumber is bitter? Throw it away.
Bramble bushes in the road? Go around them.
That is enough. Do not add: “Why did such things ever arise in the cosmos?” For a student of nature will laugh at you, just as a carpenter and a shoemaker would laugh if you faulted them because you saw shavings and offcuts from the things being made in their workshops. They, however, have somewhere to throw these remnants, while the nature of the whole has nothing outside itself. The wonder of its craft is this: having bounded itself, it transforms into itself everything within it that seems to be decaying, aging, and becoming useless; and from these very things it fashions other things, young again, so that it needs neither substance from outside nor a place into which to cast what has rotted. It is content, then, with its own space, its own material, and its own art.

51. Do not drag out your actions, muddle your conversations, wander in your impressions, let your soul be wholly drawn tight or leap outward, or fill your life with business.
“They kill us, carve up our flesh, hound us with curses.”
What has any of this to do with the mind’s remaining pure, sane, temperate, and just? It is as if someone stood beside a clear and sweet spring and reviled it: the spring does not cease to bubble up with drinkable water. Even if he casts mud into it, even dung, it will quickly scatter and wash them away, and will not be stained at all. How, then, will you possess an ever-flowing spring and not a well? If at every hour you guard yourself in freedom, with goodwill, simplicity, and reverence.

52. One who does not know that there is a cosmos does not know where he is. One who does not know toward what end the cosmos is naturally constituted knows neither who he is nor what the cosmos is. And one who omits any one of these things could not say toward what end he himself was born. What, then, do you make of the person who flees or pursues the praise of those who clap—people who know neither where they are nor who they are?

53. Do you wish to be praised by someone who curses himself three times an hour? Do you wish to please someone who does not please himself? And does one please himself who repents of nearly everything he does?

54. No longer merely breathe in concert with the air surrounding you; now also think in concert with the intelligence that surrounds all things. For the power of intelligence is no less poured everywhere and diffused through all things for one willing to draw it in than the power of air is for one able to breathe.

55. In general, vice does no harm to the cosmos; in a particular case, one person’s vice does no harm to another. It is harmful only to the one who has also been granted release from it as soon as he himself wills.

56. To my faculty of choice, my neighbor’s faculty of choice is just as indifferent as his little breath and scrap of flesh. For even though we came into being above all for one another, each of our governing faculties has its own sovereignty. Otherwise my neighbor’s vice would have been an evil for me—which God did not see fit, lest my misfortune should lie in another’s hands.

57. The sun seems to have poured itself abroad, and everywhere indeed it has been poured, yet it has not poured itself away. For this pouring is a tension outward; hence its gleams are called rays, from their reaching out. What sort of thing a ray is you may see if you watch sunlight entering a shadowed house through some narrow opening: it reaches in a straight line and, as it were, braces itself against whatever solid body it encounters, which shuts off the air beyond. There it comes to a stand, and neither slips down nor falls. Such, then, must be the pouring and diffusion of the mind: never a spilling-away, but a tension outward; meeting the obstacles before it with no violent or headlong pressure, yet not falling either, but standing fast and shining upon whatever receives it. For that which does not let the light pass through will itself deprive itself of its radiance.

58. Whoever fears death fears either the loss of sensation or a different kind of sensation. But if you no longer have sensation, you will perceive no evil either; and if you acquire another kind of sensation, you will be another kind of living being and will not cease to live.

59. Human beings have come into being for one another; so either teach them or bear with them.

60. An arrow moves in one way, the mind in another. Yet even when the mind is on its guard, and even when it turns this way and that in inquiry, it moves no less directly forward and toward what lies before it.

61. Enter into each person’s ruling faculty, and let every other person enter into your own.

### Book IX

1. Whoever does wrong commits impiety. For the nature of the Whole fashioned rational creatures for one another, so that they might benefit one another according to their worth and never do harm; whoever transgresses her purpose plainly commits impiety against the eldest of the gods. For the nature of the Whole is the nature of all beings, and beings stand in kinship with everything that exists.

Moreover, whoever lies commits impiety against this same goddess. Her name is Truth, and she is the first cause of all truths. The willing liar, then, commits impiety insofar as he deceives and thereby does wrong; the unwilling liar, insofar as he is out of harmony with the nature of the Whole, and makes disorder by contending with the nature of the cosmos. For anyone carried of himself toward what is contrary to the truth is in conflict: nature had already given him the first grounds of understanding, but by neglecting them he has now become unable to distinguish falsehoods from truths.

And indeed, whoever pursues pleasures as goods and flees pains as evils commits impiety. Such a person must often reproach the common nature for distributing things contrary to merit among the base and the virtuous, since the base are often surrounded by pleasures and possess what produces them, while the virtuous encounter pain and what produces it. Again, whoever fears pains will one day fear something destined to occur within the cosmos—and that is already impious. Whoever pursues pleasures will not refrain from wrongdoing—and that is manifestly impious.

Toward those things to which the common nature is impartial—for she would not make both if she were not equally disposed toward both—those who wish to follow nature must, being of one mind with her, be impartial as well. Whoever, then, is not equally disposed toward pain and pleasure, death and life, fame and obscurity—things which the nature of the Whole employs impartially—plainly commits impiety.

By saying that the common nature employs these things impartially, I mean that they occur impartially, in due succession, to all that comes to be and follows after, through a certain primordial impulse of providence. From some first beginning, by this impulse, she set forth toward the present ordering of the world, conceiving certain formative principles of what was to be and defining generative powers for substances, transformations, and successions of this kind.

2. It would have been the part of a finer man to depart from humankind without ever tasting falsehood, any hypocrisy, luxury, or conceit. Yet to breathe one’s last when at least one has had one’s fill of them is the second-best voyage. Or have you chosen to sit close beside vice? Has experience not yet persuaded you to flee this pestilence? For the corruption of the mind is a pestilence far more truly than any such imbalance and alteration of this surrounding air. The latter is a pestilence of living creatures insofar as they are creatures; the former, of human beings insofar as they are human.

3. Do not disdain death; welcome it, since it too is one of the things nature wills. For dissolution itself is like being young and growing old, growing and coming to one’s prime, bringing forth teeth, beard, and grey hairs, begetting, carrying a child, giving birth, and all the other natural activities that the seasons of life bring.

It is therefore the course of a human being who has reasoned well not to meet death thoughtlessly, impulsively, or disdainfully, but to await it as one of nature’s activities. Just as you now await the moment when the child will emerge from your wife’s womb, so await the hour when your little soul will fall from this sheath.

But if you also want a simple, heartening support, what will make you readiest for death is a close consideration of the things you are about to leave and of the characters with which your soul will no longer be entangled. You must not take offense at them in the least, but rather care for them and bear with them gently—while remembering that your departure will not be from people who hold the same convictions as you. This alone, if anything could, would draw you the other way and hold you in life: if you were permitted to live among people who had made the same convictions their own. But now you see how exhausting the discord of life together is, enough to make you say:

“Come sooner, Death,
before I too forget myself.”

4. Whoever goes astray goes astray against himself; whoever does wrong wrongs himself, by making himself bad.

5. Often the one who does not act does wrong, not only the one who acts.

6. Enough: the present judgment that grasps what is, the present action directed toward the common good, and the present disposition content with everything that comes to pass from the cause outside us.

7. Erase the impression;
halt the impulse;
extinguish desire;
keep the governing mind in its own power.

8. One soul is distributed among irrational creatures, and one intelligent soul apportioned among rational beings—just as there is one earth for all things earthy, and we all who have sight and soul see by one light and breathe one air.

9. All things that share in something common hasten toward their own kind. Everything earthy inclines toward earth; everything liquid flows together; what is airy does likewise, so that barriers—and force—are needed to keep it apart. Fire rises because of the elemental fire, yet every fire here is so ready to kindle together with any other that all matter even slightly drier is easily ignited, because less of what hinders ignition has been mixed into it.

Accordingly, everything that shares in a common intelligent nature hastens toward its kind in the same way—or more. For the more excellent it is than other things, the readier it is to mingle and merge with what is its own. Thus, already among irrational creatures there appeared swarms and herds, the nurturing of young, and semblances of love. For souls were now present, and in the higher order the power of gathering together was found intensified, as it was not among plants or stones or timber.

Among rational creatures there are communities, friendships, households, and assemblies—and in wars, treaties and truces. Among beings higher still, though in a way far separated, a unity has arisen such as that among the stars. Thus ascent to what is higher could create fellow-feeling even among things far apart.

See, then, what is happening now. Rational beings alone have now forgotten their earnest movement and convergence toward one another; here alone no confluence can be seen. Yet even as they flee, they are caught and enclosed—for nature prevails. Watch closely, and you will see what I mean: one could sooner find something earthy touching nothing earthy than find a human being wholly severed from humankind.

10. A human being bears fruit, and so does a god, and so does the cosmos; each bears its fruit in its proper season. If common usage has worn the word down by applying it chiefly to the vine and things like it, that makes no difference. Reason, too, has fruit both common and its own, and from it arise other fruits of the same kind as reason itself.

11. If you can, instruct them; if not, remember that kindness was given you for this. The gods themselves are kind to such people, and in some pursuits they even work beside them—toward health, toward wealth, toward reputation: so gracious are they. You may do the same. Or tell me, who prevents you?

12. Work hard—not as one afflicted, nor as one who wants pity or admiration. Desire one thing only: to move and to come to rest as civic reason requires.

13. Today I escaped every constriction—or rather, I cast every constriction out. For it was not outside me, but within, in my judgments.

14. All things are the same: familiar through experience, fleeting in time, foul in their matter. Everything now is as it was in the days of those we buried.

15. Things stand outside the doors, each by itself, knowing nothing about itself and making no pronouncement. What, then, pronounces upon them? The ruling mind.

16. The evil and the good of a rational, civic creature lie not in what it undergoes but in what it does—just as its virtue and vice lie not in what it undergoes but in what it does.

17. For a stone flung upward, there is no evil in falling and no good in rising.

18. Pass within, into their ruling minds, and you will see what sort of judges you fear—and what sort of judges they are even of themselves.

19. All things are in transformation; you yourself are in unceasing alteration and, in some measure, decay—and so is the entire cosmos.

20. Another's error must be left where it is.

21. The ending of an activity, the cessation of an impulse or a judgment—a kind of death—is nothing evil. Turn now to the stages of life: childhood, boyhood, youth, old age. Every change among these is also a death. Is there anything terrible in that? Turn now to your life under your grandfather, then under your mother, then under your father; and as you discover many other dissolutions, changes, and endings, ask yourself: Was there anything terrible in them? So too the ending, cessation, and transformation of your whole life is nothing terrible.

22. Hasten to your own ruling mind, to the ruling mind of the Whole, and to this person's. To your own, that you may make it a mind of justice; to the Whole's, that you may remember again whose part you are; to this person's, that you may discern whether ignorance or considered purpose is at work, and at the same time reckon that his mind is kindred to yours.

23. As you yourself are a constituent part of a civic order, so let every action of yours contribute to civic life. Any action of yours, then, that bears no reference—whether directly or remotely—to the communal end tears your life apart, does not allow it to remain one, and is seditious: like someone in a people who, for his own part, breaks away from its concord.

24. Children's rages and children's games, and “little breaths carrying corpses”—so that the vision of the Descent among the Dead strikes home more vividly.

25. Go to the quality of the cause, mark it off from the material, and behold it; then bound the time as well—the longest for which this thing, qualified as it is, can by nature subsist.

26. You have endured ten thousand sufferings because you were not content to let your ruling mind do the things for which it was formed. But enough.

27. Whenever another reproaches or hates you, or people give voice to anything of that kind, approach their little souls; pass within and see what sort of people they are. You will see that you need not wrench yourself about over whatever opinion of you they may hold. Yet you must bear them goodwill, for by nature they are friends. The gods, moreover, help them in every way—through dreams, through oracles—at least toward those very things on which they set their hearts.

28. The cycles of the cosmos are the same, up and down, from age to age. Either the mind of the Whole directs its impulse toward each single thing—and if so, welcome what its impulse brings—or it made one primal impulse, and all the rest follows in consequence. Why, then, strain against it? The Whole—whether it is God, all is well; whether it is chance, in some fashion atoms or indivisible particles, do not you too act at random.

Soon earth will cover us all; then earth herself will change, and those things will change into others without end, and those again without end. Whoever considers the surging waves of change and alteration, and the swiftness of everything mortal, will hold it all in contempt.

29. A torrent is the cause of all things: it carries everything away. Human being, what are you doing? Do what nature now requires. Set out, if the way is given, and do not look around to see whether anyone will know. Do not hope for Plato's republic, but be satisfied if the smallest thing advances, and consider the outcome of that small thing as no small matter.

How paltry are these little political men who, in their own estimation, practice philosophy in public life—full of mucus. For who will change their doctrines? And without a change of doctrines, what else is there but the slavery of people groaning while pretending to obey?

Go on now, tell me of Alexander and Philip and Demetrius of Phalerum. I will follow them if they saw what universal nature willed and schooled themselves accordingly. But if they played tragic heroes, no one has sentenced me to imitate them. Philosophy's work is simple and modest; do not lead me away into pompous vanity.

30. “Look from above” upon ten thousand herds and ten thousand rites; upon voyages of every kind through storms and calms; upon the differences among those coming to be, living together, and passing away. Consider also the life lived long ago by others, the life that will be lived after you, and the life now being lived among foreign peoples: how many do not even know your name, how many will very soon forget it, how many who perhaps praise you now will very soon condemn you—and how neither remembrance nor fame nor anything else whatever is worth accounting much.

31. Undisturbed calm toward what occurs from the cause outside you; justice in what is done through the cause within you—that is, impulse and action coming to rest in this alone: acting for the common good, because this is according to your nature.

32. You can strip away many needless things that trouble you, all of them resting wholly in your judgment, and at once secure a vast expanse for yourself: embrace the whole cosmos in your understanding, contemplate everlasting time, and consider the swift transformation of each particular thing—how brief the span from birth to dissolution, how boundless the time before birth, and how the time after dissolution is boundless in the same way.

33. Everything you see will very swiftly pass away; and those who watched these things passing away will very swiftly pass away themselves. And the man who dies in extreme old age will be brought to the same state as the man who died before his time.

34. What are their ruling minds? What have they set their hearts upon, and for the sake of what do they love and honor? Imagine that you see their little souls stripped bare. When they suppose that their blame can harm or their praise confer a benefit—what presumption!

35. Loss is nothing other than change. In this the nature of the Whole delights, and in accordance with it all things come to pass well. From eternity they came to pass in the same manner, and to infinity other things of this kind will be. What, then, are you saying? That all things have always come to pass badly, and all things will always be bad? That among so many gods no power was ever found capable of setting them right, but the cosmos stands condemned to be held fast in unceasing evils?

36. The rottenness of the matter underlying each thing: water, dust, little bones, grease. Or again: marble is earth’s hardened crust, gold and silver its sediments; clothing is little hairs, purple is blood—and everything else is of the same kind. The breathlike substance too is another such thing, changing from these forms into these forms.

37. Enough of this wretched life, this grumbling and aping. Why are you troubled? What is new in any of this? What drives you out of yourself? The cause? Look at it. But is it the matter? Look at that. Outside these there is nothing. And now, at long last, become simpler and kinder toward the gods as well.

38. To survey these events for a hundred years is the same as to survey them for three hundred.

39. If he has done wrong, the evil lies there, in him. And perhaps he has not done wrong.

40. Either all things flow from one intelligent spring and befall as parts of one body—and the part must not find fault with what comes to pass for the sake of the whole—or there are atoms, and nothing but a welter and a scattering. Why, then, are you troubled? Say to your ruling mind: “You are dead; you have decayed; you have turned beast; you play a part, run with the herd, and graze.”

41. Either the gods have no power, or they have power. If they have none, why do you pray? But if they have power, why not pray instead that they grant you neither to fear any of these things, nor to desire any of them, nor to grieve over any of them—rather than pray that one of them may not be present, or may be present? For surely, if they can work with human beings, they can work with them toward these ends as well. But perhaps you will say: “The gods have left these things in my power.” Then is it not better to use what is in your power with freedom than to struggle over what is not in your power with servility and abasement? And who told you that the gods do not assist us even in what is up to us? Begin, then, to pray about these things, and you will see.

This man prays: “How may I sleep with that woman?”
You: “How may I not desire to sleep with her?”

Another: “How may I be rid of that man?”
You: “How may I not need to be rid of him?”

Another: “How may I avoid losing my little child?”
You: “How may I not fear to lose him?”

Turn your prayers around in this way altogether, and watch what happens.

42. Epicurus says: “During my illness, my conversations were not about the sufferings of this poor body, nor, as he puts it, did I chatter about such matters with those who came to see me. I continued instead to reason about nature’s first principles, dwelling especially on this: how the understanding, though it shares in such movements of the flesh, remains untroubled and preserves its own good. Nor, he says, did I give the doctors an opening to strut as though they were accomplishing something; my life went on well and nobly.”

So let it be with you as it was with him in illness, if you fall ill, and in any other circumstance. For never to desert philosophy, whatever may befall, and never to join in the nonsense of the unlearned man who does not study nature—this is common to every school. Attend solely to what is being done now, and to the instrument through which you do it.

43. Whenever you collide with someone’s shamelessness, ask yourself at once: “Can there be a world without shameless people?” There cannot. Then do not demand the impossible. This man too is one of those shameless people who must exist in the world. Keep the same thought ready to hand for the scoundrel, the faithless man, and anyone who goes wrong in any way. For as soon as you remind yourself that it is impossible for this breed of men not to exist, you will be more kindly disposed toward each one of them.

It is useful also to consider at once what virtue nature has given a human being to meet this error. Against the unfeeling man she has given gentleness as an antidote, and against another, some other power. In general, it is open to you to teach the wanderer a better way; for everyone who goes wrong misses the end set before him and has gone astray.

And how have you been harmed? You will find that none of the people who provoke you has done anything capable of making your understanding worse; yet it is there that all your evil and harm have their being. And what evil or strange thing has happened if the uneducated man acts as the uneducated do? See whether you ought rather to blame yourself for failing to expect that he would commit this error. Your reason gave you grounds for reflecting that he was likely to go wrong in this way; yet you forgot, and now you marvel that he did.

Above all, when you reproach a man for faithlessness or ingratitude, turn back upon yourself. For plainly the error is yours: either you trusted that a man with such a disposition would keep faith, or, when you gave a kindness, you did not give it wholeheartedly, in such a way as to gather the whole fruit from the act itself, there and then.

What more do you want, human being, after doing good? Is it not enough that you have done something in accordance with your own nature? Do you seek payment for it besides—as though the eye demanded a reward for seeing, or the feet for walking? Just as these were made for a certain end and, by acting according to their own constitution, obtain what is their own, so too the human being, born to benefit others, whenever he does some beneficent act or otherwise helps toward common ends, has done what he was constituted to do, and has what is his own.

### Book X

1. Will you ever, O soul, be good and simple and one and naked, more plainly seen than the body wrapped around you? Will you ever taste the disposition that loves and cherishes? Will you ever be full and without need, longing for nothing, desiring nothing—neither living nor lifeless—for the enjoyment of pleasures? Neither time in which to enjoy them longer; nor place or country or temperate air; nor harmony among human beings? Instead, will you be content with your present condition and rejoice in everything now present, and fully persuade yourself that all things are present for you from the gods, that all is well with you and will be well—all that is dear to them and all that they intend to give for the preservation of the perfect living being: good and just and beautiful, begetting all things, holding them together, encompassing them, and gathering back into itself what is dissolved, for the birth of other things like them? Will you ever be such as to share one commonwealth with gods and human beings, neither finding fault with them in anything nor being condemned by them?

2. Observe what your nature requires of you insofar as you are governed by nature alone; then do it and accept it, unless your nature as a living creature is to be made worse. Next, you must observe what your nature as a living creature requires of you, and accept all of that, unless your nature as a rational living creature is to be made worse. And the rational is, by that very fact, also civic. Use these as your measures, and busy yourself with nothing beyond them.

3. Everything that happens either happens in such a way that you are naturally able to bear it, or in such a way that you are not naturally able to bear it. If, then, it happens in a way you are naturally able to bear, do not chafe at it, but bear it as you were born able to bear it. If it happens in a way you are not naturally able to bear, do not chafe at that either; once it has consumed you, it will itself be spent. Remember, however, that you are naturally able to bear everything which it lies within your own judgment to make bearable and endurable, by conceiving that to do so is advantageous to you or is your proper work.

4. If he is mistaken, teach him kindly and show him what he has failed to see. But if you cannot, blame yourself—or not even yourself.

5. Whatever happens to you was being prepared for you from eternity, and the interweaving of causes was spinning together from all eternity both your existence and the conjunction of this event with it.

6. Whether there are atoms or Nature, let this first be established: I am a part of the whole governed by Nature; and next, I stand in a relation of kinship to the parts of the same kind as myself. For when I remember these things, then, insofar as I am a part, I shall not be discontented with anything allotted from the whole: nothing that benefits the whole is harmful to the part. For the whole contains nothing that does not benefit itself. All natures have this in common, but the nature of the cosmos has this further power: no cause outside it can compel it to generate anything harmful to itself.

By remembering, then, that I am a part of such a whole, I shall be well pleased with everything that comes about. And insofar as I stand in a relation of kinship to the parts of my own kind, I shall do nothing unsocial; rather, I shall aim at my kindred, direct my every impulse toward the common benefit, and turn it away from the contrary. When these things are carried through in this way, life must flow well—just as you would conceive the life of a citizen to flow well when he proceeds through actions beneficial to his fellow citizens and welcomes whatever the city allots him.

7. The parts of the whole—all that are by nature contained within the cosmos—must perish; but let “perish” here signify “undergo alteration.” Now if this is by nature both evil and necessary for them, the whole could not be conducted well while its parts pass into alteration and are variously constituted for destruction. For did Nature herself undertake to harm her own parts, making them liable to evil and bound by necessity to fall into it, or did it escape her notice that such things were happening? Both are incredible.

And even if someone were to leave Nature aside and explain these things simply as their natural condition, it would still be ridiculous to say at once that the parts of the whole naturally change, and yet to be astonished or vexed as though at something happening contrary to nature—especially when each thing is dissolved into the very things from which it was composed. For there is either a scattering of the elements from which it was compounded, or a turning of what is solid into the earthy and of what is breathlike into the airy, so that these too are taken back into the reason of the whole, whether the whole is consumed by fire in recurring cycles or renewed through everlasting exchanges.

And do not imagine that the solid and the breathlike in you are what you received at your first birth. All this took in its influx only yesterday or the day before, from the food you ate and the air you drew. What changes, then, is what your body has received, not what your mother bore. But suppose that original matter binds you very closely to your individual character: in truth, I think, that has no bearing on what is now being said.

8. Give yourself these names: good, reverent, truthful, discerning, consenting, transcendent. Take care never to be renamed; and if you lose these names, return to them quickly. Remember that “discerning” was meant to signify for you a knowledge that distinguishes each thing and admits no intrusive thought; “consenting,” your willing acceptance of what is allotted by the common Nature; and “transcendent,” the elevation of the thinking part above every smooth or rough stirring of the flesh, above the little thing called reputation, above death, and above all such things.

If, then, you preserve yourself in these names without craving to be called by them by others, you will become another person and enter another life. For to remain such as you have been until now, and to be torn and stained in such a life, belongs to one utterly without feeling, one clinging slavishly to life, like those half-devoured fighters with beasts who, covered in wounds and gore, nevertheless plead to be kept for the next day, only to be thrown, in that same condition, before the same claws and bites.

Set yourself aboard, then, these few names. If you can remain upon them, remain as though you had migrated to islands of the blessed. But if you perceive that you are falling away and cannot hold mastery, go boldly into some corner where you will master yourself—or else depart from life altogether, not in anger, but simply, freely, and reverently, having achieved at least this one thing in life: to leave it in this way.

Yet to remember these names, it will greatly help you to remember the gods, and that they do not wish to be flattered, but wish all rational beings to become like themselves: the fig tree to do the work of a fig tree, the dog of a dog, the bee of a bee, and the human being of a human being.

9. Mime, war, panic, stupor, slavery. Day by day those sacred doctrines of yours will be erased, all that you imagine without attending to nature and then let pass. You must look at and do everything in such a way that the task imposed by circumstance is fulfilled, the work of contemplation is active at the same time, and the self-assurance born of knowledge concerning each thing is preserved—unnoticed, not concealed. For when will you enjoy simplicity? When dignity? When the knowledge of each thing: what it is in its essence, what place it holds in the cosmos, how long it is naturally fitted to endure, what it is compounded from, to whom it can belong, and who can give it and take it away?

10. A spider exults in catching a fly; a man, in catching a little hare; another, a sprat in his net; another, little boars; another, bears; another, Sarmatians. Are not these all robbers, if you examine their doctrines?

11. Acquire a contemplative method for seeing how all things change into one another; attend to it continuously, and train yourself together with it in this field—for nothing is so productive of greatness of soul. The body has been stripped away: reflecting that in no time at all he must leave all these things behind and depart from humankind, he has surrendered his whole self—to justice in the actions that are his own, and, in all that happens otherwise, to the nature of the Whole. What anyone will say or suppose about him, or do against him, he does not even admit into his mind. These two things suffice him: that his present action be just, and that he love what is now allotted to him. He has let go of every occupation and fevered pursuit, and wants nothing but to complete a straight course through the law and, as he completes that straight course, to follow God.

12. What need is there of suspicion, when you can examine what must be done? If you see it clearly, proceed toward it graciously, without turning aside. If you do not see clearly, pause and use the best advisers. And if other things obstruct you in this, advance with measured judgment by the resources now at hand, holding to what appears just. To attain that is best, since falling away from it is indeed failure. At leisure yet agile, radiant yet composed, is the one who follows reason in everything.

13. On waking from sleep, ask yourself at once: Will it make any difference to you if what is just and good is condemned by another? It will make no difference. Have you forgotten what those who bluster in praise and blame of others are like in bed, what they are like at table; what things they do, what they shun, what they pursue; what they steal, what they seize—not with hands and feet, but with the most precious part of themselves, the part from which, whenever it wills, arise faithfulness, reverence, truth, law, and a good guardian-spirit?

14. To nature, who gives all and takes all back, the educated and reverent person says: “Give what you will; take back what you will.” He says this not in rash defiance, but only in obedience and goodwill toward her.

15. This remnant of time is little. Live as on a mountain. For it makes no difference whether there or here, if one lives everywhere as a citizen in the cosmos. Let people see, let them behold and learn of a true human being, living according to nature. If they cannot bear him, let them kill him; for that is better than living as they do.

16. No longer discuss at all what sort of person the good man ought to be. Be such a person.

17. Keep before your imagination the whole of eternity and the whole of substance, and know that every particular thing is, beside substance, a millet-seed; beside time, a single turn of the drill.

18. As you attend to each thing before you, conceive it already dissolving, already in change, passing as it were into decay or dispersal—or undergoing whatever form of death belongs to the nature of each.

19. What they are like eating, sleeping, copulating, defecating, and all the rest; and then what they are like when lording it over men and strutting, or growing angry and rebuking others from their height. Yet a little while ago, to how many were they slaves, and for what things! And in a little while they will be among such things again.

20. What the nature of the Whole brings to each is to each one’s benefit—and it benefits each at the very time she brings it.

21. Earth is in love with rain,
and the majestic aether is in love;
the cosmos, too, is in love with making
whatever is to come to be.

So I say to the cosmos: “I share your love.” Is this not also the sense in which people say, “This loves to happen”?

22. Either you live here, and by now are accustomed to it; or you go elsewhere, and this was what you wished; or you die, and your service is complete. Beyond these, there is nothing. So be of good heart.

23. Let it always be evident to you that the country is like this too, and that everything here is the same as everything on a mountaintop, by the shore, or wherever you please. For you will find Plato’s words exactly fulfilled: “Fencing himself within a fold on a mountain,” he says, “and milking bleatings.”

24. What is this governing faculty of mine? What am I now making of it, and to what use am I now putting it? Is it empty of understanding? Is it severed and torn away from fellowship? Is it glued and blended into this scrap of flesh, so that it sways as the flesh sways?

25. One who flees his master is a fugitive. But the law is master; therefore the lawbreaker is a fugitive. And so too one who grieves or rages or fears does not wish that something should have happened, be happening, or happen hereafter among the things ordained by the governor of all—the governor who is law, allotting to each what falls to each. Therefore one who fears or grieves or rages is a fugitive.

26. He released seed into a womb and withdrew; then another cause took it up, labored upon it, and completed a child. From what a thing, what a thing! Again: he sent food down the throat; then another cause took it up and made sensation and impulse, made life entire and strength—and how many other things, and of what kinds! Contemplate, then, what is coming to be under such a veil; and behold the power just as we behold the power that weighs downward and the power that bears upward—not with our eyes, yet no less vividly.

27. Continually conceive how everything now coming to be came to be in the same way before, and conceive that it will come to be again. Set before your eyes whole dramas and scenes of one pattern, all that you have known from your own experience or from the history of earlier times: the entire court of Hadrian, the entire court of Antoninus, the entire court of Philip, Alexander, Croesus. For all those things were of the same kind; only the actors were different.

28. Picture everyone who grieves or is displeased at anything as like the piglet under sacrifice, kicking and squealing. Like it, too, is the man who, alone upon his little bed, silently laments. Picture our bondage, and remember that to the rational creature alone it has been granted to follow what comes to pass willingly; merely to follow is necessary for all.

29. Pause over each part of everything you do, and ask yourself whether death is terrible because it deprives you of this.

30. Whenever you stumble against someone’s fault, turn at once and reckon what fault like it you commit yourself—for instance, judging money to be a good, or pleasure, or a little fame, and so on by kind. For when you bring this to bear, you will quickly forget your anger, once it also strikes you that he is under compulsion. What else can he do? Or, if you can, take away what compels him.

31. When you see Satyrion, picture the Socraticus who bore the name before him—or Eutyches or Hymen; when you see Euphrates, picture Eutychion or Silvanus; for Alciphron, picture Tropaeophorus; when you see Severus, picture Crito or Xenophon; and when you look upon yourself, picture one of the Caesars—and so, in each case, the corresponding figure. Then let this thought strike you too: Where, then, are those men? Nowhere—or somewhere or other. In this way you will continually see human things as smoke and nothingness, above all if you also remember that what has once changed will never again exist throughout infinite time. Why, then, strain yourself? Why is it not enough for you to pass this brief span with grace and good order?

32. What material, what subject for action you flee! For what are all these things but exercises for reason, once it has looked upon the things of life with precision and in accordance with nature? Stay, then, until you have made even these your own, as the strong stomach makes all food its own, as a bright fire makes flame and radiance from whatever you cast into it.

33. Let no one be able to say truthfully of you that you are not sincere or that you are not good; rather, let whoever forms such an opinion of you be false. All this rests with you—for who prevents you from being good and sincere? Only decide that you will live no longer if you are not to be such a person; for reason itself does not choose life for one who is not.

34. What is the soundest thing that can be done or said with the material now before you? Whatever it may be, you are free to do or say it; do not make the excuse that you are hindered.

You will not cease groaning until you come to feel that, as luxury is to those who live for pleasure, so to you is the doing—upon whatever material is offered and befalls—of what belongs to the human constitution. For you must regard as enjoyment every act you are free to perform in accordance with your own nature; and everywhere you are free.

A cylinder, indeed, is not everywhere allowed to move with its own motion; neither is water, nor fire, nor anything else governed by nature or by an irrational soul, for many things obstruct and withstand them. But mind and reason can travel through everything that opposes them, as their nature and their will direct. Set before your eyes this ease with which reason will be borne through all things—as fire upward, a stone downward, a cylinder down a slope—and seek nothing further. For the remaining hindrances either belong to the little corpse of a body, or else, without judgment and the surrender of reason itself, neither crush nor injure nor do any harm at all. Otherwise the sufferer would at once be made bad. In every other constituted thing, whenever something bad happens to it, the thing affected becomes worse because of it; but here—if one may say so—the human being becomes even better and more praiseworthy by making right use of what befalls.

Remember, in sum, that nothing harms the citizen by nature which does not harm the city, nor does anything harm the city which does not harm the law; and none of these so-called strokes of misfortune harms the law. What does not harm the law, then, harms neither city nor citizen.

35. For one bitten by true doctrines, even the briefest familiar saying is enough to recall him to freedom from grief and fear, such as:

“Leaves—the wind scatters some to the ground;
so too the generation of men.”

Little leaves, too, are your children; little leaves are those who cry out with convincing voices and acclaim you, or, on the other side, curse you, or quietly blame and mock you; little leaves, likewise, are those to whom your fame hereafter will pass. For all these “come forth in the season of spring”; then the wind casts them down; and afterward the woodland grows others in their place. Brief duration is common to all, yet you flee and pursue everything as though it were to last forever. In a little while you too will close your eyes, and soon another will mourn the one who carried you to burial.

36. A healthy eye must see everything visible and not say, “I want green things”; for that is the mark of an ailing eye. Healthy hearing and smell must be ready for everything audible and odorous; a healthy stomach must meet every food as a mill meets everything it was made to grind. So too a healthy understanding must be ready for everything that happens. But the understanding that says, “May my children be kept safe,” and, “May everyone praise whatever I do,” is an eye seeking green things, or teeth seeking what is tender.

37. No one is so favored by fortune that, as he dies, some will not stand beside him welcoming the evil that has occurred. He was earnest and wise: yet at the very end will there not be someone saying to himself, “At last we shall breathe freely after this schoolmaster. He was harsh to none of us, but I sensed that he silently condemned us”? So much for the earnest man. But in our own case, how many other reasons there are for which many long to be rid of us.

You will consider this, then, as you die, and depart more easily, reasoning: “I am leaving a life in which my very companions—those for whom I struggled so much, prayed, and took thought—these very people wish me gone, perhaps hoping thereby for some different ease.” Why, then, should anyone cling to a longer stay here?

Yet do not on this account leave them with less goodwill. Preserve your own character: remain friendly, benevolent, gracious. Nor leave as though being torn away. Rather, just as in one who dies a gentle death the little soul is easily drawn from the body, so should your departure from these people be. Nature bound and blended you with them; but now she is dissolving the bond. I am dissolved from them as from my own kin, yet without pulling against it, without compulsion. For this too is one of the things in accordance with nature.

38. With everything anyone does, train yourself, so far as possible, to seek within yourself: To what end does this person refer his action? But begin with yourself, and examine yourself first.

39. Remember: the puppeteer is that hidden presence within. That is the active power, that is life, that—if it must be said—is the human being. Never let your image of it include the vessel-like casing wrapped around it, or these organs moulded about it. For they are like an adze, differing only in being naturally joined to us. Without the cause that moves and controls them, these parts are no more useful than the shuttle to the weaver, the reed-pen to the writer, and the whip to the charioteer.

### Book XI

1. The properties of the rational soul: it sees itself, articulates itself, makes itself whatever it wills; it harvests the fruit it bears itself—for the fruits of plants, and their counterparts in animals, are harvested by others. It attains its own end wherever the boundary of life overtakes it. It is not as in a dance, a play, or the like, where the whole action is left incomplete if something interrupts it; at every part, and wherever it is caught, it brings what it has undertaken to fullness and self-sufficiency, so that it can say: “I have all that is mine.” Moreover, it ranges through the whole cosmos, the void surrounding it, and its form; it reaches into the infinity of time, embraces and comprehends the periodic rebirth of all things, and beholds that those after us will see nothing new, nor did those before us see anything beyond what we see: in a certain sense, a person of forty, if possessed of any understanding at all, has seen everything that has been and everything that will be, by reason of their likeness. It belongs to the rational soul also to love one’s neighbors, to be truthful and self-respecting, and to value nothing above itself—which is also the property of law. And so there is no difference between right reason and the reason of justice.

2. You will look down on a beguiling song, a dance, and the pancratium if you divide the melodious voice into each of its notes and ask yourself, at every one, whether you are its inferior—for the question will shame you. Do the corresponding thing with a dance, movement by movement and pose by pose, and likewise with the pancratium. In general, then—virtue and the works of virtue excepted—remember to hurry to the separate parts and, by dividing things up, arrive at disdain for them; and carry this same practice over into the whole of life.

3. What a soul is this: ready, if it must now be released from the body, either to be extinguished, dispersed, or to endure. But let this readiness arise from its own judgment—not from mere defiant formation, as with the Christians, but with reflection and dignity, and so as to persuade another, without theatrical display.

4. Have I done something for the common good? Then I have benefited. Let this thought always meet you ready to hand, and never cease from it.

5. What is your craft? To be good. And how is this achieved except through principles—some concerning the nature of the Whole, others concerning the particular constitution of the human being?

6. Tragedies were first produced as reminders of what befalls us: that such things naturally happen in this way, and that what delights you upon the stage must not distress you upon the greater stage. For you see that these things must reach their ending so, and that even those who cry aloud,

“Ah, Cithaeron!”

bear them. Some useful things, too, are said by the playwrights—above all, this:

“Though the gods neglect both me and my two children,
this too has its reason.”

And again:

“One must not rage against events.”

And:

“To reap life like a fruitful ear of grain.”

And all sayings of that kind.

After tragedy came Old Comedy, which possessed a schoolmaster’s freedom of speech and, by its very plainness of utterance, gave a not unhelpful reminder against vanity. Diogenes, too, used it for something like this purpose. Consider, after that, what Middle Comedy was, and then what purpose New Comedy was adopted to serve, as it gradually flowed away into artistry founded on imitation. It is well known that these poets also say some useful things; but what goal did the whole design of such poetry and playmaking ever have in view?

7. How luminously clear it is that no setting for life is so well suited to philosophy as this one in which you now find yourself.

8. A branch cut from the branch adjoining it cannot but be cut also from the whole tree. Just so, a human being severed from one human being has fallen away from the whole community. Now, another person cuts off a branch; but a human being separates himself from his neighbor by hatred and aversion, unaware that he has thereby cut himself away from the whole commonwealth at the same time. Yet there is this gift from Zeus, who formed the community: we are able to grow together again with the branch beside us and once more become parts that complete the whole. If such division happens often, however, it makes the part that withdraws difficult to reunite and difficult to restore. In every respect, the branch that grew together from the first and remained sharing one life and breath is not like the one grafted back after being cut away—whatever the gardeners may say.

To grow from the same stock, but not to share the same creed.

9. Those who stand in your way as you advance according to right reason will be no more able to turn you from sound action than they should be able to drive you from goodwill toward them. Guard yourself with equal care in both: not only in steadiness of judgment and action, but also in gentleness toward those who try to hinder you or otherwise treat you harshly. For anger with them is weakness too, no less than abandoning the action and surrendering in fright. Both are deserters alike: the one who shrinks back, and the one who becomes estranged from his natural kinsman and friend.

10. No nature is inferior to art—for the arts themselves imitate nature. If this is so, the nature most perfect and all-embracing of all could not fall short of art’s resourceful skill. And every art makes lesser things for the sake of greater; therefore universal Nature does so too. From this arises justice, and from justice the remaining virtues have their foundation. For justice will not be preserved if we set differing values upon indifferent things, or if we are easily deceived, impulsive, and changeable.

11. The things whose pursuit and avoidance throw you into turmoil do not come to you; rather, in a manner, you go to them yourself. Then let your judgment about them grow quiet, and they will remain motionless too; and you will be seen neither pursuing nor fleeing.

12. A soul: a sphere true to its own form, when it neither reaches outward toward anything, nor races inward; neither coils itself nor sinks down, 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 for him to see to. But I shall see to it that I am not found doing or saying anything worthy of contempt. Will he hate me? That is for him to see to. But I shall remain kindly and well-disposed toward everyone—and toward this very man, ready to show him where he has gone astray, not reproachfully, nor as if making a display of my forbearance, but genuinely and graciously, like Phocion of old, if indeed his manner was not a pose. For such must be the inward state: the gods must behold a human being disposed to resent nothing and make no tragedy of anything. What evil can touch you, if you yourself are now doing what belongs to your nature and welcoming what is timely now for the nature of the Whole—a human being intent upon becoming, by whatever means, an instrument of the common good?

14. Despising one another, they court one another’s favor; wishing to rise above one another, they bow and scrape before one another.

15. How rotten and counterfeit is the man who says, “I have resolved to deal candidly with you.” What are you doing, man? This needs no announcement. It will reveal itself; it should be written on your forehead. At once your voice should ring with it; at once it should stand out in your eyes, just as the beloved knows everything at once in the lover’s gaze. In a word, the candid and good man should be like a strong scent: whoever stands near him must perceive it as soon as he approaches, whether he wishes to or not. A studied simplicity is a hidden blade. Nothing is uglier than a wolf’s friendship. Flee that above all. The good, candid, kindly man bears all this in his eyes, and it does not escape notice.

16. To live life in the noblest way—the power for this lies in the soul, if one is indifferent to things indifferent. And one will be indifferent if one contemplates each of them both part by part and as a whole, remembering that none of them implants in us a judgment about itself, nor comes against us. The things themselves remain still; it is we who beget judgments about them and, as it were, inscribe them within ourselves—though we may leave them unwritten and, if one slips in unnoticed, erase it at once. Remember, too, that such watchfulness will last only a little while, and then life will be over. Yet what difficulty is there in these things? If they accord with nature, rejoice in them, and they will be easy for you. If they are contrary to nature, seek what accords with your own nature and hasten toward it, even if it brings no glory; for everyone is forgiven for seeking his own good.

17. Whence each thing has come; from what underlying elements each is formed; into what it changes; what it will be when changed; and how it will suffer no evil.

18. First: what my relation is to them; that we came into being for one another; and that, by another reckoning, I came into being to stand at their head, as the ram stands over a flock or the bull over a herd. But begin from higher ground, from this: if there are not atoms, then there is a Nature governing the Whole; and if so, the lesser exist for the sake of the better, and the better for one another.

Second: what sort of people they are at table, in bed, and in all else; above all, what compulsions their doctrines lay upon them—and with what conceit they perform these very acts.

Third: if they do these things rightly, there is no cause for indignation; if not rightly, plainly they act unwillingly and in ignorance. For every soul is unwillingly deprived of truth, just as it is unwillingly deprived of treating each person according to his worth. At any rate, people resent hearing themselves called unjust, ungrateful, grasping, or in any way offenders against their neighbors.

Fourth: you too commit many wrongs and are another such as they. Even if you refrain from certain wrongs, you still possess the disposition capable of producing them, though cowardice, concern for reputation, or some similar evil may keep you from like offenses.

Fifth: you have not even grasped that they are doing wrong. Many things are done as part of some larger management; and, in general, one must first learn a great deal before making a well-grounded pronouncement upon another’s action.

Sixth: whenever you are excessively indignant or distressed, remember that human life is a moment, and in a little while we shall all be laid out dead.

Seventh: it is not their actions that trouble us; those actions lie within their own ruling minds. It is our judgments. Remove, then—resolve to cast away—the judgment that this is something terrible, and the anger is gone. How will you remove it? By reasoning that it is not shameful to you. For unless the shameful alone is evil, you too must inevitably commit many wrongs and become a robber and every kind of villain.

Eighth: how much harsher are the anger and grief these things provoke than the very things at which we are angry and grieved.

Ninth: kindness is invincible, if it is genuine and not a sneer or a pretense. For what can the most insolent man do to you if you remain kind to him and, when occasion offers, gently counsel him and quietly teach him better at the very moment he tries to do you harm? “No, child. We were born for something else. I shall not be harmed; it is you who are harmed, child.” Show him, with tact and from the whole view, that this is so: that not even bees act as he does, nor any creatures born to live in herds. But you must do it neither ironically nor reproachfully, but affectionately, with no sting in your soul—not as if lecturing him, nor to make some bystander admire you, but as though you were alone with him, even if others happen to be standing around.

Remember these nine precepts as gifts received from the Muses, and begin at last to be a human being while you are alive. Yet you must guard as carefully against flattering them as against becoming angry with them: both are contrary to fellowship and lead to harm. When anger rises, keep ready the thought that rage is not manly; rather, gentleness and mildness, being more human, are also more virile. It is the gentle man who has strength, sinew, and courage, not the indignant and discontented. The nearer gentleness is to freedom from passion, the nearer it is to power. Just as grief belongs to weakness, so does anger: in both, men have been wounded and have yielded.

And, if you wish, receive a tenth gift from the Leader of the Muses: to expect bad men never to go wrong is madness, for it desires the impossible. But to permit them to be such toward others while expecting them never to wrong you is unfeeling and tyrannical.

19. Four turnings of the ruling mind must above all be watched continually; and whenever you detect one, wipe it away, saying over each: “This impression is unnecessary”; “This dissolves fellowship”; “What you are about to say does not come from yourself”—and regard speaking what does not come from yourself as among the most monstrous of things. The fourth is that for which you reproach yourself: because this means that the diviner part within you has been defeated and bows beneath the baser, mortal portion—the body and its gross pleasures.

20. All in you that is breath and fire, however much has been mingled into you, is by nature upward-borne; yet, obedient to the ordering of the Whole, it is held here within the compound. And all in you that is earth and water, though by nature downward-borne, has nevertheless been raised and stands in a position not naturally its own. Thus even the elements obey the Whole: once assigned their place, they remain bound there under compulsion until from that same source the signal again gives leave for their dissolution.

Is it not dreadful, then, that your rational part alone should disobey and resent its appointed place? And yet nothing violent is laid upon it, but only what accords with its own nature; still it will not bear this, but rushes the opposite way. For its movement toward injustice, self-indulgence, anger, grief, and fear is nothing other than a revolt from nature. And whenever the ruling mind takes offense at anything that happens, then too it deserts its own station; for it was fashioned for holiness and reverence toward the divine no less than for justice. These also belong to the form of fellowship—indeed, they are prior even to just deeds.

21. “One who does not always have one and the same aim in life cannot remain one and the same throughout life.” But this saying is not enough unless you add what that aim must be. For just as people do not hold a like conception of every sort of thing that the majority somehow judges good, but only of certain goods—namely, those held in common—so the aim you set must be communal and civic. Whoever directs every impulse of his own toward this aim will render all his actions harmonious and, in this respect, will always remain the same.

22. The mountain mouse and the house mouse—and the latter’s terror and frantic scurrying.

23. Socrates called the opinions of the multitude Lamias—bogeys for children.

24. At public spectacles the Spartans would place seats for visitors in the shade; they themselves sat wherever chance allowed.

25. When Perdiccas asked why Socrates would not come to him, Socrates said: “So that I may not perish by the worst of deaths”—that is, by receiving kindness and being unable to return it.

26. Among the writings of the Epicureans stood this precept: continually call to mind some figure from the past who made virtue his practice.

27. The Pythagoreans said: At dawn, look up into the heavens, that we may remember those bodies which forever accomplish their work along the same paths and in the same manner—and remember their order, their purity, their nakedness; for no veil lies before a star.

28. Socrates, with only the sheepskin wrapped about him, when Xanthippe took his cloak and went out—and what Socrates said to his companions when, ashamed at seeing him dressed so, they drew away.

29. In writing and reading, you will not begin to lead before you have been led. Far more is this true in life.

30. A slave you were born; you have no share in reasoned speech.

31. And my own dear heart laughed.

32. They will rail against virtue, uttering bitter words.

33. To seek a fig in winter is the act of a madman. Such is the man who seeks his child when the child is granted him no longer.

34. When kissing your child, Epictetus said, you should say inwardly: “Tomorrow, perhaps, he will die.”

“Those are words of ill omen.”

“Nothing,” he said, “is ill-omened in naming a work of nature—or else it is ill-omened to say that the ears of grain will be reaped.”

35. Sour grape, ripe cluster, raisin: all are transformations—not into what is not, but into what is not yet.

36. There can be no robber of the power to choose. This is Epictetus’ saying.

37. “We must,” he said, “discover an art of giving assent; and in the sphere of impulses we must preserve attentiveness, so that they may be made with reservation, may serve fellowship, and may accord with worth. We must abstain from desire altogether, and employ aversion toward none of the things that are not up to us.”

38. “The contest, then,” he said, “is no casual matter, but whether we are to be mad or not.”

39. Socrates said:

“What do you want: to have the souls of rational beings, or of irrational?”

“Of rational beings.”

“What kind of rational beings—sound or corrupt?”

“Sound.”

“Why, then, do you not seek them?”

“Because we have them.”

“Why, then, do you fight and quarrel?”

### Book XII

1. All those things you pray to reach by some roundabout course you can have already, if you do not begrudge them to yourself. And this means: leave the whole past behind, entrust the future to providence, and direct the present alone toward holiness and justice. Toward holiness, so that you may love what is allotted—for nature was bringing it to you, and you to it. Toward justice, so that freely and without entanglement you may speak the truth and do what accords with law and with worth. Let neither another’s vice obstruct you, nor supposition, nor voice, nor even any sensation of the little parcel of flesh grown around you; what suffers will see to itself. If, then, whenever you come to the point of departure, you leave all else behind and honor only your governing faculty and the divine within you; if you fear not that you must someday cease to live, but that you may never have begun to live according to nature—you will be a human being worthy of the cosmos that gave you birth. You will cease to be a stranger in your homeland, marveling as though unexpected at what happens every day, hanging upon this thing and that.

2. God sees every governing faculty stripped bare of its material vessels and husks and refuse. For with his own intelligence alone he touches only what has streamed and been channeled from himself into them. If you too accustom yourself to doing this, you will strip away much of your distraction. For surely one who does not look at the scraps of flesh wrapped around a person will hardly busy himself gazing at clothing and house and reputation, and at all such costume and stage scenery.

3. There are three things of which you are composed: a little body, a little breath, and mind. Of these, the first two are yours only insofar as you must care for them; the third alone is yours in the sovereign sense. So if you separate from yourself—that is, from your thought—whatever others do or say; whatever you yourself have done or said; whatever troubles you as still to come; whatever belongs involuntarily to the body enclosing you or the breath born with it; and whatever the encircling whirl outside sweeps spinning round—so that your power of intelligence, released from all that fate has woven with it, may live by itself, pure and unbound, doing what is just, willing what comes to pass, and speaking the truth—if, I say, you separate from this governing faculty all that attachment has fastened to it, and all that lies beyond the present in time or has passed away; if you make yourself like the sphere of Empedocles,

round, rejoicing in the solitude surrounding it,

and train yourself to live only what you are living—that is, the present—then you will be able to live out what remains until death undisturbed, graciously, and at peace with your own indwelling divinity.

4. I have often wondered how each person loves himself more than anyone else, yet sets less value on his own judgment of himself than on the judgment of others. At any rate, if a god appearing beside him, or a wise teacher, were to command him to conceive and think nothing inwardly that he would not at the same time utter aloud, he would not endure it for even one day. So much more do we stand in awe of what our neighbors will think of us than of ourselves.

5. How could the gods, after ordering all things well and with love for humankind, have overlooked this alone: that some human beings, exceptionally good, who had as it were made the greatest number of covenants with the divine, and through holy works and sacred observances had long grown intimate with it, should, once dead, never come into being again, but be utterly extinguished? Yet if this is indeed how things are, know well that, had they needed to be otherwise, the gods would have made them so. For if it were just, it would also be possible; and if it accorded with nature, nature would have brought it about. From its not being so—if indeed it is not so—let yourself be assured that it ought not to have been so. You see yourself that, in pressing this inquiry beyond bounds, you are pleading a case against the god; but we would not argue so with the gods unless they were supremely good and just. And if they are, they would not have allowed anything in the ordering of the world to remain unjustly and irrationally neglected.

6. Train yourself even in the things you despair of mastering. For the left hand, though unskilled in other tasks through lack of practice, holds the reins more firmly than the right: in this it has been trained.

7. In what condition death should find you, in body and in soul;
the brevity of life;
the measureless abyss of eternity behind and before;
the frailty of all matter.

8. To behold causal principles stripped of their husks;
the ends to which actions are referred;
what pain is;
what pleasure is;
what death is;
what reputation is;
who is not himself the cause of his own busyness;
how no one is obstructed by another;
that all is supposition.

9. In the use of your principles, you must be like a pankratiast, not a gladiator. For the gladiator lays aside the sword he uses, and it is taken from him; the other always has his hand, and needs only to close it into a fist.

10. See the things themselves, dividing each into matter, cause, and end.

11. How great the power a human being possesses: to do nothing but what God is about to praise, and to welcome whatever God may allot him, as the next consequence of nature.

12. Blame neither the gods, for they do no wrong either willingly or unwillingly; nor human beings, for they do no wrong except unwillingly. Therefore blame no one.

13. How ridiculous, and how foreign to the world, is the person who marvels at anything that happens in life.

14. Either the necessity of fate and an order not to be transgressed; or providence that may be won to mercy; or an unguided welter of chance. If, then, necessity cannot be transgressed, why resist? If it is providence admitting of supplication, make yourself worthy of help from the divine. But if it is a welter without a guide, be glad that in such a storm you have within yourself a mind that can guide. And even if the storm carries you away, let it carry away the little flesh, the little breath,

15. the rest; it will not carry away the mind. What? The light of a lamp shines until it is quenched and does not lose its radiance beforehand—yet will the truth, justice, and self-command within you be quenched before your own end?

16. When someone gives you the impression that he has gone wrong: But how do I know that this is a wrong? And even if he has gone wrong, how do I know he has not condemned himself? If so, it is like tearing at his own face.

To wish that a bad person should not go wrong is like wishing that a fig tree should bear no milky sap in its figs, that infants should not whimper, that a horse should not neigh, and that all other necessary things should not occur. What else can someone with such a disposition do? If you have the vigor, then cure the disposition.

17. If it is not fitting, do not do it; if it is not true, do not say it. Let your impulse be always to see, in every case, what precisely the thing is that produces the impression in you, and to unfold it by dividing it into its cause, its matter, its reference, and the span of time within which it must come to an end.

18. Perceive at last that you have within yourself something stronger and more divine than the things that stir your passions and, in a word, jerk you about like a puppet. What is my mind now? Fear? Suspicion? Desire? Something else of that kind?

19. First: nothing at random, nothing without a reference. Second: refer what you do to no end but the common good.

20. Before long you will be no one, nowhere; and so will everything you now behold, and everyone now alive. For all things are born to change, to turn, and to perish, so that others may arise in succession.

21. All is judgment—and the judgment is in your power. Then cast it away whenever you choose, and, as for one who has rounded the headland, there is calm: all is steady, and the bay has no waves.

22. Any single activity, when it ceases at the proper time, suffers no evil in the very fact of ceasing; nor has the one who performed that action suffered any evil in the very fact that it ceased. In the same way, the system composed of all our actions—which is life—suffers no evil if it ceases at the proper time, in the very fact of ceasing; nor is the one who brings this sequence to a timely close thereby placed in an evil condition.

Nature gives the proper time and the boundary: sometimes one’s own nature, as in old age, but in every case the nature of the whole. Through the change of its parts, the entire cosmos remains forever young and in its prime. Whatever benefits the whole is always beautiful and seasonable. Thus the ending of life is no evil for anyone, because it is no disgrace, being both beyond our choice and not contrary to fellowship; and it is a good if it is timely for the whole, benefits it, and is borne along with it. For in this way a person too is borne by God: one who is borne along the same course as God and whose purpose carries him toward the same ends.

23. Keep these three things ready at hand. First, regarding what you do: do nothing at random or otherwise than Justice herself would have acted. Regarding what happens from without: it comes either by chance or by providence; and chance must not be blamed, nor providence accused.

Second: consider what each thing is from seed until it receives a soul, and from receiving a soul until it gives that soul back; from what elements it is compounded, and into what it is dissolved.

Third: if you were suddenly lifted high above the earth and looked down upon human affairs and all their teeming variety, you would disdain them, seeing at the same moment how vast is the host surrounding them, of beings dwelling in air and ether. And however often you were lifted up, you would see the same things: sameness of kind, brevity of life. And over these things—our pride.

24. Cast out the judgment: you are saved. Who, then, prevents you from casting it out?

25. Whenever you are distressed at something, you have forgotten that all things come to pass according to the nature of the whole; that the wrongdoing belongs to another; and, besides, that everything now happening has always happened so, will happen so, and is happening everywhere at this moment. You have forgotten how close the kinship is between one human being and the whole human race: no fellowship of a little blood or seed, but a fellowship of mind.

You have forgotten, too, that each person’s mind is a god and has flowed from there; that nothing belongs to anyone, but your little child, your little body, and even your little soul have come from there; that all is judgment; and that each person lives only the present—and this alone is what he loses.

26. Continually call to mind those who were excessively indignant over something; those who reached their height amid the greatest fame, calamities, enmities, or fortunes of whatever kind. Then pause and ask: Where is all that now? Smoke and ash and a tale—or not even a tale.

Let every such example occur to you as well: Fabius Catullinus on his estate, Lusius Lupus in his gardens, Stertinius at Baiae, Tiberius on Capri, Velius Rufus—and, in general, all the fuss of preferring one place of residence to another. Think how paltry everything is for which our efforts are strained, and how much more philosophical it is, with the material given you, to present yourself plainly as just, self-controlled, and a follower of the gods. For pride that prides itself on freedom from pride is the most unbearable pride of all.

27. To those who ask, “Where have you seen the gods, or from what evidence have you grasped that they exist, that you revere them so?” First, they are visible even to the eyes. And further, I have not seen my own soul either, yet I honor it. So too with the gods: from the effects of their power, which I experience at every moment, I grasp that they exist, and I stand in awe of them.

28. The salvation of life is to see each thing through and through: what its matter is, and what its cause; to do what is just with your whole soul, and to speak what is true. What remains but to delight in living, joining one good thing to another, and leaving not even the smallest interval between?

29. One light of the sun, though divided by walls, mountains, and ten thousand other things. One common substance, though divided among ten thousand bodies, each with its own qualities. One soul, though divided among ten thousand natures and their individual bounds. One rational soul, though it seems to have been separated.

Now the other parts of what has been named—breaths and insensible substrates, for example—are alien and unrelated to one another; yet even these are held together by the power that unites them and by their gravitation in the same directions. But mind reaches in a special way toward what shares its nature and joins with it, and its feeling for fellowship cannot be shut out.

30. What is it you seek? To go on existing? But is it to keep sensing? To keep impelling yourself? Growing? Then ceasing once again? Using your voice? Thinking? Which of these seems to you worth longing for? But if each is easy to disdain, advance to the last thing: to follow reason and God. Yet at war with this is the honoring of those things, and the grief that death will deprive one of them.

31. How tiny a portion of boundless, fathomless eternity is allotted to each of us—for in an instant it vanishes into the everlasting. How tiny a portion of the whole substance; how tiny a portion of the whole soul; on how tiny a clod of the whole earth you creep. Bearing all this in mind, imagine nothing great but this: to act as your own nature leads, and to undergo whatever the common nature brings.

32. How does the ruling faculty use itself? In this lies everything. The rest, whether within choice or beyond choice, is dead matter and smoke.

33. The most powerful spur to disdain death is that even those who judged pleasure to be good and pain evil nevertheless disdained it.

34. For one to whom only the timely is good; to whom the accomplishment of more actions in accord with right reason stands equal with fewer; and to whom it makes no difference whether he beholds the cosmos for a longer or a shorter time—for him, not even death is fearful.

35. Human being, you have lived as a citizen in this great city. What difference does it make to you whether for five years or fifty? For what accords with the laws is equal for everyone. What, then, is terrible if no tyrant or unjust judge sends you away from the city, but the very nature that brought you into it—as though the magistrate who engaged a comic actor were to release him from the stage?

“But I did not perform the five acts, only three.”

“Well performed. Yet in life, the three are the whole drama.”

For the one who once caused your composition and now causes your dissolution determines where the completion lies; you are responsible for neither. Depart, then, in good grace, for the one who releases you is gracious too.

## Translation — Mouseia

> Mouseia's complete Plain English edition, made independently and directly from all twelve books and 488 sections of the Greek.

### Book I

1. From my grandfather Verus I learned to be good-natured and not to lose my temper.

2. From what I heard and remembered about my father I learned modesty and courage.

3. From my mother I learned devotion to the gods, generosity, and restraint—not just from doing harm, but even from letting such a thought enter my mind. I also learned to live simply, far from the lifestyle of the rich.

4. From my great-grandfather I learned not to go to public schools, but to have good teachers at home, and to recognize that this was something worth spending freely on.

5. From my tutor I learned not to support the Greens or the Blues, or the Palm or Shield factions; to put up with hard work and need little; to do things for myself and not meddle in other people’s business; and not to be quick to believe accusations.

6. From Diognetus I learned not to waste my time on empty interests; not to believe what miracle-workers and magicians say about spells, driving out spirits, and things like that; not to train fighting quails or get excited about such pastimes; to accept honest, open speech; to become familiar with philosophy; to study first with Baccheius, then with Tandasis and Marcianus; to write dialogues when I was a boy; and to want a simple cot, an animal skin, and the other things associated with Greek training.

7. From Rusticus I learned to recognize that my character needed correction and treatment; not to be drawn into showing off as a sophist, writing about theories, giving little moral lectures, or posing impressively as a disciplined or charitable man; to give up rhetoric, poetry, and clever turns of phrase; not to walk around the house in formal clothes or do similar things; to write letters in a simple style, like the letter he wrote from Sinuessa to my mother; to be quick to call back and make peace with people who had become angry or behaved badly, as soon as they were willing to come back; to read carefully, not settle for a general understanding, and not agree too quickly with people who talk at length about a subject; and to read the notes of Epictetus, which he lent me from his own library.

8. From Apollonius I learned to be independent, to leave nothing uncertain to chance, and never, even briefly, to look to anything except reason; to stay the same through severe pain, the loss of a child, and long illness; to see in a living person that someone can be both intensely committed and at ease; not to become impatient when explaining something; to see a man who clearly considered his experience and skill in teaching principles the least of his good qualities; and to learn how to accept apparent favors from friends without becoming beholden to them or rejecting them insensitively.

9. From Sextus I learned kindness; the example of a household guided by a father; the idea of living according to nature; dignity without posing; thoughtful concern for friends; patience with uninformed people and with those who hold views without thinking them through; the ability to get along with everyone, so that his company was more pleasant than any flattery, while the people with him also respected him deeply; the skill to identify and organize, clearly and methodically, the principles needed for life; never to show even a trace of anger or any other strong emotion, but to be both completely untroubled by passion and deeply affectionate; to praise others quietly, and to be very learned without showing it off.

10. From Alexander the grammarian I learned not to criticize people or rebuke them when they used a foreign expression, made a grammatical mistake, or said something badly. Instead, I would tactfully use the right expression myself—in a reply, in agreement, in a discussion of the subject rather than the wording, or through some other appropriate kind of indirect reminder.

11. From Fronto I learned what envy, deceit, and hypocrisy are found in tyrants, and that, for the most part, the people we call patricians are rather lacking in affection.

12. From Alexander the Platonist I learned not to keep telling people, in person or by letter, “I’m busy,” unless it was really necessary, and not to use current demands as a constant excuse for avoiding the duties I owe to those who share my life.

13. From Catulus I learned not to dismiss a friend’s complaint, even when it was unreasonable, but to try to restore the relationship to what it had been; to praise my teachers warmly, as he is remembered for praising Domitius and Athenodotus; and to love my children sincerely.

14. From Severus I learned love of family, truth, and justice. Through him I came to know Thrasea, Helvidius, Cato, Dio, and Brutus, and formed the idea of a state with equal laws, governed through equality and equal freedom to speak, and of a monarchy that respects the freedom of its subjects above all else. I also learned from him to be steady and committed in valuing philosophy; to do good, give freely and generously, and remain hopeful; to trust that my friends loved me; to be open with people whose conduct I condemned; and to make what I wanted and did not want so clear that my friends never had to guess.

15. From Maximus I learned self-control and not to be carried away by anything; to stay cheerful in all circumstances, including illness; to have a balanced, gentle, and dignified character; to complete the work before me without complaining; to make everyone trust that I meant what I said and had no bad purpose in what I did; not to be amazed or shocked, never rushed or hesitant, never helpless, gloomy, or scowling, and never angry or suspicious; to be helpful, forgiving, and truthful; to seem naturally upright rather than corrected; to ensure that no one would think I looked down on him, or presume to consider himself better than me; and to be gracious in …

16. From my father I learned to be gentle and to hold firmly to decisions made after careful thought; not to be vain about supposed honors; to work hard and steadily; to listen to people who had something useful to offer the community; to give each person exactly what he deserved; to know from experience when to press hard and when to ease off; to put an end to sexual affairs with young men; to have a sense of fellowship, and to let his friends choose not to dine with him every time or travel with him whenever he went away, while always treating in the same way those who had stayed behind to meet some obligation; to investigate matters in council carefully and persistently, rather than stop the inquiry too soon and settle for the first impressions available; to keep his friends and never become quickly tired of them or excessively attached to them; to be self-reliant in every situation and cheerful; to plan well ahead and arrange even the smallest matters beforehand without making a drama of it; to suppress public cheering and every kind of flattery in his presence; always to protect what the government needed, spend its funds carefully, and bear the criticism this sometimes caused; not to be superstitious about the gods, nor to win people over by courting popularity, pleasing them, or catering to the crowd, but to stay clear-headed and firm in everything, never showing poor taste or chasing novelty; to use without conceit or excuses the comforts of life that fortune had provided generously, so that he enjoyed them simply when they were there and did not miss them when they were gone; and to be someone no one could describe as a sophist, a homegrown clever talker, or a pedant, but as a mature and complete man, immune to flattery and able to manage both his own affairs and those of others.

He also respected people who genuinely practiced philosophy. He did not criticize the others, but neither was he easily influenced by them. He was pleasant company and gracious, but never excessively so. He took reasonable care of his body, not because he clung to life, wanted to beautify himself, or was careless of it, but so attentively that he very rarely needed doctors, medicines, or treatments applied to the body. Most of all, he willingly gave way, without jealousy, to people with some special ability, such as skill in speaking or knowledge of laws, customs, or other subjects from history; and he worked with them to help each gain recognition for his own particular strengths. He did everything according to ancestral custom without trying to make a show even of preserving ancestral custom. He was not easily moved or constantly changing direction, but stayed with the same places and the same work. After severe headaches, he returned immediately to his usual duties fresh and vigorous. He had very few secrets, and only rarely, and those concerned public affairs alone. He showed good judgment and restraint in putting on public shows, constructing public works, making distributions, and similar matters, like a man focused on what actually needed to be done rather than on the praise he would receive for doing it.

He did not bathe at odd hours. He was not obsessed with building, with devising new dishes, with the weave and color of clothing, or with physical beauty. The clothes he wore at Lorium when he came up from the lower country house; much of his behavior at Lanuvium; the way he treated the tax collector at Tusculum when the man appealed to him—his conduct was consistently like this. There was nothing harsh, merciless, or aggressive in him, nothing that could make anyone say, “he worked himself into a sweat.” Instead, he considered and reasoned through each thing separately, as if he had all the time he needed, calmly, methodically, firmly, and consistently.

What is said about Socrates would apply to him: he could both go without and enjoy things that many people are too weak to do without and too ready to surrender themselves to enjoying. To be strong, endure, and remain clear-headed in either situation is the mark of a man whose soul is balanced and invincible, as Maximus was during his illness.

17. From the gods I received good grandfathers, good parents, a good sister, good teachers, good members of the household, relatives, and friends—almost everyone around me was good. I also never went so far as to do anything wrong to any of them, though I had the kind of disposition from which I might have done so if the opportunity had come. It was the gods’ kindness that no combination of circumstances arose that would have exposed me.

I was not brought up for too long in the home of my grandfather’s concubine. I preserved my youth, did not become sexually mature before the proper time, and even remained that way beyond the usual time.

I was put under the authority of a ruler and father who was going to remove all my vanity and make me understand that a person can live at court without needing bodyguards, special clothing, torches, statues, or any such display and pomp. It is possible to keep one’s way of life very close to that of a private citizen without becoming any less dignified or less energetic in carrying out, as a ruler, the duties required for the common good.

I had the good fortune to have a brother whose character could rouse me to take care of my own character, and who also made me happy by his respect and affection.

My children were not born unintelligent or physically deformed.

I did not advance further in rhetoric, poetry, and other pursuits in which I might perhaps have become absorbed if I had felt that I was making good progress.

I made sure, while there was still time, to give those who had raised me the rank I thought they wanted. I did not postpone it on the assumption that, because they were still young, I could do it later.

I came to know Apollonius, Rusticus, and Maximus.

I was given a clear and repeated picture of what a life according to Nature is like. So, as far as the gods and the gifts, help, and inspiration that come from them are concerned, nothing now prevents me from living according to Nature. If I still fall short, it is my own fault, because I fail to keep the gods’ reminders and what are almost their direct lessons continually in mind.

My body has endured for so long under this kind of life.

I had sexual relations with neither Benedicta nor Theodotus. Later, when I did fall into sexual passions, I recovered from them.

Although I was often angry with Rusticus, I never went on to do anything I would later have regretted.

Although my mother was destined to die young, she still spent the last years of her life with me.

Whenever I wanted to help someone who was poor or needed something else, I was never told that I did not have the money to do it. And I myself never fell into a similar need that required me to accept help from someone else.

My wife is as she is: so cooperative, so affectionate, and so straightforward.

I had plenty of suitable tutors for my children.

Help was given to me through dreams, including remedies to keep me from spitting blood and from suffering vertigo, as well as the message at Caieta: “As you shall use...”

When I wanted to study philosophy, I did not fall in with a sophist or settle down to writing treatises, analyzing syllogisms, or studying heavenly phenomena.

For all these things require “the help of the gods and fortune.”

### Book II

1. In the morning, tell yourself in advance: I will meet people who are meddlesome, ungrateful, abusive, deceitful, envious, and unwilling to cooperate. All this has happened to them because they do not know what is good and what is evil. But I have understood that good is morally beautiful and evil is shameful, and that the person who does wrong is related to me—not by the same blood or ancestry, but because we share reason and a portion of the divine. So none of them can harm me, because no one can involve me in anything shameful. Nor can I be angry with or hate someone related to me. We came into being to work together, like feet, hands, eyelids, and the upper and lower rows of teeth. Working against one another is therefore against nature; and being resentful or turning away from someone is working against them.

2. Whatever I am, I am a bit of flesh, a bit of breath, and the mind that governs me. Think little of the flesh: it is blood and small bones, a woven network of sinews, veins, and arteries. Look also at what the breath is: air, never remaining the same, but breathed out and drawn in again every moment. What remains, then, is the governing mind. Let go of books. Stop being pulled in different directions; you have not been given time for that. Instead, think of yourself as already dying: you are old. Do not let your mind remain a slave. Do not let it be jerked around like a puppet by selfish impulses. Do not be dissatisfied with what fate brings now or view the future with fear.

3. What comes from the gods is full of providence. What comes from chance is not separate from nature, or from the interweaving and entanglement of everything governed by providence. Everything flows from that source, together with necessity and what benefits the whole universe, of which you are a part. What the nature of the whole produces is good for every part of nature, and so is whatever preserves the whole. The universe is preserved through changes both in the elements and in the things made from them. Let this be enough for you, and keep it always as your basic conviction. Give up your thirst for books, so that you may die without complaining, truly at peace and sincerely grateful to the gods.

4. Remember how long you have been putting this off, and how many times the gods have given you more time and you have failed to use it. You must now understand what universe you belong to, from what power governing the universe you have flowed, and that your time has a fixed limit. If you do not use it to bring yourself into the light, it will be gone, and so will you, and you will have no further opportunity.

5. At every moment, make a firm effort—as a Roman and a man—to do the work in front of you with exact... and natural dignity, affection, freedom, and justice, and to free yourself from all other impressions. You will do this if you carry out each action as if it were the last action of your life, without aimlessness, without an emotional resistance to the reason that guides your choices, without hypocrisy or selfishness, and without dissatisfaction with what fate has assigned you. You can see how few rules a person needs to master in order to live an untroubled life that respects the gods. The gods will ask nothing more from someone who observes them.

6. You are mistreating yourself, my soul, mistreating yourself, and soon you will have no time left to respect yourself. Everyone’s life lasts only a moment, and yours is nearly over, yet you do not respect yourself: you make your well-being depend on what other people think.

7. Are outside events distracting you? Give yourself time to learn something more that is good, and stop wandering. But you must also guard against another kind of wandering. People who are tired of life and have no goal toward which they direct every impulse and every impression without exception talk nonsense even through their actions.

8. People rarely become miserable because they do not know what is happening in someone else’s mind. But those who do not pay attention to the movements of their own mind are bound to be miserable.

9. Always keep these points in mind: what the nature of the whole universe is; what your own nature is; how your nature is related to the whole; what kind of part you are and what kind of whole you belong to; and that no one can prevent you from always acting and speaking in accordance with the nature of which you are a part.

10. When Theophrastus compares kinds of wrongdoing in philosophical terms, as someone might compare such things in the usual way, he says that wrongs committed from desire are more serious than those committed from anger. An angry person seems to turn away from reason because of pain and an involuntary inner tightening. But someone who does wrong from desire, overcome by pleasure, seems less self-controlled and more effeminate in wrongdoing. So Theophrastus was right, and spoke as a philosopher should, when he said that wrongdoing accompanied by pleasure deserves more blame than wrongdoing accompanied by pain. In general, the angry person is more like someone who was wronged first and was driven by pain to become angry. The other person begins the move toward wrongdoing himself, carried by desire to do something.

11. Do, say, and think everything as if you might leave this life right now. If there are gods, there is nothing frightening about leaving human beings, because the gods would not involve you in evil. But if there are no gods, or if they do not care about human affairs, why should I live in a universe without gods or providence? Yet the gods do exist and do care about human affairs. They have put it entirely within a person’s own power to avoid falling into things that are truly evil. If any of the other things were evil, they would also have arranged for everyone to have the power to avoid them. (How could something that does not make a person worse make that person’s life worse?) The nature of the whole would not have overlooked these matters from ignorance. Nor would it have known about them but been unable to prevent or correct them. Nor would it have made so great a mistake through lack of power or skill that good and evil happen indiscriminately to good and bad people alike. But death and life, fame and lack of fame, pain and pleasure, wealth and poverty all happen equally to good and bad people, and they are neither morally beautiful nor shameful. Therefore they are neither good nor evil.

12. How quickly everything disappears: the bodies themselves into the universe, and the memories of them into eternity. Think what all perceptible things are like, especially those that lure us with pleasure, frighten us with pain, or are loudly praised out of vanity—how worthless, contemptible, dirty, perishable, and dead they are. Consider also who these people are whose opinions and voices give someone a good or bad reputation. Consider what death is. If a person looks at death by itself and analyzes the idea of it, breaking down the images attached to it, he will no longer think it is anything except a natural process. Anyone who fears a natural process is a child. Yet death is not only a natural process; it also benefits nature. Consider how a human being makes contact with god, by what part of himself, and what condition that human part must be in when he does.

13. Nothing is more miserable than someone who investigates everything around him, “searching,” as the saying goes, “what lies beneath the earth,” and trying to guess what is in other people’s minds, without realizing that it is enough to stay close to the divine spirit within himself and care for it sincerely. Caring for it means keeping it free from emotion, pointless activity, and resentment at what gods and human beings bring about. What comes from the gods should be respected because it is good; what comes from people should be met with affection because we are related. Sometimes it should also be pitied, in a way, because people do not know what is good and what is bad. That disability is no less serious than being unable to tell white from black.

14. Even if you were going to live for three thousand years, or ten thousand times that long, remember that no one loses any life other than the life he is living, and no one lives any life other than the life he loses. So the longest life and the shortest amount to the same thing. The present is equal for everyone, so what passes away is equal, and what is lost turns out to last only an instant. No one can lose the past or the future. How could anyone take from you what you do not have?

So always remember two things. First, everything has been the same in kind from all eternity and keeps coming around again in cycles. It makes no difference whether you see the same things over a hundred years, two hundred years, or endless time. Second, the person who lives longest and the person who dies soonest lose the same amount. The present is the only thing a person can be deprived of, since it is the only thing he has, and no one loses what he does not have.

15. Everything is a judgment. The criticisms made against Monimus the Cynic are obvious. The usefulness of the statement is also obvious, as long as you accept its appealing part only to the extent that it is true.

16. The human soul does greatest violence to itself when it becomes, as far as it can, an abscess or a kind of tumor in the universe. Resenting anything that happens is a rebellion against Nature, which contains within itself the individual natures of all other things.

It also harms itself when it turns away from another person or acts against him in order to hurt him, as angry people do.

Third, it harms itself when pleasure or pain defeats it.

Fourth, when it pretends and does or says something falsely and insincerely.

Fifth, when it directs an action or impulse toward no goal, but acts at random and without thinking about what it is doing. Even the smallest actions should be carried out with their final purpose in view. The purpose of rational beings is to follow the reason and law of the oldest city and political community.

17. The time of a human life is a moment; its substance is always flowing; perception is faint; the whole body is made of material that soon decays; the soul wanders; fortune is hard to predict; reputation is undiscerning. In short, everything bodily is a river, and everything in the soul is dream and conceit. Life is a war and a foreigner’s temporary stay; later fame is forgetfulness.

What, then, can guide us through? One thing only: philosophy. This means keeping the divine spirit within us free from violation and harm, stronger than pleasures and pains; doing nothing at random, falsely, or hypocritically; not depending on another person to do or not do something; and accepting whatever happens and is assigned to us as coming from the same source from which that spirit itself came. Above all, it means waiting for death with a peaceful mind, since death is nothing more than the separation of the elements from which every living thing is composed. If the elements themselves suffer nothing terrible by constantly changing into one another, why should anyone distrust the change and dissolution of them all? It is in accordance with nature, and nothing in accordance with nature is bad.

### Book III

1. Do not consider only that life is used up day by day and that less and less of it remains. Consider also that, even if a person lives longer, it is uncertain whether the mind will continue to be equally capable of understanding events and of the reflection that gives us knowledge of divine and human matters. If the mind begins to fail, the person will still be able to breathe, eat, receive impressions, have impulses, and do other things like these. But the ability to direct oneself, work out exactly what duty requires, analyze what appears to us, consider whether it is already time to take oneself out of life, and do all the other things that require a thoroughly trained power of reasoning will die out first. So we must act without delay, not only because we are continually getting closer to death, but also because our understanding of events and our ability to keep track of them may end sooner.

2. We should also notice that even the side effects of natural processes can have something pleasing and attractive about them. For example, when bread is baked, some parts crack open. These cracks are in a sense contrary to what baking is meant to produce, yet they look good in their own way and especially stimulate our appetite. Figs split open when they are fully ripe. In olives that ripen on the tree, being close to decay gives the fruit a special beauty. The drooping heads of grain, a lion’s furrowed brow, foam running from boars’ mouths, and many other things are not beautiful when considered separately. Yet because they result from natural processes, they add beauty to those processes and give pleasure. So if a person has sensitivity and a deeper understanding of what happens in the universe, almost nothing that occurs as a consequence of something else will seem to lack a pleasing arrangement. That person will enjoy seeing the actual open jaws of wild animals no less than the imitations shown by painters and sculptors. With clear and self-controlled eyes, he will be able to see a certain vigor and mature beauty in an old woman or an old man.. and the loveliness of children. Many things like these, which do not appeal to everyone, will occur only to someone who has a genuine affinity with nature and its works.

3. Hippocrates cured many diseases, then became ill himself and died. The Chaldaeans predicted the deaths of many people, and then fate caught up with them too. Alexander, Pompey, and Gaius Caesar completely destroyed whole cities many times and slaughtered many tens of thousands of cavalry and infantry in battle; eventually they too left this life. Heraclitus wrote at length about the natural causes of the world’s destruction by fire, but died with his body full of water and covered in cow dung. Lice killed Democritus, and other lice killed Socrates. So what? You boarded the ship, you sailed, you reached port. Now get off. If you are entering another life, not even there will any place be empty of gods. If you are entering unconsciousness, you will stop having to bear pain and pleasure and to serve a container far inferior to the thing that serves it. The servant is mind and divine spirit; the container is earth and filth.

4. Do not use up the rest of your life thinking about other people unless your thoughts contribute to the common good. You keep yourself from doing other work.. when you imagine what a certain person is doing and why, what he is saying, thinking, or planning, and similar things that distract you from watching your own ruling mind.

You must remove from the sequence of your thoughts everything pointless and useless, and especially everything nosy or spiteful. Train yourself to think only thoughts that would let you answer openly and at once if someone suddenly asked, “What are you thinking about now?” You should be able to say, “This” or “That,” and your answer should immediately show that all your thoughts are straightforward and kind, the thoughts of a social being who is not concerned with ideas of pleasure or self-indulgence of any kind, or with rivalry, envy, suspicion, or anything else you would be ashamed to admit was on your mind.

A person like this, who no longer puts off joining the best, is a kind of priest and assistant of the gods. He also uses the power settled within him, which keeps a person unpolluted by pleasures, unharmed by any pain, untouched by any insult, and unresponsive to every kind of evil. He is a competitor in the greatest contest: not to be defeated by any passion. He is deeply saturated with justice, accepts with all his heart everything that happens and is assigned to him, and rarely thinks about what another person says, does, or thinks—and never does so without a serious need connected with the common good.

He treats only his own affairs as material for action, and he constantly considers what the universe weaves into his fate. He makes his own actions honorable, and he is convinced that what happens to him is good, because the lot assigned to each person is carried along with him and carries him along. He also remembers that every rational being is related to him and that caring for all people is part of human nature. But he should value the approval not of everyone, only of those who clearly live in agreement with nature. As for people who do not live that way, he continually remembers what they are like at home and away from home, at night and during the day, and what kind of company they keep. He therefore places no value on praise from people like that, since they are not even pleased with themselves.

5. Do nothing unwillingly, without concern for the community, without examining it, or while divided against yourself. Do not decorate your thoughts with clever affectation. Do not talk too much or involve yourself in too many things.

Let the god within you guide a mature and manly human being, a citizen, a Roman, and a leader—someone at his post, waiting for the signal recalling him from life and ready to leave, needing neither an oath nor another person as witness. Keep a cheerful spirit, needing no help from outside and no peace supplied by others. You must stand straight on your own, not be kept straight by someone else.

6. If you find anything in human life better than justice, truth, self-control, courage, and, in short, than having your mind satisfied with itself when it enables you to act according to right reason and satisfied with fate in what is assigned to you without your choice—if, I repeat, you see anything better than this, turn to it with your whole soul and enjoy the best thing you have found.

But if nothing seems better than the inner spirit set within you, which has put its own impulses under its control, tests its impressions, has detached itself—as Socrates said—from the senses’ attempts to persuade it, submits itself to the gods, and cares for human beings; if you find everything else smaller and less valuable than this, then give nothing else any room. Once you lean and turn toward something else, you will no longer be able to give undistracted priority to that good which belongs properly and personally to you. For it is wrong to place anything of a different kind in competition with the good of a rational, social being—such as popular praise, positions of power, wealth, or pleasurable enjoyment. All these things, even if they seem compatible with that good for a short time, suddenly take control and carry you away.

So choose the better thing plainly and freely, and stick to it. “But the better thing is what is beneficial.” If it benefits you as a rational being, keep to it. If it benefits you merely as an animal, say so, and maintain your judgment without vanity. Just make sure that you conduct the examination reliably.

7. Never treat as being to your advantage anything that will eventually force you to betray a trust, give up your sense of decency, hate anyone, be suspicious, curse, pretend, or want something that has to be hidden behind walls and curtains. A person who puts his own mind, his inner spirit, and the sacred practice of its virtue first does not turn life into a tragedy, does not complain, and will need neither isolation nor a crowd. Above all, he will live without chasing things or running from them. He does not care at all whether his soul remains contained in his body for a longer or shorter time. Even if he has to leave right now, he will depart as easily as he would do anything else that can be done decently and properly. During his whole life, he is careful of this one thing only: that his mind should not enter a state unfit for a rational and social creature.

8. In the mind of someone trained and purified, you would find nothing infected, bruised, or festering beneath the surface. Fate does not catch his life incomplete, as might be said of a tragic actor who leaves before finishing his part and performing the whole play. Nor is there anything in him that is slavish, artificial, attached, cut off, accountable to another, or hiding away.

9. Respect your ability to form judgments. Everything depends on preventing any judgment from arising in your governing mind that conflicts with nature and with the way a rational creature is made. This ability offers freedom from hasty conclusions, a sense of kinship with other people, and obedience to the gods.

10. So throw everything else away and keep hold of only these few things. Also remember that each person lives only the present moment, which is instantaneous. Everything else has either already been lived or is uncertain. The time each person lives is short; the little corner of the earth where he lives is small; and even the longest fame after death is small. That fame is handed down through a succession of insignificant people who will die very soon and who do not even know themselves, still less someone who died long ago.

11. Add one more rule to those already given: always define or describe whatever appears to you, so that you can see what it is in its actual substance—stripped bare, viewed as a whole, and analyzed into all its parts. Tell yourself its own proper name and the names of the things from which it was put together and into which it will break down.

Nothing produces a noble mind as effectively as being able to examine each thing that occurs in life methodically and truthfully, and always to look at it in a way that lets you understand at the same time what sort of universe it belongs to, what use it serves there, what value it has in relation to the whole, and what value it has for a human being, who is a citizen of the highest city, while all other cities are like its households. Ask: What is this thing that is now making an impression on me? What is it made of? How long is it naturally able to last? What virtue do I need in dealing with it—gentleness, courage, honesty, faithfulness, simplicity, self-reliance, or some other virtue?

So in every case you must say: “This comes from a god. This other thing results from the combination of events, the threads woven together with them, and this particular meeting and chance. And this comes from a member of my own people, family, and community, although he does not know what is in accordance with his own nature. But I do know. That is why I treat him kindly and justly, following the natural law of community, while also aiming, in matters that are neither good nor bad, to give each thing its appropriate value.”

12. If you do what is in front of you in accordance with right reason, seriously, energetically, and kindly; if you let no secondary concern interfere, but keep your inner spirit pure and upright as if you might have to give it back at once; if you hold to this without expecting anything or running from anything, and are satisfied with your present natural action and with complete, courageous truth in everything you say, you will live well. No one can stop you.

13. Just as doctors always keep their tools and surgical knives at hand for unexpected treatments, keep your principles ready so that you can understand divine and human matters and do everything, even the smallest thing, while remembering the connection between them. You cannot do anything human well without relating it to what is divine, or anything divine without relating it to what is human.

Stop wandering. You are not going to read your notebooks, the histories of the ancient Romans and Greeks, or the selections from books that you were saving for your old age. So hurry toward the goal, give up empty hopes, and help yourself—if you care about yourself at all—while you still can.

14. Stop wandering. You are not going to read your notebooks, the histories of the ancient Romans and Greeks, or the selections from books that you were saving for your old age. So hurry toward the goal, give up empty hopes, and help yourself—if you care about yourself at all—while you still can.

15. People do not know how many meanings there are in “stealing,” “sowing,” “buying,” “being still,” and “seeing what needs to be done”—which is seen not with the eyes, but with a different kind of vision.

16. Body, soul, mind. The body has sensations, the soul has impulses, and the mind has judgments. Even grazing animals receive impressions. Even wild beasts, androgynes, Phalaris, and Nero are pulled around by their impulses like puppets. Even people who do not believe in gods, people who desert their country, and people who do ‹anything at all› after closing their doors can use the mind to guide them toward what seems to be their duty.

So if everything else is shared with the kinds of beings just mentioned, what belongs especially to a good person is this: to love and accept what happens and what fate has woven together with him; not to corrupt the divine spirit seated within his chest or disturb it with a crowd of impressions, but to keep it calm, following God with proper conduct, saying nothing untrue and doing nothing unjust. Even if everyone doubts that he lives sincerely, modestly, and cheerfully, he does not become angry with any of them or turn away from the road leading to the end of life. He must reach that end pure, calm, ready to be set free, and brought into harmony with his own fate without compulsion.

### Book IV

1. When the ruling part within us is in its natural condition, it responds to events by readily adapting to what is possible and available. It does not require any particular material. It pursues preferred things with a reservation, and turns whatever obstructs it into material for its own use. It is like a fire strong enough to master what is thrown onto it, though the same things would put out a small lamp. A bright fire quickly takes in what is piled on it, consumes it, and grows higher because of it.

2. Do nothing aimlessly or except according to a principle that completes the art.

3. People look for retreats in the countryside, by the sea, and in the mountains, and you too tend to want such places very much. But this is extremely naive, because you can withdraw into yourself whenever you choose. Nowhere can a person find a quieter or less troubled retreat than in his own soul, especially if he has within himself thoughts that he can examine and immediately become completely at ease. By ease I mean nothing but inner order. So keep giving yourself this retreat and renew yourself. The thoughts you meet there should be brief and basic, enough to wash away all distress at once and send you back without irritation toward what you must return to.

What are you irritated by? Other people's badness? Think again about the conclusion that rational beings were made for one another, that tolerance is part of justice, and that people do wrong unwillingly. Remember how many people who were enemies, suspicious of one another, full of hatred, and stabbing one another with spears are now dead and reduced to ashes. Stop at last.

Or are you irritated by what the universe assigns you? Recall the alternatives: either providence or atoms. Recall also all the arguments showing that the universe is like a city.

Or will bodily conditions still affect you? Remember that once the mind separates itself and recognizes its own authority, it does not mix with the vital breath whether that breath is moving smoothly or roughly. Remember too everything you have heard and accepted about pain and pleasure.

Or will your little bit of fame distract you? Look at how quickly everything is forgotten, at the endless gulf of time before and after us, at the emptiness of echoed praise, at the changeability and poor judgment of those who appear to praise us, and at how small the place is in which fame is confined. The whole earth is a point, and this inhabited region is only a tiny corner of it. Even here, how many people will praise you, and what sort of people are they?

So remember to withdraw into this small field of your own. Above all, do not pull yourself apart or strain yourself. Be free, and look at things as a man, as a human being, as a citizen, and as a mortal creature. Keep these two thoughts especially ready for examination: first, external things do not touch the soul but remain outside it, unmoving, while disturbances come only from the judgment within; second, everything you see will very soon change and cease to exist. Constantly remember how many changes you have already seen yourself.

The universe is change; life is judgment.

4. If intelligence is shared by us all, then reason, which makes us rational, is also shared. If that is so, then the reason that tells us what to do and what not to do is shared. If so, law is shared too. If so, we are citizens. If so, we belong to some common political community. If so, the universe is like a city. What other shared political community could anyone say the whole human race belongs to? It is from there, from this common city, that our intelligence, reason, and sense of law come—or where else could they come from? The earthy part of me was apportioned from earth, the watery part from another element, the breath in me from some source, and my heat and fire from their own particular source. Nothing comes from nothing, just as nothing passes into nonexistence. In the same way, intelligence too comes from somewhere.

5. Death is like birth, one of nature's mysteries: in birth the same elements are combined, and in death they are dissolved into the same elements. There is nothing shameful about it. It does not violate the proper course of an intelligent creature or the reason for which it was constituted.

6. People of this kind necessarily do things of this kind. Anyone who does not want that is asking a fig tree to have no sap. In any case, remember that very soon both you and this person will be dead, and soon after that not even your names will remain.

7. Remove the judgment, and the thought “I have been harmed” disappears. Remove the thought “I have been harmed,” and the harm disappears.

8. Anything that does not make a person morally worse does not make his life worse and does not harm him externally or internally. The nature of what is beneficial required this to happen.

9. “Everything that happens happens justly.” If you observe carefully, you will find this is true. I do not mean only that each event follows in order, but that it happens according to justice, as if someone were assigning each person what he deserves. So continue the careful observation you have begun. Whatever you do, do it while being good, in the specific sense in which a good person is truly understood. Maintain this in every action.

10. Do not think about things as the person insulting you judges them or wants you to judge them. See them as they really are.

11. You must always be ready in two ways: first, to do only what kingly and lawgiving reason recommends for people's benefit; second, to change your view if someone present corrects you and turns you away from a belief. But you should always change your mind because a reason convinces you that something is just or benefits everyone. Only things like these should be preferred, not something merely because it seemed pleasant or prestigious.

12. “Do you have reason?”
“Yes.”
“Then why not use it? If reason is doing its proper work, what more do you want?”

13. You came into existence as a part. You will disappear back into what produced you—or rather, through change you will be taken back into its generative reason.

14. Many pieces of incense lie on the same altar. One falls into the fire earlier and another later. There is no difference.

15. Within ten days, the same people who now think you are a wild animal and an ape will think you are a god, if you return to your principles and your respect for reason.

16. Do not act as if you were going to live for ten thousand years. Death hangs over you. While you are alive, while you still can, become good.

17. A person gains so much free time by not looking at what someone else has said, done, or thought, and looking only at what he himself is doing, so that his own action is just and right, or what a good person would do. He should not look around for bad character in others, but run straight along his course without straying.

18. Someone obsessed with being famous after death fails to realize that every person who remembers him will soon die too, and then the next person after that, until the whole memory fades as it passes through people who come to life and die. But suppose the people who remember you are immortal, and the memory is immortal too. What does that matter to you? I will not even ask what it matters to the dead person. What does praise matter to the living, except perhaps for some practical purpose? You are now, at the wrong time, neglecting the natural gift that depends on no other consideration. In short...

19. Anything beautiful, in whatever way, is beautiful in itself and complete in itself; praise is not part of it. So something does not become better or worse by being praised. This is true even of things commonly called beautiful, such as physical objects and things made by skilled work. What, then, does what is truly beautiful need? Nothing—just as law, truth, goodwill, and modesty need nothing. Which of these is beautiful because people praise it, or ruined because they criticize it? Does an emerald become worse than it was if no one praises it? What about gold, ivory, purple cloth, a lyre, a small knife, a little flower, or a young tree?

20. If souls continue to exist, how can the air have had room for them from all eternity? And how does the earth have room for the bodies of all those buried over so long a time? Bodies remain in the earth for a while, then change and dissolve, making room for other dead bodies. In the same way, souls that move into the air remain together for a while, then change, disperse, and catch fire as they are taken back into the generative reason of the universe. In this way they make room for souls that arrive later. That would be one answer if we assume that souls continue to exist.

We should think not only about the great number of bodies buried in this way, but also about all the animals eaten every day by us and by other animals. An enormous number are consumed and, in a sense, buried in the bodies of the creatures they feed. Yet there is room for them because they are turned into blood and changed into air-like or fire-like substance.

How do we investigate the truth of this? By separating the material element from the causal element.

21. Do not wander off course. With every intention, do what is just; with every impression, keep your judgment able to grasp the truth.

22. Everything that suits you suits me, universe. Nothing is too early or too late for me if it comes at the right time for you. Everything your seasons produce is fruit for me, nature. Everything comes from you, everything exists in you, and everything returns to you. One man says,

“Dear city of Cecrops”;

will you not say,

“Dear city of Zeus”?

23. “Do few things,” he says, “if you want peace of mind.” But perhaps it is better to do what is necessary: whatever the reason of a naturally social being chooses, and in the way it chooses to do it. This brings the peace of mind that comes both from acting well and from doing few things. Most of what we say and do is unnecessary. If a person cuts it out, he will have more free time and be less troubled. So in each situation we should remind ourselves: “Is this perhaps unnecessary?” We should remove not only unnecessary actions but also unnecessary impressions, since pointless actions will then no longer follow them.

24. Try living the life of a good person: someone who is content with what the universe assigns him, and satisfied that his own actions are just and his attitude is kind.

25. You have considered those things; now consider these. Do not upset yourself. Be straightforward. Has someone done wrong? He harms himself. Has something happened to you? Good. From the beginning, everything that happens to you was allotted and woven into your fate by the universe. In short, life is brief. Make good use of the present with clear thinking and justice. Stay alert, but relaxed.

26. Either there is an ordered universe, or there is a confused mixture that still forms a universe. Can there be order in you but disorder in the whole, especially when everything is distinct, spread through everything else, and mutually connected?

27. A corrupt character, a weak character, a twisted character; savage, animal-like, childish, stupid, false, vulgar, dishonest, domineering.

28. A person who does not know what exists in the universe is a stranger to it, and so is a person who does not know what happens in it. The person who runs away from the reason that binds society is a fugitive. The person who closes his mind’s eye is blind. The person who depends on someone else and does not have within himself everything needed for life is poor. The person who resents what happens and separates himself from the reason of our common nature is an infected growth on the universe, because the same nature that produces each event also produced him. The person who cuts his own soul off from the single shared soul of rational beings is a fragment broken from the community.

29. One person practices philosophy without a shirt, another without a book. Here is someone else, half naked, who says, “I have no bread, but I remain faithful to reason.” I have the nourishment supplied by my studies, yet I do not remain faithful to reason.

30. Love the craft you have learned and find rest in it. Live the rest of your life as someone who has wholeheartedly entrusted everything of his own to the gods, while making himself neither master nor slave of any other person.

31. Imagine, for example, the time of Vespasian. You will see all the same things: people getting married, bringing up children, getting sick, dying, fighting wars, celebrating festivals, doing business, farming, flattering others, acting arrogantly, distrusting people, making plots, wishing for certain people to die, complaining about present conditions, falling in love, storing up wealth, and wanting consulships and imperial power. That whole way of life now exists nowhere. Move on to the time of Trajan: once again, all the same things. That life too has died. Survey in the same way the records of other periods and entire nations, and see how many people pushed themselves hard, then soon fell and dissolved into the elements. Remember especially those you personally knew who wore themselves out over empty things, neglecting the work suited to their own nature instead of holding firmly to it and being content with it. But remember also that the attention you give each action should have its own proper value and proportion. Then you will not become discouraged, as long as you do not spend more time than you should on minor matters.

32. Words that used to be common are now obscure terms. In the same way, the names of people who were once widely celebrated have now become, in a sense, obscure terms: Camillus, Caeso, Volesus, Dentatus; soon afterward Scipio and Cato too; then Augustus; and then Hadrian and Antoninus. Everything fades, quickly turns into legend, and is soon buried in complete forgetfulness. I am speaking here even of people who shone with extraordinary fame. Everyone else, as soon as they breathed their last, was “unseen, unheard of.” And what does being remembered forever really amount to? Complete emptiness. So what deserves our serious effort? Only this: a just mind, actions that serve the community, words that never deceive, and a disposition that welcomes everything that happens as necessary, familiar, and flowing from an origin and source of the same nature.

33. Willingly hand yourself over to Clotho, and let her weave you together with whatever circumstances she wishes.

34. Everything lasts only a day: both the person who remembers and the thing remembered.

35. Keep looking at how everything comes into being through change, and get used to understanding that the nature of the universe loves nothing more than changing existing things and making new ones like them. Everything that exists is, in a way, a seed of what will come from it. But you think only what is planted in the ground or placed in a womb is a seed. That is a very narrow view.

36. You will soon be dead, and you are still not straightforward or calm. You are still not free from the belief that outside things can harm you, not kind toward everyone, and not convinced that wisdom consists only in acting justly.

37. Look closely into their minds, including the minds of intelligent people, and see what they avoid and what they seek.

38. Your evil cannot exist in someone else’s mind, or in any change or alteration in the world around you. Where can it exist, then? In the part of you that judges things to be evil. So let that part make no such judgment, and everything is fine. Even if what is closest to it—this small body—is cut, burned, filled with pus, or left to rot, the part that judges these things should remain calm. It should decide that anything that can happen equally to a bad person and a good person is neither bad nor good. Whatever happens equally to someone who lives against nature and someone who lives according to nature is itself neither according to nature nor against it.

39. Keep thinking of the universe as one living being, with one substance and one soul. Think how everything is taken into its single awareness, how it does everything through one impulse, how everything that happens helps cause everything else that happens, and how closely all things are woven and twisted together.

40. You are a small soul carrying a dead body, as Epictetus said.

41. There is nothing bad for things undergoing change, just as there is nothing good for things that come into existence through change.

42. Time is a river of events, a powerful current. The moment each thing appears, it is carried away; another is carried past, and the next will be carried along.

43. Everything that happens is as normal and familiar as roses in spring and fruit in summer. The same is true of illness, death, abuse, plots, and everything else that makes foolish people happy or sad.

44. What comes next always follows appropriately from what came before. Events are not just a numbered list of separate items linked only by necessity; they form a reasonable connection. Just as existing things are arranged in harmony, events show not merely a sequence but an extraordinary relationship with one another.

45. Always remember what Heraclitus said: earth dies by becoming water, water dies by becoming air, and air dies by becoming fire—and the process also goes the other way. Remember the person who forgets where the road leads. Remember that people disagree with what they are in contact with most constantly: the reason that governs the universe. What they encounter every day seems foreign to them. We should not act and speak as if asleep, since even in sleep we seem to act and speak. And we should not behave simply as children of our parents—that is, do things blindly just because that is how we received them.

46. If a god told you that you would die tomorrow, or certainly by the day after tomorrow, you would not care much whether it was the day after tomorrow rather than tomorrow, unless you were extremely cowardly. How much difference is there between them? In the same way, do not think it makes any great difference whether you die many years from now or tomorrow.

47. Keep thinking how many doctors have died after often furrowing their brows over their patients; how many astrologers have died after making a great display of predicting other people’s deaths; how many philosophers have died after arguing endlessly about death or immortality; how many warriors after killing many people; how many tyrants after using their power over human lives with terrible arrogance, as if they were immortal; and how many entire cities have, so to speak, died—Helice, Pompeii, Herculaneum, and countless others. Then go through all the people you know, one after another. One person buried someone else and was then laid out for burial himself; another buried him. It all happened in a short time. The point is always to see human affairs as short-lived and of little value: yesterday a little drop of mucus, tomorrow preserved flesh or ashes. So pass through this brief moment of time in accordance with nature, and finish life contentedly, like a ripe olive falling from its tree, praising the earth that bore it and thanking the tree that made it grow.

48. Be like a rocky headland that the waves keep crashing against. It remains standing, and the raging water settles down around it.

“I am unlucky because this happened to me.” No. Say instead: “I am lucky because, although this happened to me, I continue without distress, neither broken by what is happening now nor afraid of what may come.” Something like this could happen to anyone, but not everyone could go through it without distress. So why call the event bad luck rather than your response good luck? Can you call something a human misfortune when it is not a failure of human nature? And do you think something is a failure of human nature if it does not oppose what human nature intends? You have learned what it intends. So does this event stop you from being just, generous in spirit, self-controlled, sensible, steady, truthful, honorable, free, or from having any of the other qualities that together give human nature what properly belongs to it?

From now on, whenever something is leading you toward distress, remember to use this principle: the event is not bad luck; bearing it nobly is good luck.

49. One ordinary but effective way to help yourself stop fearing death is to remember people who stubbornly held on to life. What advantage do they have now over those who died young? By this time they are all lying somewhere—Caedicianus, Fabius, Julianus, Lepidus, or anyone else like them. They buried many people and were later buried themselves. The whole span is short—and think of all that must be endured during it, the people one must endure it with, and the frail little body one must endure it in. So do not treat it as a matter... Look back at the endless stretch of time and forward at another infinity. In all that time, what is the difference between someone who lives three days and someone who lives to three times old age?

50. Always take the direct route. The direct route is the one that follows nature: say and do everything in the soundest way. This aim frees you from hard labor, struggle, all kinds of maneuvering, and showing off.

### Book V

1. At dawn, when you have trouble making yourself get up, keep this thought ready: I am getting up to do a human being’s work. So why am I still annoyed if I am going to do the things I was born and brought into the world to do? Or was I made to lie in bed under warm blankets?

“But that is more pleasant.”

Then were you born just to feel pleasure—to receive sensations rather than to act? Don’t you see the plants, birds, ants, spiders, and bees doing their own work, each helping in its own way to put the world in order? Yet you don’t want to do the work of a human being. You don’t hurry to do what your nature calls for.

“But I also need to rest.”

Yes, you do; I say that too. But nature has set limits for rest, just as it has for eating and drinking. Yet in those things you go past the limits and beyond what is enough. In your actions, however, you do not: there you stay below what you are capable of. You do not really love yourself, because if you did, you would love your nature and what it wants. Other people love their trades so much that they wear themselves out at their work without washing or eating. Do you respect your own nature less than an engraver respects engraving, a dancer dancing, a greedy person money, or a vain person a little fame? When these people are absorbed in what they care about, they would rather go without food and sleep than stop advancing it. But do actions that serve other people seem less valuable to you and less worthy of effort?

2. It is so easy to push away and wipe out any disturbing or unsuitable impression, and immediately be completely calm.

3. Consider yourself fit for every word and action that agrees with nature, and do not let other people’s later criticism or comments turn you aside. If it is right to do or say something, do not think yourself unworthy of it. They have minds of their own and act on their own impulses. Do not keep looking to them. Go straight ahead, following both your own nature and the nature we all share, since both follow the same road.

4. I go on through the things that agree with nature until I fall and rest. I will breathe my last into the air from which I breathe every day, and I will fall onto the earth from which my father got the seed, my mother the blood, and my nurse the milk; the earth that has fed and watered me every day for so many years, and that supports me as I walk on it and use its resources in so many ways.

5. People cannot admire you for being intellectually sharp. Fine. But you have many other qualities for which you cannot say, “I was not born with them.” So show the qualities that are entirely under your control: honesty, dignity, the ability to bear hard work, lack of attachment to pleasure, no complaints about your fate, few needs, kindness, freedom, simplicity, no pointless talk, and greatness of character. Don’t you realize how many qualities you can already show, with no excuse that you lack the talent or ability, and yet you still choose to fall short? Does the way you were born force you to complain, be stingy, flatter people, blame your weak little body, try to please others, boast, and let your mind be thrown around in so many ways? No, by the gods. You could have freed yourself from all that long ago. At worst, you might be criticized for being rather slow and not quick to understand. But you must train this too, without dismissing your slowness or enjoying it.

6. One person, after doing someone a good turn, is quick to count the favor as something that person owes him. Another does not do that openly, but still thinks of the person as a debtor and remains aware of what he has done. A third person, in a sense, does not even know what he has done. He is like a grapevine that produces a bunch of grapes and asks for nothing more after bearing its own fruit. A horse runs, a dog follows a scent, a bee makes honey, and a human being does good without keeping track of it, then moves on to do something else, just as a vine bears another bunch of grapes when the season comes.

So we should be among those who do good, in a sense, without monitoring themselves as they do it.

“Yes, but we need to be aware of this very fact. It is a social being’s special trait,” someone says, “to know that he is acting for others and, by Zeus, to want the other person to know it too.”

“What you say is true, but you are misunderstanding the present point. That will make you one of the people I mentioned earlier, because they too are misled by an argument that sounds reasonable. But if you are willing to understand what is being said, don’t be afraid that it will make you neglect any action that helps others.”

7. An Athenian prayer:

“Send rain, send rain, dear Zeus,
on the Athenians’ farmland
and plains.”

Either we should not pray at all, or we should pray this simply and openly.

8. Saying, “Asclepius prescribed horseback riding, cold baths, or going barefoot for this person,” means the same sort of thing as saying, “The nature of the universe prescribed illness, injury, loss, or something similar for this person.” In the first case, “prescribed” means that the treatment was assigned to the person because it suited his health. In the second, whatever happens to each person has somehow been assigned because it suits his destined course. We say that events “happen to” us in the same way builders say that squared stones in walls or pyramids “fit together”: in that particular arrangement, they join one another properly.

There is one harmony in everything. Just as the universe is one body made complete from all bodies, destiny is one cause made complete from all causes. Even completely uneducated people understand this when they say, “That was what came to him.” So it came to him and was prescribed for him. We should therefore accept these events as we accept the treatments Asclepius prescribes. Many of those treatments are unpleasant, but we welcome them because we hope to become healthy.

Think of the completion and fulfillment of what universal nature intends as you think of your own health. Accept everything that happens in this way, even if it seems very harsh, because it leads to the health of the universe and to the successful progress and work of Zeus. He would not have brought something upon a person unless it benefited the whole. No nature produces anything that is unsuited to what it directs.

You should therefore willingly accept what happens to you for two reasons. First, it happened to you, was assigned to you, and was connected with you in some way, woven into your life from the oldest causes above. Second, even what comes to an individual helps the ruler of the whole achieve his successful course and completion and, by Zeus, his continued existence. The whole is damaged if you cut even the smallest thing out of the connection and continuity of its parts, and the same is true of its causes. As far as you are able, you make such a cut whenever you resent what happens; in a sense, you destroy it.

9. Do not become sick of it, give up, or get discouraged if you do not manage to act consistently from sound judgments in every situation. When you are pushed off course, come back again. Be glad if most of your conduct is becoming more worthy of a human being, and value what you are returning to. Do not return to philosophy as though you were going back to a strict tutor. Return as people with inflamed eyes turn to a sponge and an egg, or as someone turns to a poultice or a soothing wash. Then you will not be making a show of obeying reason; you will be finding relief in it.

Remember that philosophy wants only what your own nature wants. You were the one who wanted something else, against nature. What could be more pleasant than what nature wants? Is that appearance of pleasantness not exactly how pleasure deceives us? Consider whether nobility of mind, freedom, honesty, reasonableness, and piety are not more pleasant. And what could be more pleasant than good judgment itself, when you remember how steadily and effortlessly our capacity to understand and know can move through everything?

10. Reality is hidden so deeply that many serious philosophers have thought it completely impossible to understand. Even the Stoics themselves think it is hard to understand. Every judgment to which we assent can change—for who never changes his mind? Now consider the actual things involved. They last a short time, have little value, and can belong to a male prostitute, a sex worker, or a thief. Then consider the character of the people around you. It is hard to tolerate even the most agreeable person, not to mention that each of us can barely tolerate himself.

Everything is so dark and dirty, and substance, time, motion, and moving things are all in such constant flux, that I cannot see what could deserve to be highly valued or treated as truly important. Instead, comfort yourself and wait for your natural end. Do not be irritated by the wait, but take comfort in only these two thoughts: nothing will happen to me that is contrary to the nature of the universe; and I am able to do nothing contrary to my own god and guiding spirit. No one can force me to disobey that spirit.

11. What am I using my mind for right now? Ask yourself this about everything, and examine what is now in the part called the governing mind. What kind of person’s mind do I have at this moment? A child’s? A teenager’s? A petty woman’s? A dictator’s? A farm animal’s? A wild animal’s?

12. Here is another way to see what sort of things most people consider good. Suppose someone thinks first of things that really are good, such as practical wisdom, self-control, justice, and courage. After thinking of these, he would not be able to accept the phrase “because of all the good things,” since it would not fit. But if someone first thinks of what most people regard as good, he will hear the rest and easily accept the comic poet’s line as an appropriate ending. Most people also recognize the difference. Otherwise, the first use would not sound wrong and be rejected, while we accept the same words as apt and clever when they refer to wealth and the lucky advantages that provide luxury or fame.

So continue, and ask whether we should value and regard as good things of which it can appropriately be said that the person who owns them, because he has so much, “has nowhere to shit.”

13. I consist of cause and matter. Neither of them will be destroyed into nothing, just as neither came into existence from nothing. Every part of me will therefore be changed and placed among some part of the universe. That part will then change into another part of the universe, and the process will continue without limit. I came into being through this kind of change, and so did my parents, with the same process extending endlessly backward. We can say this even if the universe is governed through cycles that are themselves limited.

14. Reason and the skill of reasoning are capacities that need nothing beyond themselves to perform their own work. They begin from their own starting point and travel toward the goal set before them. Such deeds are therefore called correct actions, indicating that their path is straight.

15. A person need not value any of these things if they do not belong to being human as such. They are not human requirements. Human nature does not call for them, and they do not perfect human nature. So the goal of a human being does not lie in them, nor does the good that completes that goal. Besides, if any of them were proper to a human being, it would not be proper to despise and resist them. A person who made himself need none of them would not deserve praise, and anyone who deprived himself of one of them would not be good, if these things really were good. Yet in fact, the more someone gives up these and similar things—or endures being deprived of them—the better he is.

16. Your mind will take the character of the thoughts you repeatedly form, because the soul is colored by its impressions. So keep coloring it with thoughts like these: wherever you can live, you can also live well. You can live at the imperial court; therefore you can also live well at the imperial court. Again, each thing was made for some purpose. It moves toward the purpose for which it was made, and its goal lies in what it moves toward. Where its goal is, there too are its benefit and its good. It follows that the good of a rational being is community. It has already been established that we were made for community. Was it not obvious that lower things exist for higher things, while higher things exist for one another? Living things are higher than things without life, and rational beings are higher than other living things.

17. It is insane to chase what is impossible. And it is impossible for bad people not to do bad things of this sort.

18. Nothing happens to anyone that he is not naturally able to bear. The same event happens to someone else, and he stays steady and unharmed, either because he does not realize it has happened or because he wants to show how noble-minded he is. Is it not terrible if ignorance and showmanship are stronger than good judgment?

19. External things do not touch the mind at all. They cannot enter it, change it, or set it in motion. The mind alone changes and moves itself, and it makes the circumstances before it conform to the judgments it chooses to make.

20. In one sense, another person is the being closest to me, because I must help people and be patient with them. But when someone obstructs the work that belongs to me, that person becomes as indifferent to me as the sun, the wind, or a wild animal. These things may block a particular action, but they cannot block my intention or state of mind, because I can act with a condition in reserve and redirect myself. The mind turns every obstacle to action to its own advantage and gives it a new role: what hindered the work helps the work forward, and what blocked the path helps me along the path.

21. Respect the highest power in the universe: the power that uses everything and directs everything. Likewise, respect the highest power within you, which is of the same nature as that. It is what uses everything else in you, and it directs your life.

22. Anything that does not harm the community does not harm one of its citizens. Whenever you think you have been harmed, use this test: if this does not harm the community, then it has not harmed me either. If it does harm the community, do not get angry; point out to the person harming it what he has overlooked.

23. Think often about how quickly existing things and new events are swept away and removed. Matter is like a river flowing without a break. Its activities are always changing, and its causes take countless turns. Almost nothing is stable, not even what is close at hand. Past and future are boundless abysses in which everything disappears. So anyone who becomes conceited, agitated, or miserable about these things is foolish, as if what bothered him would remain for a long time.

24. Remember the whole of matter, of which your share is tiny; all of time, of which only a short instant has been assigned to you; and fate, of which you are only the smallest part.

25. Someone else does wrong. What has that to do with me? That is for him to deal with. His state of mind and his action belong to him. At this moment I have what the nature of the whole wants me to have, and I do what my own nature wants me to do.

26. Do not let the ruling part of your mind be changed by pleasant or painful movements in the body, and do not let it mix with them. It should keep itself separate and limit those effects to the parts of the body. But when they pass into the mind through the natural connection within the body as a whole, do not try to fight the physical sensation. The ruling mind should simply avoid adding its own opinion that the sensation is good or bad.

27. “Live with the gods.” A person lives with the gods when he constantly shows them that his soul is satisfied with what it has been given and does everything the inner divinity wishes. Zeus gave each person this divinity as a guardian and leader, a part of himself. It is each person’s mind and reason.

28. Are you angry with someone who smells of sweat? Are you angry with someone who has bad breath? What do you expect him to do? He has that kind of mouth and those kinds of armpits, so that kind of smell must come from them. “But he has the power of reason,” you say, “and if he thinks about it, he can understand what he is doing wrong.” Very well: you have reason too. Use your reasonable attitude to influence his. Explain it to him; remind him. If he listens, you will correct him, and there will be no need for anger.
Do not be either a tragic performer or a prostitute.

29. You can live here in the same way you plan to live after leaving. But if people do not let you, then leave life itself, though without thinking that anything bad is happening to you. “There is smoke, so I am going.” Why consider that a serious matter? Until something like that forces me to leave, I remain free, and no one can stop me from doing what I choose. I choose to do what fits the nature of a rational and social being.

30. The intelligence of the universe is directed toward community. It therefore made lower things for the sake of higher ones and fitted the higher ones together. You can see how it placed some below others, arranged them together, gave each what matched its value, and brought the highest beings into agreement with one another.

31. How have you treated the gods, your parents, brother, wife, children, teachers, caregivers, friends, relatives, and servants up to now? Is it true of your conduct toward them all, right up to now, that you have neither done nor said anything wrongful to anyone?

Also remember what you have gone through, how much you have been able to endure, that the record of your life is now full and your service complete, how many fine things you have seen, how many pleasures and pains you have disregarded, how many distinctions you have passed up, and how many ungrateful people you have treated with gratitude.

32. Why do untrained and ignorant minds confuse a trained and knowledgeable mind? What kind of mind is trained and knowledgeable? One that knows the beginning and the end, and knows the rational principle that extends through all existence and governs the universe throughout eternity in ordered cycles.

33. Very soon you will be ashes or a skeleton, and either a name or not even a name. A name is only a sound and an echo. The things highly valued in life are empty, decayed, and trivial. They are like puppies biting one another and argumentative children who laugh and then immediately cry.

But Faith, Respect, Justice, and Truth
have left the broad-pathed earth for Olympus.

So what is still keeping you here? Things perceived by the senses change easily and never stay fixed. The senses themselves are weak and easily influenced. The little soul is a vapor rising from blood. And being admired by people like these is empty. What should you do, then? Wait calmly for either extinction or a change of place. Until that time comes, what is enough? Simply this: respect the gods and speak well of them; do good to people, put up with them, and refrain from harming them; and remember that everything contained within the limits of this bit of flesh and breath is neither yours nor under your control.

34. You can always move smoothly if you can travel the right path—that is, if you judge and act in accordance with that path. The soul of a god, a human being, and every rational creature shares two qualities: no one else can obstruct it, and its good consists in a just state of mind and just action, with all its desire ending there.

35. If this is not a fault of mine, is not something I am doing because of my own fault, and does not harm the community, why should I be concerned about it? How does it harm the community?

36. Do not let an impression carry you away completely. Help as much as you can and as the situation deserves. Even if people lose some advantage in matters that are morally indifferent, do not imagine that the loss itself is real harm; that is a bad habit. Be like the old man who, as he was leaving, asked for his foster-child’s spinning top, remembering that it was only a spinning top. Act the same way here.

When you find yourself crying out on the public platform, ask yourself: Have you forgotten what these things really are?

“Yes, but these people care intensely about them.”

Does that mean you must become a fool too?

37. “Once, no matter where circumstances caught me, I was a fortunate man.”

But being fortunate means assigning yourself a good fortune. And good fortune consists in good states of mind, good motives, and good actions.

### Book VI

1. The substance of the universe is yielding and easy to reshape. The reason governing it has no motive in itself for causing harm, because it contains no evil. It does nothing wrong, and nothing is harmed by it. Everything happens and is completed in accordance with it.

2. Do not care whether you are cold or warm when you do what you should; whether sleepy or well rested; whether criticized or praised; whether dying or engaged in some other action. Dying is itself one of the things we do in life. So even then, it is enough to handle the present well.

3. Look inside. Do not overlook what any thing is like in itself or what value it has.

4. Everything that exists will change very quickly. It will either evaporate, if substance forms one whole, or disperse.

5. The reason that governs knows what state it is in, what it is doing, and what material it is working on.

6. The best retaliation is not to imitate the person who wronged you.

7. Enjoy and refresh yourself in this alone: move from one action that serves the community to another, remembering God.

8. The directing mind rouses and redirects itself. It makes itself whatever it chooses to be, and makes whatever happens seem to it the way it chooses.

9. Everything is completed in line with the nature of the universe. It does not follow some other nature that surrounds it externally, is enclosed inside it, or hangs detached beyond it.

10. Either there is a jumble, a mutual snarl, and a scattering; or there is unity, order, and providence. If it is the first, why do I want to remain in an accidental mixture and this kind of mess? What should matter to me except how eventually “to become earth”? Why am I disturbed? No matter what I do, dissolution will come to me. But if it is the second, I worship, remain steady, and trust the governor of all.

11. When surrounding events force you into something like confusion, quickly come back to yourself. Do not lose your rhythm for longer than necessary. You will master the harmony better by returning to it again and again.

12. If you had both a stepmother and your own mother, you would care for your stepmother, but you would keep going back to your mother. The imperial court and philosophy now stand in that relation for you. Come back to philosophy often and find rest in her. Because of her, life at court seems tolerable to you, and you are tolerable while there.

13. With rich dishes and similar foods, form an impression such as this: this is a dead fish; that is a dead bird or pig. Or again: Falernian wine is some juice from grapes, and a purple-edged robe is sheep’s wool stained with the blood of a shellfish. About sex: it is the rubbing of an internal organ and the release of a little mucus in a spasm. Impressions like these get down to the actual things and go through them, letting us see what they really are. You should do this throughout life. Whenever things present themselves as highly impressive, uncover them, examine how little they are worth, and take away the tale that makes them grand. Vanity is a powerful cheat. When you think you are most engaged in important business, that is when it most completely casts its spell on you. Just consider what Crates says even about Xenocrates.

14. Most things the crowd admires belong to the most general class of objects held together by physical structure or natural growth: stone, wood, fig trees, grapevines, and olive trees. People with a little more discernment admire things governed by animal life, such as owning flocks, herds, or simply many slaves. More refined people admire things governed by a rational mind, though not for its rationality, but for its technical skill or some other kind of cleverness. But anyone who values a rational mind made for civic life pays no more attention to those other things. Above all, that person keeps their own mind rational and cooperative in its condition and activity, and helps others of the same nature do likewise.

15. Some things are rushing into existence; others are rushing into the past. Even while something is coming into being, part of it has already disappeared. Continuous flows and changes constantly renew the universe, just as time’s uninterrupted movement keeps infinite duration always fresh. In this river, where no one can remain still, what could anyone value among the things speeding past? It would be like starting to love a small bird as it flies by: it has already gone from view. Each person’s life is much the same: vapor rising from the blood and breath drawn from the air. We inhale air once and return it, as we do moment by moment. In the same way, we return our entire capacity to breathe—the capacity we received when we were born yesterday or the day before—to the source from which we first drew it.

16. It is not admirable merely to exchange air like plants, to breathe like livestock and wild animals, to receive the imprint of sense impressions, to be pulled by impulses like a marionette, to gather in groups, or to eat—for eating is much like expelling the waste left from food. What is admirable, then? Being applauded? No. So neither is receiving applause from people’s tongues, since popular praise is only the noise of tongues. You have now given up your little reputation too. What remains to be valued? I think it is acting and restraining yourself in accordance with your own design. All practical care and every craft aim at that. (Every craft seeks to make its product fit for the work it was designed to perform. A gardener and a person tending a vineyard, a horse trainer and a dog keeper all seek this.) What do education and instruction aim for? There is the thing to value. If that is in good condition, you will not try to obtain anything else for yourself. Will you not stop valuing many other things? If not, you will never be free, self-sufficient, or calm. You will have to be envious and jealous, suspicious of people who can take those things from you, and hostile toward people who have what you value. In general, anyone who needs one of those things is bound to be confused and, in addition, often to blame the gods. But respecting and valuing your own mind will make you pleased with yourself, harmonious with your companions, and in agreement with the gods—that is, approving everything they allot and arrange.

17. The elements move up, down, and in circles. Virtue does not move in any of these ways. Its movement is something more divine: it advances successfully along a path that is difficult to comprehend.

18. Look at what they do. They do not want to praise the people who are alive at the same time and living among them, but they care greatly about being praised by people born later, whom they have never seen and never will see. That is almost the same as being upset because people born before you did not praise you too.

19. Do not think that something is impossible for a human being just because you yourself find it hard to do. If it is possible and natural for a human being, believe that you too can achieve it.

20. While training, someone may scratch us with a nail or hit us by colliding headfirst with us. But we do not hold it against him, take offense, or afterward suspect him of trying to harm us. We are careful around him, but not as if he were an enemy and not with suspicion; we avoid him in a friendly way. Do the same in the rest of life: overlook many things done by people who are, so to speak, training alongside us. As I said, we can keep out of their way without suspecting or hating them.

21. If someone can prove to me and show me that I am thinking or acting wrongly, I will gladly change. I am looking for the truth, and the truth has never harmed anyone. The person who is harmed is the one who remains stuck in his own error and ignorance.

22. I do the duty that belongs to me. Everything else does not distract me, because it is either without life, without reason, or lost and unaware of the way.

23. Treat animals without reason, and things and objects in general, generously and freely, as a rational being dealing with what has no reason. Treat human beings as members of the same community, since they do have reason. In everything, call on the gods. Do not worry about how long you will live this way; even three hours like this are enough.

24. After they died, Alexander of Macedon and his mule driver came to the same state. Either they were taken back into the same generative principles of the universe, or they were both dispersed into atoms.

25. Think how many physical and mental processes happen at the same instant in each of us. Then you will not be surprised that many more things—in fact, everything that happens within the single whole we call the universe—exist in it at the same time.

26. If someone asks you how to spell the name Antoninus, won’t you clearly say each letter? Then what if people get angry? Will you get angry back? Won’t you calmly go through the letters one by one? Remember that every duty is likewise completed through a certain number of steps. Pay attention to those steps, do not become upset or respond angrily to angry people, and finish the task in front of you in an orderly way.

27. How cruel it is not to let people pursue what seems suitable and beneficial to them. Yet in a sense you refuse to let them do that when you are angry at them for making mistakes, because they are always moving toward what they think is suitable and beneficial for themselves. “But they are wrong.” Then teach them and show them, without getting angry.

28. Death is rest from the impact of sensation, the tugging of impulses, the activity of thought, and service to the body.

29. It is shameful for your mind to give up while your body is still holding out.

30. Take care not to become thoroughly Caesar-like or dyed by the role; that does happen. Keep yourself honest, good, unspoiled, dignified, unpretentious, devoted to justice, respectful of the gods, kind, affectionate, and strong in doing what you should. Work to remain the person philosophy wanted to make you. Respect the gods and protect people. Life is short. The one fruit of life on earth is a godly character and actions that serve the community.

In everything, act as a student of Antoninus. Remember his energy in doing what reason required, his steady character in every situation, his reverence, his calm expression, his gentleness, his lack of vanity, and his determination to understand things. Remember that he never let anything pass until he had examined it carefully and understood it clearly; that he endured unjust criticism without criticizing in return; that he rushed into nothing; that he did not accept accusations made behind people’s backs; that he carefully examined people’s character and actions without finding fault, taking fright, becoming suspicious, or showing off his cleverness; that he was satisfied with little in his home, bedding, clothes, food, and servants; that he worked hard and was patient; that his simple diet allowed him to stay at the same work until evening without needing to relieve himself outside his usual time; that he was firm and consistent in his friendships; that he tolerated people who openly disagreed with his views and was glad when anyone showed him a better way; and that he respected the gods without superstition. Live so that your final hour finds your conscience as clear as his.

31. Come to your senses, call yourself back, and wake up again. Once you understand that dreams were disturbing you, look at the things around you while awake just as you looked at those dreams.

32. I am made of a small body and a mind. Everything is indifferent to the body, because the body cannot judge differences. For the mind, everything that is not its own action is indifferent, while all its own actions are under its control. Even then, it deals only with its present action, since its future and past actions are already indifferent to it.

33. Pain is not unnatural for a hand or a foot as long as the foot does what a foot should do and the hand does what a hand should do. In the same way, pain is not unnatural for a human being as long as that person does what a human being should do. And if pain is not unnatural for someone, it is not bad for that person either.

34. Think how much pleasure robbers, sexually depraved men, men who beat their fathers, and tyrants have enjoyed.

35. Don’t you see how ordinary craftsmen adapt to people outside their trade up to a point, but still hold firmly to the rules of their craft and refuse to abandon them? Isn’t it terrible if an architect or doctor respects the principles of his own profession more than a human being respects his own reason, which he shares with the gods?

36. Asia and Europe are corners of the world. Every sea is a drop in the world. Mount Athos is a clod of earth in the world. The whole present is a point in eternity. Everything is small, easily changed, and disappearing.

Everything comes from that source, either set in motion by the common governing mind or arising as a consequence. So too the lion’s open jaws, poison, and everything harmful—like thorns and mud—are by-products of things that are majestic and beautiful. Do not think these things are foreign to what you revere. Instead, consider the source of everything.

37. Anyone who has seen what exists now has seen everything that has happened from eternity and everything that will happen without end, because it is all of the same kind and pattern.

38. Often think about how everything in the world is connected and how things relate to one another. In a sense, everything is woven together, and for that reason all things belong together. One thing follows another because of the movement of tension, the shared breath, and the unity of matter.

39. Adapt yourself to the circumstances assigned to you, and genuinely love the people who share your lot.

40. Any instrument, tool, or piece of equipment is in good condition when it does what it was made to do, even though its maker is no longer present. But in things formed and held together by nature, the power that made them stays within them. You should therefore respect nature all the more and believe that, if you live and act according to her purpose, everything will be as you would rationally wish. In the same way, everything belonging to the universe is as its governing mind intends.

41. If you regard anything outside your control as good or bad, then whenever you meet with that supposed evil or fail to obtain that supposed good, you are bound to blame the gods and hate the people who caused—or whom you suspect may cause—the failure or misfortune. We do many wrongs because we treat these external things as making a real difference. But if we judge only what depends on us to be good or bad, we have no reason either to accuse a god or to oppose another person as an enemy.

42. We all help produce one result. Some do so knowingly and with awareness, while others do so without knowing it. Heraclitus, I think, even says that people who are asleep are workers and partners in what happens in the world. Different people contribute in different ways. Even the person who complains, resists, and tries to undo events contributes in an extra way, because the world needed that kind of person too. So understand which group you are placing yourself in. The power governing the universe will certainly make good use of you and include you as one of its workers and active parts. But do not become the kind of part represented by the cheap, absurd line in the play that Chrysippus mentions.

43. Does the Sun try to do the work of the god who brings rain? Does Asclepius try to do the work of the goddess who brings crops? And what about each star? Their tasks differ, but do they not all work together toward the same end?

44. If the gods have made plans for me and for what is meant to happen to me, their plans are good. It is hard even to imagine a god who acts without thought. And why would they intend to harm me? What benefit would that bring either to them or to the common good, which is their chief concern? If they have not planned for me personally, they have certainly planned for the common good. Since what happens to me follows from that plan, I ought to welcome and accept it.

But suppose they plan nothing at all. It is irreverent to believe this; otherwise, let us stop sacrificing, praying, swearing oaths, and doing all the other things we constantly do as if the gods were present and living with us. Still, suppose they plan nothing that concerns us. I can plan for myself, and I can consider what benefits me. What benefits any being is what suits its own make-up and nature, and my nature is rational and social.

As Antoninus, my city and homeland is Rome. As a human being, it is the world. So only what benefits these two cities is good for me.

45. Whatever happens to each individual benefits the whole. That is enough. But if you pay attention, you will also generally see that what happens to one person benefits other people too. Here the word “benefit” should be understood in a broader sense when applied to things that are neither good nor bad in themselves.

46. The events in the amphitheater and similar places become tiresome because you keep seeing the same things, and their sameness makes the spectacle tedious. You have the same experience with life as a whole. Everything, high and low, is the same and comes from the same sources. So how long will this continue to trouble you?

47. Keep thinking of all kinds of people—people with every sort of occupation and from every nation—who have died. Carry the thought down to Philistion, Phoebus, and Origanion. Then move on to other groups. We must go to the same place where so many powerful speakers and respected philosophers now are—Heraclitus, Pythagoras, Socrates—as well as so many earlier heroes and, after them, so many generals and tyrants. There too are Eudoxus, Hipparchus, Archimedes, and other people who were sharp-minded, high-minded, hardworking, crafty, or arrogant, including men like Menippus who mocked the brief and perishable life of human beings. Think about all of them: they have been lying there for a long time. What is so terrible about that for them? And what about those whose names are not known at all?

One thing here is of great value: to live with truth and justice while remaining kind toward liars and unjust people.

48. When you want to cheer yourself, think of the good qualities of the people who live with you: one person’s energy, another’s modesty, another’s generosity, and some other quality in someone else. Nothing is as cheering as seeing examples of the virtues in the characters of those around us, especially when many appear together. So keep these qualities in mind.

49. You are not upset that you weigh only a certain number of pounds rather than three hundred. In the same way, do not be upset that you are to live only a certain number of years rather than more. Just as you accept the amount of matter allotted to you, accept the amount of time as well.

50. Try to persuade them, but act even without their consent when justice directs you to do so. If someone uses force to stop you, then accept it calmly and without distress, and use the obstacle as an opportunity to practice another virtue. Remember that you began with the reservation that your action might be prevented, and that you were not trying to achieve the impossible. What were you trying to achieve, then? To make the right kind of effort. You have achieved that. What we set ourselves in motion to do has been accomplished.

51. A person who loves fame thinks someone else’s activity is his own good; a person who loves pleasure thinks his own experience is; but a person with understanding thinks his own action is.

52. You can have no opinion about this and not let your mind be disturbed. Things themselves cannot create our judgments about them.

53. Train yourself to listen to what another person is saying without adding your own thoughts, and as far as you can, put yourself inside the speaker’s mind. What is not good for the hive is not good for the bee either.

54. If sailors criticized their pilot, or patients their doctor, would he pay attention to anything else? Otherwise, how could he keep those sailing with him safe, or make those he was treating healthy?

55. How many people who entered the world with me have already departed.

56. Honey tastes bitter to people with jaundice, water frightens people bitten by a rabid dog, and a ball seems wonderful to children. So why am I angry? Do you think a mistaken belief is less powerful than bile in someone with jaundice, or poison in someone bitten by a rabid dog?

57. No one can stop you from living in accordance with the reason of your own nature. Nothing can happen to you against the reason of nature as a whole.

58. Think what the people they want to please are like, what they seek to gain, and what actions they use to gain it. How quickly time will cover everything, and how much it has already covered.

### Book VII

1. What is wrongdoing? What you have seen many times before. Whatever happens, remember at once that this too is something you have often seen. Everywhere, from top to bottom, you will find the same things that fill ancient, later, and recent histories, and that now fill cities and homes. Nothing is new. Everything is familiar and lasts only a short time.

2. Your principles are still alive. They can die only if the impressions that correspond to them are put out, and you can keep reviving those impressions. I can judge this in the way I should. If I can do that, why am I upset? Things outside my mind have no effect on the mind itself. Learn this and stand firm. You can begin living again. Look at things again as you once did. That is what it means to begin living again.

3. The pointless commotion of a parade; plays on a stage; flocks and herds; people fighting with spears; a small bone thrown to puppies; a scrap of bread tossed into fish tanks; ants struggling and carrying loads; frightened flies darting about; little figures pulled by strings. You should stand among these things kindly and without looking down on them, but remember that each person is worth as much as the things they devote themselves to.

4. Pay attention to what people say, word by word, and to what they do, motive by motive. With an action, see at once what goal it is directed toward; with a statement, watch carefully for its meaning.

5. Is my mind capable of this or not? If it is, I use it for the job as a tool given by the nature of the universe. If it is not, I either give the job to someone who can do it better, provided that this is right for me to do, or I do what I can and get help from someone able to use my judgment and direction to produce what the community needs and can use now. Whatever I do, alone or with someone else, should aim only at what is useful and fitting for everyone.

6. Many people who were once widely praised have already been forgotten, and those who praised them have long been gone.

7. Do not be ashamed of being helped. Your task is to do the duty assigned to you, like a soldier attacking a wall. Suppose you are lame and cannot climb the battlement by yourself, but can climb it with someone’s help—what then?

8. Do not be troubled by the future. If necessary, you will face it with the same power of reason you now use to deal with the present.

9. Everything is intertwined, and the connection is sacred. Almost nothing is foreign to anything else, because all things are arranged together and together make up the same ordered universe. There is one universe made from everything, one god present through everything, one substance, one law, one reason shared by all rational beings, and one truth—if there is also one perfection for beings of the same kind who share the same reason.

10. Everything made of matter quickly disappears into the substance of the universe. Every cause is quickly taken back into the universe’s reason, and every memory is quickly buried in eternity.

11. For a rational being, acting naturally is the same as acting rationally.

12. Stand straight—or let yourself be helped to stand straight.

13. Rational beings, though physically separate, relate to one another as the body’s limbs do when joined together: they are made to work together for one purpose. You will understand this more clearly if you often tell yourself, “I am a member of the community of rational beings.” But if you think of yourself only as a part, not a member, you do not yet love people from the heart. Helping others does not yet make you glad simply because you understand it. You still do it only because it is proper, not because you see it as helping yourself.

14. Let outside events strike whatever can be affected by them. The affected parts can complain, if they choose. But unless I decide that what happened is bad, I have not been harmed, and I can choose not to decide that it is bad.

15. Whatever anyone does or says, I must remain good. It is as if gold, an emerald, or purple dye were always saying, “Whatever anyone does or says, I must remain an emerald and keep my own color.”

16. The ruling mind does not disturb itself. I mean that it does not frighten itself... into desire. If someone else can frighten or upset it, let them try. Its own judgments will not turn it toward such reactions. Let the small body look after itself, if it can, so that nothing happens to it; and if something does happen, let it report it. But the small soul that fears and suffers—the part that forms judgments about all this—need not suffer anything, because it will not be forced to make that kind of judgment. The ruling mind has no needs of its own unless it creates a need for itself. In the same way, it is calm and unobstructed unless it disturbs and obstructs itself.

17. Happiness is having a good inner spirit, a good divinity within. So what are you doing here, impression? For the gods’ sake, leave the way you came. I do not need you. You came because of an old habit. I am not angry with you. Just go.

18. Is someone afraid of change? What can happen without change? What is more natural or more welcome to the nature of the universe? Can you take a bath unless the firewood changes? Can you be fed unless the food changes? Can anything useful be done without change? Then do you not see that your own change is the same kind of thing and just as necessary to the nature of the universe?

19. All bodies pass through the substance of the universe as if through a rushing stream. They belong to the whole and work with it, just as the parts of our bodies work with one another. How many people like Chrysippus, Socrates, and Epictetus has eternity already swallowed? Think the same about every person and every thing you encounter.

20. Only one thing concerns me: that I might do something human nature does not want, or do it in a way it does not want, or do it at a time when it does not want it.

21. Soon you will forget everything, and soon everyone will forget you.

22. A human being naturally loves even people who do wrong. You can do this when you remember that they are related to you, that they make mistakes from ignorance and unwillingly, that both of you will soon be dead, and above all that they have not harmed you, because they have not made your ruling mind any worse than it was before.

23. The nature of the universe takes the substance of the universe as if it were wax. It has just shaped it into a little horse, then melted that down and used its material for a little tree, then for a little human being, then for something else. Each form lasted only a very short time. Being taken apart is no more terrible for the little box than being put together.

24. A scowling face is very unnatural. When the scowl is repeated often, the expression dies away and is finally extinguished, until it cannot be stirred up again at all. Try to infer from this that it is contrary to reason. For if even the awareness that one is doing wrong disappears, what reason is there to go on living?

25. Very soon, the nature that directs the universe will change everything you see. It will make other things from their substance, and then more things from those, so that the world is always young.

26. When someone does you wrong, immediately think about what he believed was good or bad when he did it. Once you understand that, you will feel compassion for him instead of surprise or anger. Either you still believe that the same thing, or something like it, is good, in which case you should forgive him; or you no longer regard such things as good and bad, in which case it will be easier to treat someone kindly when he has misjudged.

27. Do not imagine that things you lack are already present. Instead, choose the best of what you have, and remember gratefully how much you would want those things if you did not have them. But be careful not to enjoy them so much that you get used to overvaluing them and become upset if they are ever gone.

28. Draw inward into yourself. The rational governing mind is naturally content with itself when it acts justly, and finds calm in doing so.

29. Wipe away the impression. Stop being pulled like a puppet. Limit yourself to the present moment. Understand what is happening, whether it is happening to you or to someone else. Separate the thing in question into its cause and its material. Think about your last hour. Leave another person’s wrongdoing where it occurred—with him.

30. Follow what is being said with your understanding. Look closely into both the action and the person acting.

31. Make yourself cheerful through simplicity, modesty, and indifference to everything that is neither virtue nor vice. Love humanity. Follow God. One man says, “Everything exists by convention; in reality, only the elements exist.” But it is enough to remember that everything depends on convention. There are very few things after all.

32. About death: if reality is atoms, death is their scattering; if it is a unity, death is either an ending or a change of place.

33. About pain: unbearable pain brings life to an end, while pain that lasts is bearable. The mind can keep its calm by stepping back from its judgment, and its governing part is not made worse. If the parts of the body hurt by the pain can say anything about it, let them do so.

34. About fame: look at people’s minds, what they are like, what they avoid, and what they chase. Just as new sand dunes pile over and hide the earlier ones, so in life later events quickly cover what came before.

35. “Do you think that human life can seem very important to someone with a great mind who contemplates all time and all existence?”
“That is impossible,” he said.
“So a person like that will not think death is something terrible either?”
“Not at all.”

36. “A king does good even when people speak badly of him.”

37. It is shameful that the face obeys the mind and is shaped and composed as the mind directs, while the mind does not shape and compose itself.

38. You should not be angry at events. They do not care.

39. May you give delight
to the immortal gods and to us.

40. To harvest life like a ripe head of grain:
one exists, another no longer does.

41. If the gods have failed to care for me and my children,
there is a reason for that too.

42. For goodness and justice are on my side.

43. Do not join others in wailing or groaning.

44. “I would give him this fair reply: ‘You are wrong, sir, if you think a man of even a little value should weigh his chances of living or dying. When he acts, he should consider only whether what he is doing is just or unjust, and whether it is the work of a good man or a bad one.’”

45. “The truth is this, men of Athens: when a man takes a position because he thinks it best, or is assigned one by his commander, he must stay there and face the danger. He must put neither death nor anything else ahead of avoiding disgrace.”

46. “But, my friend, consider whether being noble and good is something other than saving lives and having your own life saved. A true man should stop caring about living for any particular length of time and should not cling to life. He should leave that to God and trust what the women say—that no one can escape fate. Then he should think about how to live the time he has as well as possible.”

47. Watch the paths of the stars as if you were moving around with them, and keep thinking about how the elements change into one another. Such thoughts wash away the dirt of life down here.

48. When you think about human beings, look down on earthly life as if from somewhere high above: herds, armies, farms, marriages, breakups, births, deaths, noisy courts, empty regions, the many different foreign peoples, festivals, mourning, markets—the entire mixture, formed into an ordered whole from opposites.

49. Review the past and the many changes of governments. You can foresee the future too, because it will certainly be much the same and cannot break away from the pattern of what happens now. So observing human life for forty years is the same as observing it for ten thousand. What more would you see?

50. Things grown from earth go back to earth;
what grows from the seed of the upper air
returns again to the sky.

51. Or death is this: the interlocking atoms come apart, and the elements, which cannot be harmed, are scattered.

52. With food, drink, and magic remedies,
they divert the flow so that they will not die.
But when a wind blows from God, we must bear it
with hard work and without complaint.

53. “A better horseman”—but not more cooperative, more modest, steadier in what happens, or more forgiving of other people’s mistakes.

54. There is nothing terrible wherever you can complete an action in line with the reason common to gods and humans. If an activity goes well, proceeds as you are made to proceed, and can bring benefit, you need not fear any harm in it.

55. At every place and at all times, you can accept your present circumstances with reverence for the gods, treat the people around you justly, and examine your present impression carefully, so that nothing you have failed to understand gets in.

56. Do not look around at other people’s directing minds. Look straight at where nature is leading you: universal nature leads you through what happens to you, and your own nature through what you have to do. Each being must do what follows from the way it is made. Other things are made for rational beings, just as in every other case lower things exist for higher ones; and rational beings are made for one another.

So the first feature of a human being’s nature is sociability. The second is not giving in to the body’s pressures. Rational, intelligent activity can set limits for itself and need never be defeated by sensations or impulses. Sensation and impulse are both animal activities, while intelligence intends to take the lead and not be controlled by them. That is right, because intelligence is naturally able to make use of them all. The third feature of rational nature is not rushing into judgment or being deceived.

If the directing mind holds to these things, let it follow a straight course to the end, and it will have what belongs to it.

57. Think of yourself as already dead and as having lived no real life up to now. From this point on, live the time left over in accordance with nature.

58. Love only what happens to you and what fate has woven together with you. What could suit you better?

59. Whenever something happens, picture the people who met with the same thing and then became upset, shocked, and complaining. Where are they now? Nowhere. Do you want to behave the same way? Instead, leave those reactions to the people who produce them and are changed by them, and concentrate entirely on how to make use of what happens. You will use it well, and it will give you material to work on. In everything you do, pay attention and aim to see your own conduct as noble. Remember both points: your action makes a moral difference, but the thing your action deals with is morally indifferent.

60. Dig inside yourself. The source of good is inside, and it can always keep flowing if you keep digging.

61. Your body should also be held together firmly, not sprawled about when moving or when still. The mind keeps the face looking composed and dignified; require the same of the whole body. But take care that none of this looks practiced or artificial.

62. Living is more like wrestling than dancing, because you must stay ready and keep your footing when unexpected things come at you.

63. Keep stopping to ask who the people are whose approval you want and what their directing minds are like. Look at the sources of their beliefs and desires; then you will not blame them for mistakes they make unwillingly, and you will not need their endorsement.

64. “Every soul,” he says, “loses the truth unwillingly.” The same is true of justice, self-control, kindness, and everything like them. You must remember this constantly, because it will make you more patient with everyone.

65. Whenever you are in pain, keep in mind that pain is not disgraceful and does not make your directing mind worse. It does not damage the mind’s ability to reason or to live with others. With most pains, this thought from Epicurus can also help you: pain is neither impossible to bear nor endless, as long as you remember its limits and do not make it greater by adding your own judgments.

Also remember that many experiences are really forms of pain without being recognized as such, even though people resent them—for example, sleepiness, being overheated, and having no appetite. Whenever one of these bothers you, tell yourself, “You are giving in to pain.”

66. Be careful not to treat cruel people with the same hostility that cruel people show toward others.

67. How do we know that Telauges did not have a better character than Socrates? It is not enough that Socrates had a more famous death, argued more skillfully with the sophists, spent the night in the freezing cold with greater endurance, seemed more courageous when he refused an order to arrest the man from Salamis, and “strutted through the streets”—something worth questioning, if the story was even true.

What we need to examine is what kind of soul Socrates had. Was he able to be satisfied with treating people justly and the gods reverently? Did he avoid pointless anger at other people’s badness without becoming a slave to anyone’s ignorance? Did he accept whatever the universe assigned him without treating it as alien or finding it unbearable? Did he keep his mind from sharing in the sufferings of his little piece of flesh?

68. Nature has not mixed you so completely with your physical body that you cannot set yourself apart and keep what is truly yours under your own control. Always remember this. Remember too that living happily depends on very little. Even if you have lost hope of becoming skilled in logic and natural philosophy, do not give up hope of being free, honorable, concerned for others, and obedient to God. It is quite possible to become a godlike person without anyone knowing it.

69. You can live your whole life without strain and in the greatest good spirits, even if everyone shouts whatever they want and wild animals tear apart the small limbs of this mass of flesh that has grown around you. None of that prevents your mind from remaining calm, judging your circumstances truthfully, and standing ready to use whatever is placed before it. Your judgment can say to what meets you, “This is what you really are, even if people’s opinions make you look different.” Your ability to act can say to what comes its way, “I was looking for you. Whatever is present is always material on which I can practice rational and social virtue—in short, the art of a human being or a god.” Everything that happens is naturally familiar to god or human beings. It is not new or difficult to deal with, but known and useful.

70. Perfect character means living through every day as if it were your last, without agitation, dullness, or pretense.

71. The gods are immortal, but they do not complain that through all eternity they must keep putting up with so many bad people. They even care for them in every possible way. Yet you, whose life will end very soon, are worn out by them—even though you are one of them yourself?

72. It is ridiculous not to escape your own badness, which you can do, while trying to escape other people’s badness, which you cannot do.

73. Whatever our rational and social capacity finds neither rational nor social, it rightly considers inferior to itself.

74. When you have helped someone and that person has benefited, what more do you want, as foolish people do—to be seen as having done good, or to receive something in return?

75. No one gets tired of receiving a benefit, and helping someone is an action in keeping with nature. So do not get tired of benefiting yourself while you help someone else.

76. The nature of the whole undertook to create the ordered universe. So either everything that happens follows as a consequence, or even the most important things—the very things toward which the universe’s governing principle directs its own impulse—are irrational. Keeping this in mind will make you calmer about many things.

### Book VIII

1. This too should help free you from concern for reputation: you can no longer have lived your whole life, or even your life from youth, as a philosopher. Many other people, and you yourself, can clearly see that you are far from philosophy. You are compromised, so it is no longer easy for you to gain a philosopher’s reputation; your position also works against you. So if you have truly understood where the real issue lies, forget what people will think of you. Be satisfied if, for however much of your life remains, you live in the way your nature requires. Think carefully about what it requires, and let nothing else distract you. Experience has taught you that, though you have wandered after many things, you have nowhere found the good life—not in reasoning, wealth, reputation, or pleasure. Where is it, then? In doing what human nature demands. How can you do that? By having principles that guide your impulses and actions. What principles? Those about good and evil: nothing is good for a person if it does not make that person just, self-controlled, brave, and free; and nothing is evil if it does not make that person the opposite of these.

2. With every action, ask yourself: What does this mean for me? Will I regret doing it? Soon I will be dead and everything will be gone. What more am I looking for, if what I am doing now is the work of a rational, social being governed by the same law as god?

3. What were Alexander, Gaius, and Pompey compared with Diogenes, Heraclitus, and Socrates? The philosophers understood things, their causes, and their materials, and their directing minds were self-sufficient. But the others had countless concerns and were servants to countless things.

4. They will keep doing the same things even if you work yourself into a fury.

5. First, do not be disturbed. Everything happens in accordance with the nature of the whole, and before long you will be nobody, nowhere, just like Hadrian and Augustus. Then look closely at the matter and see it clearly. Remember that you must be a good person and what human nature demands; do that without wavering. Say what seems most just to you, but say it kindly, modestly, and sincerely.

6. The nature of the whole has one task: to move what is here somewhere else, change it, take it from one place, and carry it to another. Everything changes, but everything receives its fair share. It has all happened before, so there is no reason to fear anything new.

7. Every kind of being is satisfied with itself when it functions well. A rational being functions well by not accepting any impression that is false or uncertain; by directing its impulses only toward actions that benefit the community; by limiting desire and avoidance to things under our control; and by welcoming everything assigned by universal nature. Human nature is part of universal nature, just as a leaf’s nature is part of the plant’s nature. But a leaf belongs to something without awareness or reason and capable of being obstructed, while a human being belongs to a nature that cannot be obstructed and is intelligent and just, since it gives each person an equal and appropriate share of time, substance, causation, activity, and circumstance. Do not try to find equality by comparing each individual thing with another. Compare the total given to one person with the total given to another.

8. You may not have time to read. But you can restrain your arrogance. You can master pleasure and pain. You can rise above petty concern for reputation. You can refuse to be angry with insensitive, ungrateful people and can even care for them.

9. Never again let anyone hear you complain about life at court, and do not let yourself hear it either.

10. Regret means blaming yourself because you missed something useful. What is good must be useful, and a good person must care about it. But no good person would regret passing up a pleasure. So pleasure is neither useful nor good.

11. What is this thing in itself, as it is actually made? What is its substance and material? What causes it to be what it is? What does it do in the universe, and how long does it last?

12. When you have trouble getting out of bed, remind yourself that your make-up and human nature call you to perform actions for the common good, while even animals without reason sleep. What suits a being’s nature is more proper to it, more natural, and also more pleasant.

13. As far as possible, examine every impression continually: what it is by nature, what response it produces in you, and whether the reasoning about it is sound.

14. Whenever you encounter someone, immediately ask yourself: What does this person believe about good and evil? If he has certain beliefs about pleasure and pain and what causes them, about fame and disgrace, and about death and life, I will not find it surprising or strange when he acts in certain ways. I will remember that his beliefs compel him to act that way.

15. Remember that it is as foolish to be surprised when the world produces the kinds of things it naturally produces as it is to be surprised when a fig tree grows figs. It is also foolish for a doctor to be surprised that a patient has developed a fever, or for a ship’s captain to be surprised by a headwind.

16. Remember that changing your mind and following someone who corrects you is just as much an act of freedom. The action is your own, carried out according to your own impulse, judgment, and understanding.

17. If it is under your control, why are you doing it? If it is under someone else’s control, whom do you blame—the atoms or the gods? Either choice is absurd. Blame no one. If you can, correct the person. If you cannot, correct the situation itself. If you cannot even do that, what is the point of blaming anyone? You should do nothing without a purpose.

18. What dies does not leave the universe. If it stays here and changes here, it also dissolves here into the lasting elements that make up both the universe and you. Those elements also change, without complaining.

19. Everything exists for some purpose—a horse and a grapevine, for example. Why are you surprised? The Sun will also say, “I exist to perform a certain work,” and the other gods will say the same. So what do you exist for? To enjoy pleasure? Consider whether that idea holds up.

20. Nature intends the end of each thing just as much as its beginning and its course, like someone throwing a ball into the air. What good happens to the ball as it rises, or what harm as it falls, or after it has landed? What good happens to a bubble while it stays whole, or what harm when it bursts? The same applies to a lamp.

21. Turn it inside out and see what it is like, what it becomes when it grows old, when it gets sick, when it prostitutes itself. The person who praises and the person praised are both short-lived, as are the person who remembers and the person remembered. And this all happens in one corner of this part of the world, where people do not even agree with one another, and no one even agrees with himself. The whole earth is only a point.

22. Pay attention to the matter itself, or to the action, or to the belief, or to what is meant. You deserve what you are suffering: you would rather become a good person tomorrow than be one today.

23. Am I doing something? I do it for the benefit of human beings. Does something happen to me? I accept it as coming from the gods and from the source of everything, from which all that happens is woven together.

24. Think what bathing is like: oil, sweat, dirt, slimy water—everything disgusting. Every part of life and every material thing is like that.

25. Lucilla buried Verus, and then Lucilla died; Secunda buried Maximus, and then Secunda; Epitynchanus buried Diotimus, and then Epitynchanus; Antoninus buried Faustina, and then Antoninus. Everything is like this. Celer buried Hadrian, and then Celer. And where are those famously sharp-minded men, prophets, or conceited thinkers? I mean people such as Charax, Demetrius the Platonist, Eudaemon, and anyone else like them. All were here for a day and have long been dead. Some were not remembered even for a short time; some became legends; and some have already faded from the legends themselves. So remember that your little collection of matter must either be scattered, your little breath must go out, or it must move away and be given a place somewhere else.

26. A person’s joy is to do what is proper to a human being. What is proper to a human being is goodwill toward others of the same kind, rising above the impulses of the senses, examining plausible impressions, and observing the nature of the universe and what happens according to it.

27. There are three relationships: with what surrounds and affects us; with the divine cause from which everything happens to everyone; and with the people who live alongside us.

28. Pain is bad either for the body—in which case let the body say so—or for the mind. But the mind can preserve its own clarity and calm and not judge pain to be bad. Every judgment, impulse, desire, and avoidance is inside us, and nothing bad can rise into that inner place.

29. Keep wiping away your impressions by telling yourself: Right now I can make sure there is no vice in this mind, no craving, and no disturbance at all. I can see everything as it is and deal with each thing according to its value. Remember that nature has given you this power.

30. Whether in the Senate or speaking to anyone at all, speak properly, not showily. Use sound language.

31. Think of Augustus’s court: his wife, daughter, grandchildren, ancestors, sister, Agrippa, relatives, household, friends, Areius, Maecenas, doctors, and priests. A whole court dead. Then move on to the others... not the death of one person, but of families such as the Pompeys. Think also of the words written on tombs: “The last of his family.” Consider how hard earlier generations tried to leave an heir, though someone still had to be the last. Here too, an entire family dies.

32. You must build your life one action at a time. If each action accomplishes its own purpose as far as possible, be satisfied. No one can stop it from accomplishing that purpose.
“But something outside me will interfere.”
Nothing can stop you from acting justly, with self-control, and reasonably.
“But perhaps it will stop some other activity.”
Then accept the obstacle and sensibly turn to what is now possible. Another action will immediately take its place, one that fits the life you are building.

33. Accept without pride, and let go without difficulty.

34. If you have ever seen a severed hand, foot, or head lying apart from the rest of the body, that is what someone makes himself, as far as he can, when he rejects what happens and separates himself from the whole, or when he acts against the community. You have thrown yourself out of the natural unity. You were born to be a part of it, but now you have cut yourself off. Yet the remarkable thing is that you can join yourself to it again. God has not allowed any other part, once separated and cut off, to reunite. Consider the kindness with which he has honored humanity: he has put it in your power not to break away from the Whole in the first place, and, if you do break away, to return, grow back into it, and recover your place as a part.

35. We have received this ability from the nature of the universe, just as each rational being has received its other abilities from her. The nature of the universe takes everything that blocks and resists her, turns it to her purpose, puts it into the order of fate, and makes it part of herself. In the same way, a rational being can make any obstacle into material for its own use and employ it toward whatever goal it set out to reach.

36. Do not let the thought of your whole life overwhelm you. Do not think all at once about every painful thing that has probably happened or will happen. With each present difficulty, ask yourself: What is so unbearable about this task that I cannot endure it? You will be ashamed to answer. Then remind yourself that neither the future nor the past is weighing on you, but only the present. And the present becomes very small if you limit your attention to it alone and challenge your mind if it says it cannot bear even that by itself.

37. Are Panthea or Pergamus now sitting beside Verus’s coffin? Are Chabrias or Diotimus beside Hadrian’s? That is ridiculous. Even if they were sitting there, would the dead men notice? If they noticed, would they enjoy it? If they enjoyed it, would the mourners therefore be immortal? Were those mourners not also destined to grow old and then die? And after they died, what would the dead men do then? All of this is fat and blood in a sack.

38. He says, “If you can see clearly, look and judge with the wisest judgment.”

39. In the nature of a rational being, I see no virtue that opposes justice. But I do see self-control opposing pleasure.

40. If you take away your judgment about what seems to be causing you pain, you yourself remain completely safe.
“What do you mean by ‘you yourself’?”
Your reason.
“But I am not reason.”
Very well. Then do not let your reason distress itself. If some other part of you is suffering, let that part judge its own condition.

41. Something that blocks perception is bad for a living creature. Something that blocks its drive to act is likewise bad for a living creature. There is also something that obstructs and harms the constitution of a plant. In the same way, something that blocks the mind is bad for a thinking being. Apply all this to yourself. Are pain and pleasure affecting you? Your senses will deal with that. Has something blocked an action you set out to take? If you began without allowing for obstacles, this is already bad for you as a rational being. But if you take the common good into account, you have not yet been harmed or hindered. No one else can normally obstruct what belongs to the mind itself. Fire cannot touch it, nor iron, nor a tyrant, nor abuse, nor anything at all, once it has become “a sphere, round and firm.”

42. I should not make myself unhappy, since I have never intentionally made anyone else unhappy.

43. Different things make different people glad. What makes me glad is having a healthy ruling mind that rejects no person and nothing that happens to people, but looks at and accepts everything with goodwill and makes proper use of each thing.

44. Give this present time to yourself. People who are especially eager for fame after death do not consider that future generations will be the same kind of people as those who annoy them now. And those future people will also die. What does it matter to you at all whether they make such remarks or have such an opinion of you?

45. Pick me up and put me wherever you want. Wherever I am, I will keep my inner spirit at peace—that is, content so long as its state and its actions conform to its own nature. Is anything worth letting my mind become unhealthy and worse than it was: humiliated, full of desire, enslaved, and frightened? What could you find that is worth that?

46. Nothing can happen to a human being unless it is something that can happen to humans. Nothing can happen to an ox unless it belongs to the life of an ox, to a vine unless it belongs to a vine, or to a stone unless it is proper to a stone. So if what happens to each thing is usual and natural for it, why resent it? Universal nature has not brought you anything unbearable.

47. If something outside you upsets you, the thing itself is not troubling you; your judgment about it is. You can remove that judgment right now. But if something in your own state of mind upsets you, who is stopping you from correcting your belief? Similarly, if you are upset because you are not doing something that seems right to you, why not do it instead of being upset?
“But a stronger force prevents me.”
Then do not be upset, because it is not your fault that the action is not being done.
“But life is not worth living if it is not done.”
Then leave life with goodwill, just as a person who does accomplish it must also die, while remaining well-disposed toward those who obstruct you.

48. Remember that the ruling mind becomes impossible to defeat when it draws inward, is satisfied with itself, and does nothing it does not choose to do—even if its refusal is unreasonable. How much stronger is it, then, when it makes a reasoned and careful judgment? This is why a mind free from passions is a fortress. A person has no stronger place of safety; once there, no one can capture him. Anyone who has not recognized this is ignorant. Anyone who has recognized it but does not take refuge there is miserable.

49. Do not tell yourself anything beyond what your initial impressions report. You have been told that someone is speaking badly of you. That is what you were told. You were not told that you had been harmed. I see that the child is sick. I see that, but I do not see that the child is in danger. So always stay with your first impressions. Add no judgment of your own from within, and nothing will happen to you. Better still, add only what a person who understands everything that happens in the universe would add.

50. Is a cucumber bitter? Throw it away.
Are there thorn bushes in the road? Walk around them.
That is enough. Do not go on to ask, “Why did these things come to exist in the universe?” Someone who studies nature will laugh at you, just as a carpenter or shoemaker would laugh if you complained because you saw wood shavings or scraps from their work lying in the workshop. They have somewhere to throw their waste, but the nature of the whole has nothing outside itself. The amazing thing about its skill is that, because it is self-contained, it changes into itself everything inside it that seems to decay, grow old, and become useless. Then it makes new and young things out of that same material. It therefore needs no matter from outside and no place to dump what has rotted. Its own space, its own material, and its own skill are enough for it.

51. Do not delay in your actions, be confused in your conversations, wander among your impressions, let your mind contract completely or burst outward, or be too busy in your life.
“They kill us, cut us to pieces, and chase us with curses.”
What does any of that have to do with keeping the mind pure, sensible, self-controlled, and just? Imagine someone standing beside a clear, sweet spring and insulting it. The spring does not stop producing drinkable water. Even if he throws mud or manure into it, the spring will quickly disperse and wash it away, and it will not be stained. How can you have an ever-flowing spring rather than a mere well? By keeping yourself free at every moment, with goodwill, honesty, and a sense of honor.

52. Someone who does not know that there is a universe does not know where he is. Someone who does not know what the universe is naturally for knows neither who he is nor what the universe is. And if he leaves out any one of these facts, he cannot say what he himself was born for. What do you think, then, of a person who avoids or seeks the praise of applauding crowds who know neither where they are nor who they are?

53. Do you want praise from someone who curses himself three times an hour? Do you want to please someone who is not pleased with himself? Can a person be pleased with himself when he regrets nearly everything he does?

54. Do not merely share your breath with the air around you. From now on, also bring your thought into harmony with the intelligence surrounding everything. The power of intelligence is spread and flows everywhere for anyone willing to draw it in, just as air is available to anyone able to breathe.

55. Vice as a whole does not harm the universe, and any one person’s vice does not harm another person. It harms only the person who has it—and that person is free of it as soon as he chooses to be.

56. Another person’s power of choice is no more relevant to my own power of choice than his small breath or his bit of flesh. Even though we were made especially for one another, each person’s ruling mind has authority over itself. Otherwise another person’s wrongdoing would be bad for me. God did not allow that, so that my failure to live well would not depend on someone else.

57. The sun seems to pour itself out, and its light does spread everywhere, but it is not emptied out. This spreading is really an extension. That is why its beams are called rays: they reach outward. You can see what a ray is like if you watch sunlight enter a darkened house through a narrow opening. It extends in a straight line and seems to press against any solid object it meets, which blocks off the air beyond. There it stops; it does not slide down or fall. The mind should spread and extend in the same way. It should not spill itself away, but reach outward. It should not press violently or rush against the obstacles it meets, nor should it collapse. It should stand firm and shine on whatever receives it. Anything that does not let the light pass through will deprive itself of that light.

58. Anyone who fears death is afraid either of feeling nothing or of feeling in a different way. If you no longer have any sensation, you will not feel anything bad. If you gain a different kind of sensation, you will be a different kind of living creature, and you will not stop living.

59. People exist for one another. So either teach them or put up with them.

60. An arrow travels in one way and the mind in another. But even when the mind is being cautious or turning things over as it examines them, it still moves straight ahead toward its purpose.

61. Look into the directing mind of each person, and allow every other person to look into yours.

### Book IX

1. A person who does wrong acts irreverently toward the divine. The nature of the universe made rational beings for one another, so that they would help one another as each deserves and never cause harm. Anyone who violates her purpose is therefore acting irreverently toward the oldest of the gods. The nature of the universe is the nature of everything that exists, and everything that exists is naturally related to all other existing things.

A person who lies also acts irreverently toward this same goddess. She is called Truth and is the primary cause of everything true. Someone who lies deliberately acts irreverently because deception is wrongdoing. Someone who lies unintentionally does so because he is out of tune with the nature of the universe and creates disorder by opposing the nature of the world. A person who moves on his own toward views contrary to the truth is fighting against it. Nature had already given him the basic means of recognizing truth, but because he neglected them, he can no longer tell what is false from what is true.

Anyone who pursues pleasure as good and avoids pain as evil also acts irreverently. Such a person will often have to blame universal nature for giving things unfairly to bad and good people, since bad people are often surrounded by pleasures and possess the things that produce them, while good people meet with pain and the things that produce it. Also, a person who fears pain will eventually fear something that is going to happen in the universe, and that is already irreverent. A person who pursues pleasure will not keep from doing wrong, and that is clearly irreverent.

Universal nature treats certain things equally; if she did not, she would not produce both of each pair. People who want to follow nature and share her judgment must therefore treat those things equally too. So anyone who does not regard pain and pleasure, death and life, fame and lack of fame equally, though the nature of the universe uses them equally, is plainly acting irreverently.

When I say that universal nature uses these things equally, I mean that, in the course of events, they happen equally to the things that come into being and to those that arise afterward, through a primal impulse of providence. Following that impulse, providence advanced from an original beginning toward the present arrangement of the world, forming certain principles of what would come to be and assigning generative powers for substances, changes, and successions of this kind.

2. A better man would have left this world without ever experiencing lies, hypocrisy, self-indulgence, or vanity. Still, dying after becoming thoroughly sick of them is the next-best course. Or have you decided to remain with vice? Hasn’t your experience yet convinced you to escape this plague? The corruption of the mind is much more a plague than an unhealthy disturbance and change in the air around us. The second is a plague for living beings as living beings; the first is a plague for human beings as human beings.

3. Do not look down on death; accept it willingly, because it too is one of the things nature wants. Dissolving is like being young and becoming old, growing and reaching maturity, developing teeth, a beard, and grey hair, fathering a child, carrying a child, giving birth, and all the other natural processes brought by the stages of life.

So the reasonable human attitude is not to face death carelessly, impulsively, or arrogantly, but to wait for it as one of nature’s processes. Just as you now wait for the baby to come out of your wife’s womb, wait in the same way for the hour when your little soul will drop out of this casing.

If you also want a simple encouragement that speaks to the heart, consider carefully the things you are going to leave and the kinds of people among whom your soul will no longer be mixed up. You should not be irritated with them at all, but should care for them and put up with them gently. Still, remember that you will not be leaving people who share your beliefs. This alone, if anything, could have pulled you back and kept you alive: being allowed to live with people who had adopted the same beliefs. But as things are, you see how tiring the disagreements of life together are—enough to say:

“Come quickly, Death,
before I too forget who I am.”

4. A person who does wrong harms himself. A person who acts unjustly is unjust to himself, because he makes himself a bad person.

5. We often do wrong by failing to do something, not only by doing something.

6. All that is needed is an accurate judgment now, an action now that serves others, and an attitude now that accepts whatever happens from an external cause.

7. Wipe away the impression.
Stop the impulse.
Put out the desire.
Keep your directing mind under its own control.

8. One soul is divided among non-rational animals, and one thinking soul is shared among rational beings. In the same way, there is one earth for everything made of earth, and all living things that can see use one light to see and breathe one air.

9. Everything that shares something in common moves toward others of the same kind. Everything made of earth is drawn toward the earth. All liquid runs together. Air does the same, so barriers and force are needed to separate it. Fire moves upward because of elemental fire, but every fire here is so ready to catch together with another fire that any material which is even a little drier burns easily, since it contains less of what prevents ignition.

In the same way, everything that shares a common rational nature moves toward what is related to it—and does so even more strongly. The better it is than other things, the more ready it is to mix and unite with its own kind. So among non-rational animals we immediately find swarms, herds, care for offspring, and things like love. Souls were now present, and in the superior kind the force that draws things together was stronger than it was in plants, stones, or wood.

Among rational animals there are states, friendships, families, and associations, and in wartime there are treaties and truces. Among still higher beings, even though they are in some sense far apart, a unity exists, as it does among the stars. Rising to a higher level can therefore produce a shared bond even between things separated by distance.

Look, then, at what happens now. Rational beings alone have forgotten their concern for one another and their tendency to come together, and only here is no flowing together seen. Yet even when they try to escape, they are surrounded and held, because nature is stronger. Watch carefully and you will see what I mean: you would sooner find something made of earth that touches nothing earthly than a human being completely cut off from another human being.

10. A person, a god, and the universe all produce fruit; each does so at the proper time. It does not matter that ordinary usage has applied the word mainly to vines and similar things. Reason also produces both shared and particular fruit, and from it come other things like reason itself.

11. If you can, teach them better. If you cannot, remember that you have kindness for this purpose. The gods too are kind to people like them, and even help them in some things—with health, wealth, and reputation. That is how good the gods are. You can be the same. Who is stopping you?

12. Make the effort, but not as if you were miserable or wanted people to pity or admire you. Want only this: to act or hold back as reason directed toward the common good demands.

13. Today I got out of every difficulty—or rather, I threw every difficulty out. It was not outside me but inside, in my judgments.

14. Everything is the same: familiar from experience, short-lived in time, and dirty in its material. Everything now is just as it was for those we buried.

15. Things remain outside us, simply as they are. They know nothing about themselves and make no judgments. What judges them, then? The mind that governs us.

16. For a rational and social being, good and bad are not found in what happens to it but in what it does. In the same way, its virtue and vice are found not in what it undergoes but in its actions.

17. A stone thrown upward is not harmed by coming down or benefited by going up.

18. Look inside their minds, and you will see what kind of judges you are afraid of and how poorly they judge even themselves.

19. Everything is changing. You too are constantly being altered and, in some respect, destroyed. The whole universe is as well.

20. Leave another person's wrongdoing with that person.

21. When an action ends, or an impulse or judgment stops, that is a kind of death, but it is not bad. Now think of the stages of life: childhood, adolescence, youth, and old age. Every change from one to another is a death too. Is that frightening? Think next of your life with your grandfather, then with your mother, then with your father. As you find many other endings, changes, and losses, ask yourself whether any of them was frightening. In the same way, the ending, stopping, and changing of your entire life is not frightening either.

22. Turn quickly to your own governing mind, to the mind of the universe, and to the other person's mind. Turn to your own so that you can make it just; to the universe's so that you remember what you are part of; and to the other person's so that you can tell whether he acts from ignorance or deliberate intent, while also considering that his mind is related to yours.

23. Just as you are a part that helps complete a community, every action you take should help complete a life in community. Any action that is not directed, either closely or remotely, toward the common goal breaks your life apart and keeps it from being unified. It is rebellious, like a person in a community who separates his own part from its shared harmony.

24. Children's tantrums and games, and “little breaths carrying dead bodies”—which makes the scene of the Journey to the Dead come vividly to mind.

25. Examine the quality of the cause by separating it in thought from the material, and look at it. Then set a limit to the longest time this particular kind of thing can naturally last.

26. You have suffered countless troubles because you were not satisfied with your governing mind doing what it was made to do. But that is enough.

27. When someone criticizes or hates you, or people say things like that about you, look into their small souls and see what kind of people they are. You will see that you do not need to be upset about what they think of you. Still, you must wish them well, because they are your friends by nature. The gods also help them in every way, through dreams and prophecies, at least to gain the things they care about.

28. The universe goes through the same cycles, up and down, from one age to another. Either the mind of the universe directs every single event; if so, accept what it directs. Or it gave one original impulse, and everything else follows as a result. So why resist? If the whole is God, everything is well. If it is chance—atoms or indivisible particles in some sense—do not you also behave at random.

The earth will soon cover all of us. Then the earth itself will change, and what it becomes will go on changing without end, and those later things will change without end as well. Anyone who thinks about the waves of change and alteration and the speed of everything mortal will look down on it all.

29. The cause of everything is a rushing torrent; it carries everything along. Human being, what are you doing? Do what nature requires now. Begin, if you have the opportunity, and do not look around to see whether anyone will notice. Do not expect Plato's ideal state. Be content if even the smallest thing moves forward, and do not think that this small result is unimportant.

How trivial these political figures are, though they imagine that they practice philosophy in public affairs. They are full of mucus. Who will change their beliefs? Without a change in beliefs, what can there be except the slavery of people who groan and pretend to obey?

Now go ahead and tell me about Alexander, Philip, and Demetrius of Phalerum. I will follow them if they understood what universal nature wanted and trained themselves accordingly. But if they merely acted like tragic heroes, no one has condemned me to imitate them. The work of philosophy is simple and modest. Do not draw me toward pompous self-importance.

30. “Look from above” at countless crowds and countless ceremonies, every kind of voyage in storms and calm weather, and the differences among people being born, living together, and dying. Think also of the lives other people lived long ago, the lives that will be lived after you, and the lives now being lived in foreign nations. Think how many people do not even know your name, how many will soon forget it, and how many who may praise you now will soon criticize you. Neither being remembered nor having fame nor anything else at all is of much value.

31. Remain calm about events caused by things outside you, and act justly in what comes from you. In other words, let your intentions and actions aim at acting for the common good, since that is natural for you.

32. You can remove many unnecessary things that bother you, since they depend entirely on your judgment, and immediately make a great deal of room for yourself. Hold the whole universe in your mind, think about endless time, and consider how quickly each individual thing changes: how short the time is from birth to dissolution, how vast the time before birth, and how equally endless the time after dissolution is.

33. Everything you see will soon perish. The people who see it perishing will soon perish too. And someone who dies at a very old age will end up no different from someone who dies young.

34. What are these people’s minds like? What do they care about, and what makes them love and honor things? Picture their petty souls naked. When they think they can hurt someone by criticizing him or help him by praising him, how conceited they are.

35. Loss is simply change. The nature of the universe takes pleasure in change, and by it everything happens as it should. Things have happened in the same way from eternity, and similar things will continue without end. So what are you saying? That everything has always gone badly and always will? That among so many gods there has never been any power able to put things right, and that the universe is condemned to remain trapped in endless evils?

36. Look at the decaying material each thing is made from: water, dust, small bones, fat. Marble is hardened earth, gold and silver are its deposits, clothes are hairs, and purple dye is blood. Everything else is like this too. The substance of breath is likewise material of this kind, changing from one of these forms into another.

37. Enough of this miserable life, this complaining and playacting. Why are you upset? What is new here? What throws you off balance? Is it the cause? Examine it. Is it the material? Examine that. There is nothing besides these two. And from now on, be more straightforward and gracious toward the gods.

38. It makes no difference whether you examine the history of these things for a hundred years or for three hundred.

39. If he did wrong, the harm is in him. But perhaps he did nothing wrong.

40. Either everything comes from one intelligent source and happens to the parts of a single body, in which case no part should complain about what happens for the good of the whole; or there are atoms, and nothing exists but a confused mixture and dispersion. So why are you upset? Say to your mind: “You are dead, ruined, and turned into an animal. You are pretending, joining the herd, and feeding with it.”

41. Either the gods can do nothing, or they can. If they can do nothing, why pray? If they can, why not ask them to help you stop fearing, wanting, or grieving over any of these things, rather than asking them to make some particular thing happen or not happen? If the gods can help human beings at all, they can certainly help them with this. But perhaps you will say, “The gods have put these matters in my own hands.” Then isn’t it better to use what is in your control freely than to struggle like a slave, humbly and helplessly, with what is not in your control? And who told you that the gods do not help us even with what is in our control? Start praying for these things and you will see.

One person prays, “How can I sleep with that woman?”
You should pray, “How can I stop wanting to sleep with her?”

Another prays, “How can I get free of that man?”
You should pray, “How can I stop needing to get free of him?”

Another prays, “How can I avoid losing my child?”
You should pray, “How can I stop being afraid of losing my child?”

Change all your prayers in this way, and see what happens.

42. Epicurus says: “When I was ill, I did not talk about the pains of my poor body, and I did not chatter about such things with my visitors. I kept discussing the basic questions of nature, concentrating on how the mind can share in these disturbances of the flesh yet remain calm and preserve its own good. And I did not give the doctors a chance to boast over me as if they were achieving something. My life continued well and honorably.”

If you become ill, or find yourself in any other difficult situation, do as he did. Every philosophical school agrees that, whatever happens, we should not abandon philosophy or join in the idle talk of an uneducated person who knows nothing of nature. Focus only on what you are doing now and on the faculty with which you are doing it.

43. Whenever someone’s shameless behavior offends you, immediately ask yourself, “Is it possible for there to be no shameless people in the world?” No, it is not. So do not ask for the impossible. This person is one of the shameless people who must exist in the world. Keep the same thought ready when you meet a dishonest person, someone you cannot trust, or anyone else who does wrong. As soon as you remember that people of this kind cannot fail to exist, you will feel kinder toward each individual.

It also helps to consider immediately what strength nature has given human beings to deal with this particular fault. Nature has given gentleness as an antidote to the insensitive person, and some other ability to meet each different fault. In every case, you can teach someone who has gone astray. Everyone who does wrong misses the goal he was aiming at and loses his way.

Besides, how have you been harmed? You will find that none of the people you are angry with has done anything that had to make your mind worse. But that is where everything bad and harmful to you exists. What is bad or surprising about an uneducated person behaving like an uneducated person? Consider whether you should blame yourself instead, because you did not expect him to do this wrong. Your reason gave you grounds for thinking that he was likely to do it, but you forgot, and now you are surprised that he did.

Most of all, when you accuse someone of being untrustworthy or ungrateful, turn your attention back to yourself. The mistake is clearly yours: either you trusted that a person with such a character would keep his word, or you did him a favor without giving it completely and without receiving the full benefit from the act of doing it itself.

What more do you want after doing someone good? Isn’t it enough that you have acted according to your own nature? Do you also want a reward for it? That would be like the eye asking to be paid for seeing, or the feet for walking. Eyes and feet were made for particular functions, and by acting according to their own design they receive what belongs to them. In the same way, a human being is naturally made to help others. Whenever he does something helpful, or contributes in some other way to shared purposes, he has done what he was made to do and has received what belongs to him.

### Book X

1. Will you ever, soul, be good, sincere, whole, and bare—more clearly visible than the body surrounding you? Will you ever experience a loving and affectionate state of mind? Will you ever be full and need nothing, with no longing or desire for anything, living or lifeless, to give you pleasure? Will you need no extra time in which to enjoy it, no particular place or country or favorable climate, and no harmonious company? Instead, will you be satisfied with your present situation and pleased with everything you now have? Will you convince yourself that everything you have comes from the gods, that all is well with you and will remain well—whatever pleases them and whatever they choose to give for the preservation of the perfect living creature, which is good, just, and beautiful, which produces everything, holds everything together, surrounds everything, and takes dissolved things back into itself so that other things like them may come into being? Will you ever become fit to live as a fellow citizen with gods and human beings, neither blaming them for anything nor giving them cause to condemn you?

2. Pay attention to what your physical nature asks of you, and then do and accept it, provided that this will not harm your nature as a living being. Next, pay attention to what your nature as a living being asks of you, and accept all of it, provided that this will not harm your nature as a rational living being. Whatever is rational is also social. Follow these rules and do not concern yourself with anything else.

3. Anything that happens is either something you are naturally able to endure or something you are not. If you are naturally able to endure it, do not resent it; endure it as your nature enables you to do. If you are not able to endure it, do not resent it then either, because after it has used you up, it too will end. But remember that you are naturally able to endure anything that your own judgment can make bearable and tolerable by deciding that enduring it benefits you or is the right thing for you to do.

4. If someone is wrong, correct him kindly and point out what he has overlooked. If you cannot do that, blame yourself—or do not blame even yourself.

5. Whatever happens to you was prepared for you from eternity. From all eternity, the chain of causes wove together both your existence and the occurrence of this event.

6. Whether reality consists of atoms or is governed by Nature, begin with these facts: I am part of a whole governed by Nature, and I am closely related to the other parts of the same kind as me. If I remember this, then because I am a part of the whole, I will not be dissatisfied with anything the whole assigns me. Nothing that benefits the whole can harm a part. Every natural system contains nothing that is against its own good; and the cosmos has the further advantage that no external cause can force it to produce anything harmful to itself.

So, by remembering that I am part of a whole like this, I will be content with everything that happens. And because I am related to the other parts of my kind, I will do nothing that works against the community. Instead, I will care for those akin to me, direct every impulse toward the common good, and turn it away from the opposite. If I carry this out, my life must go smoothly, just as the life of a citizen would go smoothly if he moved from one action beneficial to his fellow citizens to another and gladly accepted whatever his city assigned him.

7. The parts of the whole—everything naturally contained in the cosmos—must decay. Here, however, “decay” means “change.” If this process is naturally both bad and unavoidable for the parts, then the whole could not be well governed, since its parts are made in various ways to change and be destroyed. Did Nature deliberately set out to harm her own parts, making them vulnerable to evil and certain to fall into it? Or did Nature fail to notice that this was happening? Neither possibility is believable.

Even if someone ignored Nature and explained these events by saying that things are simply made this way, it would be absurd to say both that the parts of the whole naturally change and that we should be surprised or upset when something supposedly contrary to nature happens. This is especially so because each thing dissolves back into the materials from which it was formed. Either the elements from which it was combined are scattered, or its solid matter changes into earth and its breathlike matter into air. In this way they too are taken back into the ordering reason of the whole, whether the cosmos is periodically consumed by fire or continually renewed through endless exchanges.

Do not imagine that the solid and breathlike matter in you is the same matter you had when you were first born. All of it came flowing into you yesterday or the day before from food and from the air you breathed. So what changes is what your body has taken in, not what your mother gave birth to. But even if you suppose that the original matter is what closely binds you to your individual identity, I do not think that this is actually relevant to the present point.

8. Choose these names for yourself: good, honorable, truthful, clear-minded, accepting, above-minded. Be careful not to acquire different names; and if you lose these, return to them quickly. Remember what they mean. “Clear-minded” means having the knowledge to distinguish each individual thing and allowing no irrelevant thought to enter. “Accepting” means willingly receiving what universal Nature assigns. “Above-minded” means raising the thinking part of yourself above pleasant or painful movements of the body, petty reputation, death, and everything else of that kind.

If you keep yourself worthy of these names without wanting other people to call you by them, you will become a different person and enter a different life. To go on being the person you have been until now, torn apart and stained in a life like this, is the conduct of someone extremely insensitive and desperately attached to life. Such a person resembles a half-eaten fighter of wild beasts who, covered with wounds and blood, still begs to be kept alive until tomorrow, though he will be thrown in that condition to the same claws and teeth.

Commit yourself, then, to these few names. If you can remain true to them, stay there as if you had moved to the islands of the blessed. But if you realize that you are falling away and cannot remain in control, go confidently to some quiet corner where you can regain control. Or leave life altogether—not angrily, but simply, freely, and honorably—having at least done this one thing in life: leaving it in this manner.

To help yourself remember these names, remember the gods. They do not want flattery; they want every rational being to become like them. They want the fig tree to do what belongs to a fig tree, the dog what belongs to a dog, the bee what belongs to a bee, and the human being what belongs to a human being.

9. Playacting, war, alarm, numbness, slavery. Every day your sacred principles will be wiped away, to the extent that you form impressions without studying nature and then neglect them. You must view and do everything so that you deal with the situation at hand, keep your understanding active at the same time, and quietly maintain the confidence that comes from knowing each thing—not hiding it, but not displaying it either. When, then, will you have simplicity? When will you have dignity? When will you know each thing—what it essentially is, what place it has in the universe, how long it is naturally able to last, what it is made of, who can possess it, and who can give or remove it?

10. A spider is proud when it catches a fly; a person when he catches a young hare; someone else when he nets a small fish; another when he catches piglets; another, bears; another, Sarmatians. If you examine their beliefs, are they not all bandits?

11. Develop a way of observing how everything changes into everything else. Keep paying attention to this and train yourself in it, because nothing does more to make the mind great. Such a person has shed his body. He understands that very soon he will have to leave all these things behind and depart from humanity, so he gives himself entirely to justice in what he himself does, and to the nature of the whole in everything else that happens. He does not even think about what anyone may say or believe about him, or do to him. He is satisfied with two things: doing his present action justly and loving what is presently assigned to him. He has abandoned every distraction and anxious effort. He wants only to follow a straight path through the law and, by following it, to follow God.

12. Why be suspicious when you can consider what needs to be done? If you understand it, move toward it calmly and without changing course. If you do not understand it, stop and consult the best advisers. If other things get in the way, proceed thoughtfully with the means you have, holding to what seems just. Achieving justice is best, since missing it is the real failure. A person who follows reason in everything is unhurried but ready to act, cheerful but self-controlled.

13. As soon as you wake, ask yourself: Will it matter to you if someone else criticizes what is just and right? It will not. Have you forgotten what the people who make such a commotion praising and blaming others are like in bed and at meals? What they do, avoid, and chase after? What they steal and grab—not with their hands and feet, but with the most valuable part of themselves, the part that can produce trustworthiness, decency, truth, law, and a good inner spirit whenever it chooses?

14. A well-taught and respectful person says to nature, which gives everything and takes everything back: “Give whatever you want; take back whatever you want.” He says this not arrogantly, but simply because he obeys nature and wishes her well.

15. The time left is short. Live as if you were on a mountain. It makes no difference whether you are there or here, if you live everywhere as a citizen of the universe. Let people see and study a genuine human being who lives according to nature. If they cannot tolerate him, let them kill him. That is better than living the way they do.

16. Stop talking about what a good person should be like. Be one.

17. Continually picture all of time and all of matter, and remember that each individual thing is no more than a grain of millet compared with all matter, and one turn of a drill compared with all time.

18. Whenever you focus on something, imagine it already breaking apart and changing, beginning to rot or scatter, or dying in whatever way is natural to that kind of thing.

19. Think what they are like when they eat, sleep, have sex, defecate, and do everything else. Then think what they are like when they give orders, act proudly, lose their tempers, and scold people from a position of superiority. Not long ago they were slaves to so many people and things—and soon they will be in that condition again.

20. Whatever the nature of the universe brings to each person is good for that person, and it is good at the time nature brings it.

21. The earth longs for rain,
and the solemn sky longs too;
the universe longs to bring about
whatever is going to happen.

So I tell the universe, “I long for it with you.” Is that not also why people say, “This tends to happen”?

22. Either you stay here, and you are used to it by now; or you leave, which is what you wanted; or you die, and your duty is finished. There is no other possibility. So be cheerful.

23. Always keep it clear that the countryside is like this too, and that everything here is the same as it is on top of a mountain, on the seashore, or anywhere you choose. You will find exactly what Plato describes: “enclosing himself in a pen on a mountain,” he says, “and milking the bleating sheep.”

24. What is my ruling mind? What am I making it into now, and what am I using it for? Is it empty of reason? Is it cut off and separated from community? Is it stuck and mixed into this bit of flesh so that it changes whenever the body does?

25. Someone who runs away from his master is a fugitive. The law is our master, so anyone who breaks the law is a fugitive. In the same way, a person who is distressed, angry, or afraid does not want some past, present, or future event that has been ordered by the ruler of everything. That ruler is the law, which assigns to each person what is due to him. So anyone who is afraid, distressed, or angry is a fugitive.

26. A man releases seed into a womb and goes away. Then another cause takes over, works on it, and produces a baby. What a thing is made from such a thing! Again, he sends food down his throat. Then another cause takes over and produces perception, desire, life as a whole, strength, and many other remarkable things. So observe what happens under this covering, and see the power at work just as we see the forces that pull things down and carry them up—not with our eyes, but just as clearly.

27. Keep thinking how everything happening now also happened before, and how it will happen again. Picture entire dramas and similar scenes that you know from your own experience or from older history: the whole court of Hadrian, the whole court of Antoninus, and the whole courts of Philip, Alexander, and Croesus. All of them were the same kind of thing; only the people were different.

28. Think of anyone who is upset or unhappy about anything as a piglet being sacrificed, kicking and squealing. The person who lies alone on his bed and groans in silence is the same. Think of how we are bound, and of how only a rational living being is able to go willingly along with what happens, though everyone must go along with it in any case.

29. With each thing you do, stop and ask yourself: Is death frightening because I will no longer have this?

30. Whenever someone’s wrongdoing offends you, immediately turn to the similar ways in which you go wrong—for example, by thinking that money, pleasure, a little reputation, or something else of that kind is good. Focusing on this will quickly end your anger, especially when you also realize that the person is driven by something. What else can he do? Or, if you can, remove what is driving him.

31. When you see Satyrion, think of the earlier Socraticus, or of Eutyches or Hymen. When you see Euphrates, think of Eutychion or Silvanus; when you see Alciphron, think of Tropaeophorus; when you see Severus, think of Crito or Xenophon. When you look at yourself, think of one of the Caesars. Do the same with everyone by finding a comparable person from the past. Then ask yourself: Where are those people now? Nowhere—or wherever they may be. This will help you keep seeing human affairs as smoke and nothing, especially if you remember that once something has changed, it will never exist again in all of infinite time. So why strain yourself? Why is it not enough to pass through this short life decently?

32. What material and opportunity you are running away from! All these things are simply training for a mind that has examined life accurately and naturally. So remain until you can absorb even these things, just as a healthy stomach absorbs every kind of food and a bright fire turns whatever you throw into it into flame and light.

33. Do not let anyone truthfully say that you are dishonest or not good. Anyone who thinks this about you should be wrong. This is entirely up to you. Who is stopping you from being good and honest? Decide simply that you will not go on living unless you are that kind of person, since reason does not choose life without goodness and honesty.

34. What is the most reasonable thing you can do or say with the situation in front of you? Whatever it is, you are free to do or say it, so do not claim that something prevents you.

You will not stop complaining until acting as a human being should in every situation that comes your way feels as pleasant to you as luxury feels to people devoted to pleasure. You should consider every action you can perform in keeping with your own nature an enjoyment. You can do that everywhere.

A cylinder cannot follow its natural motion everywhere. Neither can water, fire, or anything else controlled by physical nature or an unreasoning soul, because many things block and resist them. But mind and reason can pass through everything that opposes them in the way their nature and will require. Keep before your eyes how easily reason can move through everything—like fire moving upward, a stone downward, or a cylinder down a slope—and ask for nothing more. Every other obstacle either affects the body, which is a little corpse, or else cannot crush, injure, or harm you at all unless you judge it harmful and reason itself gives way. Otherwise, anyone who suffered something would immediately become a bad person. With every other kind of thing, if something bad happens to it, the thing affected becomes worse because of it. But in this case, we might even say that a person becomes better and more worthy of praise by using well whatever happens.

In short, remember that nothing can harm a natural citizen unless it harms the city, and nothing can harm the city unless it harms the law. None of the events called misfortunes harms the law. Therefore, what does not harm the law harms neither the city nor its citizen.

35. For someone deeply affected by true principles, even a very short and familiar saying is enough to remind him not to grieve or be afraid. For example:

“The wind scatters some leaves on the ground;
the generations of men are the same.”

Your children are little leaves too. So are the people who loudly and convincingly praise and celebrate you, and those who instead curse you or quietly criticize and ridicule you. The people who inherit your reputation after death are also little leaves. They all “appear in the season of spring”; then the wind knocks them down, and the forest grows others in their place. Everything lasts only a short time, but you avoid and chase things as if they would last forever. Soon you will close your eyes, and before long someone else will mourn the person who carried your body out.

36. A healthy eye should see everything that can be seen and not say, “I only want green things.” That is what a diseased eye does. Healthy hearing and smell should be ready for every sound and scent, and a healthy stomach should accept every kind of food, just as a mill accepts everything it was built to grind. In the same way, a healthy mind should be ready for everything that happens. A mind that says, “My children must stay safe,” or “Everyone must praise whatever I do,” is like an eye that wants only green things or teeth that want only soft food.

37. No one is so fortunate that, when he dies, some people standing nearby will not be glad about the bad thing that has happened to him. Even if he was a good and wise man, will there not be someone who finally says to himself, “At last we can breathe freely without this teacher. He was not hard on any of us, but I could tell that he silently disapproved of us”? That is true even of a good person. As for us, there are many more reasons why plenty of people will be eager to get rid of us.

Remember this when you are dying, and you will leave more easily if you think: “I am leaving a life in which my own companions—the people for whom I struggled, prayed, and cared so much—want me to go, perhaps hoping they will gain some other kind of relief from it.” So why would anyone cling to a longer stay here?

But do not leave them with any less goodwill because of this. Keep your own character and remain friendly, kind, and gracious to them. Do not leave as if you were being torn away. When someone dies peacefully, the small soul slips easily from the body; your departure from these people should be like that. Nature joined and united you with them, but now it is separating you. I am parting from people who are my own, but without resisting and without being forced. This too is natural.

38. Whenever someone does something, make a habit of asking yourself, as far as you can, “What is this person trying to achieve by doing this?” But start with yourself: examine yourself first.

39. Remember that what pulls the strings is what lies hidden inside. It is the active force, it is life, it is—if we must say so—the person. Never confuse it in your mind with the container-like body around it or with the organs formed around it. They are like an adze, except that they are naturally attached to us. Without the cause that moves and controls them, these parts are no more useful than a shuttle is to a weaver, a pen to a writer, or a whip to a charioteer.

### Book XI

1. These are the rational soul’s own qualities: it sees itself, examines and organizes itself, and makes itself whatever it chooses to be. It receives the fruit it produces itself, whereas other people receive the fruits of plants and the corresponding products of animals. It reaches its own proper completion wherever the end of life finds it. This is unlike a dance, a dramatic performance, or anything similar, where an interruption leaves the whole action unfinished. At every stage, and wherever it is stopped, the rational soul can make what it set out to do complete and sufficient in itself, so that it can say, “I have received everything that is mine.” It also travels in thought through the entire universe, the empty space around it, and its shape. It extends into the infinity of time, takes in and understands the periodic renewal of all things, and sees that our descendants will see nothing new and our ancestors saw nothing more remarkable. In a sense, a forty-year-old with even a little understanding has already seen everything that has happened and everything that will happen, because it all belongs to the same kinds. Other qualities proper to a rational soul are loving those near us, truthfulness, self-respect, and placing nothing above itself. This last quality also belongs to law. So right reason and the reason that governs justice are no different.

2. You will cease to admire a pleasing song, a dance, or a pancration contest if you break the musical voice down into its individual notes and ask yourself about each note, “Am I unable to resist this?” You will be ashamed to say so. Do the same with a dance by considering each movement or pose separately, and likewise with the pancration. In general, except in the case of virtue and what comes from virtue, remember to go straight to the individual parts of things. By analyzing them into parts, you will stop overvaluing them. Apply the same method to life as a whole.

3. Consider the kind of soul that is ready, if it must leave the body now, either to be extinguished, scattered, or to continue existing. Its readiness should come from its own considered judgment, not from mere defiance like that of the Christians. It should be rational and dignified, capable of convincing someone else, and free of dramatic display.

4. Have I done something that benefits the community? Then I have benefited myself. Always keep this thought available, and never stop acting on it.

5. What is your profession? Being a good person. How can you do that except through principles about the nature of the universe and about the particular way a human being is constituted?

6. Tragedies were originally produced to remind us of what happens in life: these events naturally occur as they do, and the things that entertain you on the stage should not upset you on the larger stage of life. You can see that these events must end this way and that even the people who cry,

“Oh, Cithaeron!”

endure them. Playwrights also say some useful things, especially this:

“If the gods have neglected me and my two children,
even this has a reason.”

And again:

“We should not be angry with events.”

And:

“To harvest life like a ripe, fruitful ear of grain.”

And other sayings like these.

After tragedy came Old Comedy. It spoke freely like a teacher and, through its direct language, usefully reminded people not to be conceited. Diogenes also used it for a similar purpose. Next consider what Middle Comedy was, and then what purpose New Comedy came to serve as it gradually turned into an elaborate art of imitation. Everyone knows that these poets also say some useful things. But what was the overall aim of this kind of poetry and playwriting?

7. It is perfectly clear that no situation in life is better suited to practicing philosophy than the one you are in now.

8. When a branch is cut away from the branch connected to it, it is necessarily cut away from the whole tree as well. In the same way, a person who separates himself from another person has fallen away from the whole community. Someone else cuts off a branch, but a person separates himself from his neighbor by hating and rejecting him. He does not realize that he has also cut himself off from the entire human commonwealth. Still, Zeus, who formed the community, has given us this gift: we can grow together again with the person next to us and once more become parts that help complete the whole. But if this kind of separation happens repeatedly, it makes the separated part hard to reunite and restore. In general, a branch that grew together with the tree from the beginning and remained joined to it in one living breath is not the same as one grafted back after it was cut off, whatever gardeners may say.

Grow from the same stock, but do not hold the same beliefs.

9. People who obstruct you while you proceed according to right reason cannot turn you away from sound action. In the same way, do not let them knock you out of your goodwill toward them. Be equally careful in both respects: keep your judgment and action steady, and remain gentle toward people who try to stop you or otherwise make things difficult. Getting angry with them is also a weakness, just as it is weak to abandon what you are doing and give in because you are frightened. Both people are deserters: the person who retreats and the person who alienates himself from someone who is by nature his relative and friend.

10. Nature is never less capable than a craft, since crafts imitate nature. If that is true, then the nature that is the most complete and includes all others cannot lack the resourcefulness found in craftsmanship. Every craft makes inferior things for the sake of superior ones, and universal Nature must do the same. This is the source of justice, and the other virtues are founded on justice. Justice cannot be maintained if we treat indifferent things as though some truly matter more than others, or if we are easily deceived, rush into judgments, and keep changing our minds.

11. The things that disturb you because you want them or want to avoid them are not coming after you. In a sense, you are the one going toward them. So let your judgment about them become quiet. They will remain still, and you will no longer appear to be chasing them or running away from them.

12. The soul is a sphere that keeps its own shape when it does not stretch outward toward anything or contract inward, when it is neither twisted nor collapsed, but shines with the light by which it sees the truth of everything and the truth within itself.

13. Will someone despise me? That is his concern. My concern is not to be found doing or saying anything deserving contempt. Will he hate me? That is his concern. I will stay kind and friendly toward everyone, including him, and be ready to point out his mistake—not as a reproach, and not to show off how tolerant I am, but sincerely and helpfully, like the famous Phocion, if he was not merely pretending. This is how a person must be inwardly, so that the gods see someone who resents nothing and treats nothing as a calamity. What harm is there for you if you are now doing what suits your own nature and accepting what is now timely for the nature of the universe, as a human being determined to become, in whatever way possible, a means to the common good?

14. People despise one another while trying to please one another, and while wanting to be superior to one another, they grovel before one another.

15. How false and corrupt it is to say, “I have decided to be straightforward with you.” What are you doing? You do not need to announce this. It will show by itself; it should be written on your face. Your voice should immediately sound that way, and it should immediately be visible in your eyes, just as a loved person instantly recognizes everything in a lover’s look. A straightforward and good person should simply be like a strong smell: anyone nearby notices it as soon as he comes close, whether he wants to or not. Deliberately performing simplicity is a concealed weapon. Nothing is more shameful than a wolf pretending friendship. Avoid that above all. A good, straightforward, kind person has these qualities in his eyes, and they are obvious.

16. The ability to live the best possible life is in the soul, if a person treats indifferent things as indifferent. He will do this if he examines each thing both in its separate parts and as a whole, and remembers that none of these things gives us a judgment about itself or comes at us. The things themselves stay still. We are the ones who produce judgments about them and, so to speak, write those judgments inside ourselves. We do not have to write them; and if one gets in without our noticing, we can erase it immediately. Remember that you will need to keep up this attention for only a short time, and then life will end. Besides, what is so difficult about these things? If they are in accord with nature, welcome them, and they will be easy for you. If they are contrary to nature, look for what accords with your own nature and pursue it, even if it wins no approval. Everyone is allowed to seek his own good.

17. Where each thing came from, what materials it is made from, what it changes into, what it will be after it changes, and how it will suffer no harm.

18. First, consider how I am related to them. We were born for one another, and from another point of view I was born to lead them, as a ram leads a flock or a bull a herd. But start from the highest premise: if reality is not atoms, then it is Nature governing the universe. If so, lower things exist for the sake of higher things, and higher things exist for one another.

Second, consider what they are like at the dinner table, in bed, and everywhere else. Above all, consider how the beliefs they hold force them to act, and how much arrogance they bring even to those actions.

Third, if what they do is right, you should not be annoyed. If it is not right, they clearly act unwillingly and without understanding. Every soul is unwillingly deprived of truth, just as it is unwillingly deprived of the ability to treat each person as he deserves. That is why people are upset when they hear themselves called unjust, ungrateful, greedy, or generally guilty of doing wrong to their neighbors.

Fourth, you also do many things wrong and are the same kind of person. Even if you avoid some wrong actions, you still have a character capable of them, although cowardice, concern for what people think, or some similar fault may keep you from committing the same wrongs.

Fifth, you do not even know for certain that they are doing wrong. Many things are done as part of a larger plan. In general, you must learn a great deal before you can make a reliable judgment about someone else’s action.

Sixth, when you are extremely angry or distressed, remember that human life lasts only an instant, and before long all of us will be laid out dead.

Seventh, their actions do not trouble us, because those actions are in their own ruling minds. Our judgments trouble us. So remove your judgment that the act is something terrible—choose to let it go—and your anger disappears. How can you remove it? By realizing that it brings no shame on you. If moral disgrace is not the only evil, then you will inevitably have to do many wrongs yourself and become a robber or any other kind of criminal.

Eighth, the anger and grief we feel over such things cause far more pain than the things we are angry and grieved about.

Ninth, kindness cannot be defeated, if it is sincere and not a smirk or an act. What can even the most offensive person do to you if you keep treating him kindly and, when the opportunity comes, advise him gently and calmly correct him at the very time he is trying to harm you? “No, child. We were made for something else. I will not be harmed; you are harming yourself, child.” Show him tactfully and from a broad perspective that this is true, and that not even bees behave this way, nor do any animals naturally meant to live together. But do not do this sarcastically or reproachfully. Do it with affection and without resentment in your soul, not as though you were giving a lecture or trying to impress a bystander, but as if you were speaking to him alone, even if other people are standing nearby.

Remember these nine points as gifts from the Muses, and while you are still alive, begin at last to be a human being. But you must avoid flattering people just as carefully as you avoid getting angry with them. Both responses reject fellowship and cause harm. When you are angry, keep this thought at hand: being furious is not manly. Gentleness and calm are more human and therefore more masculine. The gentle person, not the angry and dissatisfied one, has strength, toughness, and courage. The closer gentleness is to freedom from passion, the closer it is to power. Grief is a weakness, and so is anger: both the grieving and the angry have been wounded and have given in.

If you wish, take a tenth gift from the Leader of the Muses: it is insane to expect bad people not to do wrong, since that demands the impossible. But to allow them to wrong other people while expecting them not to wrong you is callous and tyrannical.

19. There are four movements of the ruling mind that you must watch for constantly and erase whenever you detect them. In each case, tell yourself: “This impression is unnecessary”; “This breaks apart our fellowship”; “What you are about to say does not come from your own mind.” Consider it utterly wrong to say something that does not come from yourself. The fourth movement, for which you reproach yourself, occurs when the more divine part within you is defeated and submits to the lower, mortal part—the body and its crude pleasures.

20. Everything in you made of air and fire, though naturally inclined to rise, obeys the order of the universe and is kept here in the body. And everything in you made of earth and water, though naturally inclined to sink, has been lifted up and remains in a position that is not natural to it. In this way the elements obey the universe: once put in place, they stay bound there by force until the universe gives the signal that allows them to separate again.

So is it not terrible that your reasoning part alone should disobey and be angry at the place assigned to it? Nothing unnatural is required of it, but only what suits its own nature. Yet it refuses and moves in the opposite direction. For every movement toward injustice, lack of self-control, anger, sorrow, or fear is simply a departure from nature. And whenever the ruling mind is displeased with something that happens, it too abandons its proper place. It was made for holiness and respect for the divine just as much as for justice. These qualities are also forms of living well with others; in fact, they come before acts of justice.

21. “Anyone who does not always have the same purpose in life cannot remain the same person through the whole of life.” But that statement is not enough unless you add what this purpose should be. People do not agree in their judgment about everything that most people regard as good; they agree only about certain kinds of good, that is, goods shared by all. In the same way, the purpose one adopts must be social and concerned with the community. A person who directs all his own impulses toward this purpose will make all his actions consistent and will therefore always remain the same.

22. Remember the country mouse and the house mouse, and the house mouse’s panic and running about.

23. Socrates called popular beliefs “Lamias,” things used to frighten children.

24. At public events, the Spartans gave visitors seats in the shade and sat wherever they happened to find a place.

25. Socrates explained why he would not visit Perdiccas: “So that I do not die the worst kind of death,” meaning that he might be treated well and be unable to repay the favor.

26. The Epicurean writings contained this instruction: keep reminding yourself of someone from earlier times who lived virtuously.

27. The Pythagoreans taught that we should look at the sky at daybreak, so that we remember the heavenly bodies that always perform their task in the same course and the same way, and remember their order, purity, and openness. Nothing covers a star.

28. Remember how Socrates looked wearing only a sheepskin after Xanthippe took his cloak and went out, and what he said to his friends when they saw him dressed that way, felt embarrassed, and withdrew.

29. In learning to write and read, you do not become a teacher before you have been taught. This is even more true of life.

30. You were born a slave; you have no part in rational speech.

31. And my heart laughed with joy.

32. They will criticize virtue and speak harshly of it.

33. It is madness to look for a fig in winter. The same is true of someone who looks for his child when the child is no longer given to him.

34. Epictetus said that when you kiss your child, you should tell yourself: “Perhaps tomorrow he will die.”

“That is an ominous thing to say.”

“There is nothing ominous,” he replied, “about referring to a natural event. Otherwise it would also be ominous to say that the grain will be harvested.”

35. An unripe grape, a ripe bunch, a raisin: each is a change, not into nonexistence, but into something that does not exist now.

36. No one can steal your faculty of choice. The saying is Epictetus’.

37. He said: “We need to develop skill in deciding what to accept as true. Where our impulses are concerned, we must stay attentive, so that they include a reservation, benefit others, and match what each situation deserves. We must completely avoid desire, and feel aversion toward nothing outside our control.”

38. He said: “What is at stake is not something trivial, but whether or not we are insane.”

39. Socrates said:

“What do you want—to have rational souls or irrational ones?”

“Rational ones.”

“What kind of rational souls—healthy or defective?”

“Healthy ones.”

“Then why are you not looking for them?”

“Because we already have them.”

“Then why do you fight and disagree with one another?”

### Book XII

1. You can already possess everything you pray to reach by a long route, if you do not deny it to yourself. To do that, leave the whole past behind, entrust the future to providence, and guide the present alone toward reverence and justice. Be reverent by loving what is assigned to you, because nature brought it to you and brought you to it. Be just by speaking the truth freely and plainly, and by acting according to law and according to what each person deserves. Do not let another person’s wrongdoing, an opinion, a spoken word, or even a sensation in the small body surrounding you get in your way; the part that suffers will take care of that. So whenever you are about to leave life, abandon everything else and honor only your governing mind and the divine element within you. Do not fear that you will someday stop living; fear instead that you may never have begun to live according to nature. Then you will be a person worthy of the world that gave you birth. You will stop being a foreigner in your own country, being amazed at daily events as if they were unexpected, and depending on one thing after another.

2. God sees every governing mind naked, without its material containers, coverings, and waste. With his intelligence alone, he makes contact only with what has flowed from himself and been directed into those minds. If you train yourself to do this too, you will remove much of your distraction. Anyone who does not look at the pieces of flesh around a person will certainly not waste time looking at clothes, a house, reputation, and all the other outward display and stage setting.

3. You are made of three things: a small body, a small breath of life, and a mind. The first two are yours only in the sense that you must take care of them. Only the third is fully your own. So separate from yourself—that is, from your thinking—everything other people do or say; everything you have done or said; everything in the future that disturbs you; everything involuntary that belongs to the body around you or to the breath joined with it from birth; and everything swept about by the whirl of events outside you. Let your power of thought be detached from all that fate has bound to it, so that it can live on its own, pure and free, doing what is right, wanting what happens, and telling the truth. Separate, I mean, from your governing mind everything attached to it by emotional dependence, as well as everything in time that is still to come or has already passed. Make yourself like Empedocles’ sphere,

perfectly round, delighting in the solitude around it,

and practice living only the life you are living now—the present. Then you will be able to live the time left before death without disturbance, with goodwill, and at peace with your own inner divinity.

4. I have often wondered why every person loves himself more than anyone else, yet values his own opinion of himself less than other people’s opinion. If a god appeared beside him, or a wise teacher told him not to think anything privately that he would not immediately say out loud, he could not bear it for even one day. This is how much more we care about what those around us will think of us than about what we think of ourselves.

5. How could the gods have arranged everything well and kindly toward humanity, yet overlooked this one thing: that some people who were thoroughly good, who had formed more bonds with the divine than most, and who had long become close to it through holy deeds and sacred rites, should die once and never exist again, but be completely extinguished? But if that really is what happens, be sure that if things needed to be different, the gods would have made them different. If it were just, it would also be possible; and if it were natural, nature would have produced it. Since it is not so, if in fact it is not, take that as proof that it did not need to be so. You can see that by pushing this question further, you are arguing a case against God. But we would not argue this way with the gods unless they were perfectly good and just. And if they are, they would not have let anything in the order of the world be unfairly and unreasonably neglected.

6. Practice even the things you have given up hope of doing. The left hand is clumsy at other tasks because it lacks practice, but it holds the reins more firmly than the right hand, because it is used to doing that.

7. What your body and soul should be like when death overtakes you;
how short life is;
how endless the eternity is behind you and ahead of you;
how weak all matter is.

8. See causes without their coverings;
see what actions are aiming at;
what pain is;
what pleasure is;
what death is;
what reputation is;
how each person causes his own lack of peace;
how no one is blocked by someone else;
how everything depends on judgment.

9. When using your principles, be like an unarmed all-in fighter, not a swordsman. A swordsman puts down the sword he uses, and it can be taken away. The fighter always has his hand with him and only needs to make a fist.

10. Look at the things themselves, separating each into its material, its cause, and its purpose.

11. A human being has great power: to do only what God will approve, and to accept whatever God assigns him as the next event in nature.

12. Do not blame the gods, because they never do wrong, either deliberately or accidentally. Do not blame people, because they do wrong only without understanding. So blame no one.

13. Anyone who is surprised at anything that happens in life is absurd and out of place in the world.

14. There is either the necessity of fate and an unbreakable order, or a providence that can answer prayer, or an uncontrolled mixture of chance. If necessity is unbreakable, why fight it? If there is providence that can be appealed to, make yourself worthy of divine help. If there is only a mixture with nothing in command, be glad that in such a storm you have a governing mind within you. And if the storm sweeps you away, let it sweep away the small body, the small breath,

15. and everything else; it will not sweep away your mind. A lamp keeps shining until it goes out and does not lose its light beforehand. So will the truth, justice, and self-control within you go out before you do?

16. When someone makes you think he has done wrong, ask: How do I know that this is wrong? And even if he did wrong, how do I know that he has not condemned himself? In that case, he is like someone scratching his own face.

Wanting a bad person not to do wrong is like wanting a fig tree not to produce sap in its figs, babies not to cry, a horse not to neigh, and other unavoidable things not to happen. What else can a person with that kind of character do? So if you are capable, cure that character.

17. If an action is not right, do not take it. If a statement is not true, do not make it. Always aim to see exactly what is causing your impression, and analyze it by separating its cause, its material, what it relates to, and the time by which it will have ceased.

18. Realize that there is something in you stronger and more divine than the things that produce your emotions and pull your strings. What occupies my mind now? Is it fear? Suspicion? Desire? Something else like these?

19. First, do nothing aimlessly or without a purpose. Second, direct your actions only toward the social end.

20. Soon you will exist nowhere, and neither will anything you now see or anyone now living. Everything naturally changes, is transformed, and passes away, so that other things can come after it.

21. Everything depends on judgment, and that judgment is under your control. Remove it whenever you wish. Then it is like sailing around a headland into calm water: everything is stable, and the bay is free of waves.

22. A particular activity that stops at the right time is not harmed simply because it has stopped. The person who performed it is likewise not harmed simply because it ended. In the same way, the whole series of actions that makes up a life is not harmed if it ends at the right time, just because it ends. Nor is a person put in a bad condition by bringing that sequence to an end at the proper time.

Nature determines the proper time and limit. Sometimes a person’s own nature does so, as in old age, but the nature of the universe always does. As its parts change, the whole cosmos remains forever young and vigorous. Whatever serves the whole is always beautiful and timely. So the ending of life is not bad for anyone, since it is not shameful: it is not a matter of choice, and it is not against our common bond. It is good if it comes at the right time for the whole, serves the whole, and moves in harmony with it. In this way, the person who follows the same course as God and deliberately moves toward the same ends is also carried by God.

23. Keep three points ready in your mind. First, in what you do, act neither aimlessly nor in any way other than Justice herself would act. As for events that come from outside, they happen either by chance or by providence. You should neither blame chance nor accuse providence.

Second, consider what each thing is like from its seed until it is given life, and from the time it is given life until it gives its soul back. Consider what it is made from and what it breaks down into.

Third, if you were suddenly raised high above the earth and looked down at human life in all its variety, you would look on it with contempt when you also saw the vast numbers of beings inhabiting the air and the heavens around it. Every time you rose, you would see the same things: all of one kind and all short-lived. And these are what inspire pride.

24. Get rid of the judgment, and you are safe. What is stopping you from getting rid of it?

25. When something upsets you, you have forgotten that everything happens in accordance with the nature of the universe; that the mistake is someone else’s; and that everything which happens has always happened this way, will happen this way, and is now happening everywhere. You have forgotten how closely every human being is related to the entire human race—not through a small amount of blood or semen, but through a shared mind.

You have also forgotten that every person’s mind is divine and has flowed from that source; that nothing is anyone’s private possession, since your child, your body, and your soul itself have come from there; that everything is judgment; and that each person lives only in the present and loses only the present.

26. Keep remembering people who became extremely angry about something, and people who rose to prominence through great fame, disasters, feuds, or any kind of fortune. Then stop and ask: Where is all of that now? It is smoke and ash and a story—or not even a story.

Think also of examples like Fabius Catullinus at his country estate, Lusius Lupus in his gardens, Stertinius at Baiae, Tiberius on Capri, and Velius Rufus—in short, all the importance attached to moving to one place rather than another. See how cheap everything is that people struggle so hard to obtain, and how much more philosophical it is simply to use the material you have been given to make yourself just, self-controlled, and obedient to the gods. The pride that boasts of having no pride is the hardest pride of all to bear.

27. For those who ask, “Where have you seen the gods? How did you learn that they exist, so that you worship them?” First, they can in fact be seen. Besides, I have never seen my own soul, yet I respect it. It is the same with the gods: I continually experience what their power does, and from this I understand that they exist and revere them.

28. To preserve your life, see every thing fully for what it is: what its material is and what causes it. Do what is right with all your soul, and say what is true. What remains except to enjoy living by adding one good action to the next, without leaving even the shortest gap?

29. The sun’s light is one, although walls, mountains, and countless other things divide it. The substance shared by all things is one, although it is divided among countless bodies with their own particular qualities. Soul is one, although it is divided among countless living natures, each with its own boundaries. Rational soul is one, even though it seems to be separated.

The other components just mentioned—such as vital breaths and material foundations without sensation—are unrelated and foreign to one another. Even so, the force that unifies them and their tendency to move in the same directions hold them together. But a mind naturally reaches toward and joins with minds of its own kind, and its social feeling is not blocked by separation.

30. What are you trying to keep? Your continued existence? Does that mean sensation, impulse, growth, then stopping again, using your voice, and thinking? Which of these seems worth desiring? If each one is easy to disregard, move on to the final task: following reason and God. But you cannot do that consistently while valuing those other things and resenting the thought that death will take them away.

31. Think how small a part of infinite and immeasurable time is assigned to each person; it quickly disappears into eternity. Think how small a part of all substance and of the universal soul is yours, and on what a small clump of the whole earth you crawl. With all this in mind, consider nothing important except acting as your own nature directs and accepting what universal nature brings.

32. What use does your governing mind make of itself? Everything depends on that. Everything else, whether chosen or not chosen, is lifeless and smoke.

33. The strongest reason not to fear death is that even people who regarded pleasure as good and pain as bad still treated death with contempt.

34. If a person sees only what is fitting for the occasion as good, regards doing more actions in line with right reason as no better than doing fewer, and sees no difference between observing the world for a longer or a shorter time, then death is not frightening to that person either.

35. You are human, and you have been a citizen in this great city. What difference does it make to you whether it was for five years or fifty? What follows the laws is equal for everyone. So what is so terrible if the one sending you away from the city is not a tyrant or an unjust judge, but the nature that brought you into it? It is like a magistrate releasing from the stage the comic actor he had engaged.

“But I performed only three acts, not five.”

“That is fine. In life, three acts can be the whole play.”

The one who caused you to be put together then, and causes you to be dissolved now, decides what counts as complete. You are responsible for neither. So leave peacefully, since the one releasing you is peaceful too.

## Translation — George Long (1862)

> Complete public-domain English translation made directly from the Greek; all twelve books.

### Book I
1. From my Grandfather Verus, a kindly disposition and sweetness of temper.

2. From what I heard of my Father and my memory of him, modesty and manliness.

3. From my Mother, the fear of God, and generosity; and abstention not only from doing ill but even from the very thought of doing it; and furthermore to live the simple life, far removed from the habits of the rich.

4. From my Grandfather's Father, to dispense with attendance at public schools, and to enjoy good teachers at home, and to recognize that on such things money should be eagerly spent.

5. From my Tutor, not to side with the Green Jacket or the Blue at the races, or to back the Light-Shield Champion or the Heavy-Shield in the lists; not to shirk toil, and to have few wants, and to do my own work, and mind my own concerns; and to turn a deaf ear to slander.

6. From Diognetus, not to be taken up with trifles; and not to give credence to the statements of miracle-mongers and wizards about incantations and the exorcizing of demons, and such-like marvels; and not to keep quails, nor to be excited about such things: not to resent plain speaking; and to become familiar with philosophy and be a heaver first of Baccheius, then of Tandasis and Marcianus; and to write dialogues as a boy; and to set my heart on a pallet-bed and a pelt and whatever else tallied with the Greek regimen.

7. From Rusticus, to become aware of the fact that I needed amendment and training for my character; and not to be led aside into an argumentative sophistry; nor compose treatises on speculative subjects, or deliver little homilies, or pose ostentatiously as the moral athlete or unselfish man; and to eschew rhetoric, poetry, and fine language; and not to go about the house in my robes, nor commit any such breach of good taste; and to write letters without affectation, like his own letter written to my mother from Sinuessa; to shew oneself ready to be reconciled to those who have lost their temper and trespassed against one, and ready to meet them halfway as soon as ever they seem to be willing to retrace their steps; to read with minute care and not to be content with a superficial bird's-eye view; nor to be too quick in agreeing with every voluble talker; and to make the acquaintance of the Memoirs of Epictetus, which he supplied me with out of his own library.

8. From Apollonius, self-reliance and an unequivocal determination not to leave anything to chance; and to look to nothing else even for a moment save Reason alone; and to remain ever the same, in the throes of pain, on the loss of a child, during a lingering illness; and to see plainly from a living example that one and the same man can be very vehement and yet gentle: not to be impatient in instructing others; and to see in him a man who obviously counted as the least among his gifts his practical experience and facility in imparting philosophic truths; and to learn in accepting seeming favours from friends not to give up our independence for such things nor take them callously as a matter of course.

9. From Sextus, kindliness, and the example of a household patriarchally governed; and the conception of life in accordance with Nature; and dignity without affectation; and an intuitive consideration for friends; and a toleration of the unlearned and the unreasoning.

10. From Alexander the Grammarian, not to be captious; nor in a carping spirit find fault with those who import into their conversation any expression which is barbarous or ungrammatical or mispronounced, but tactfully to bring in the very expression, that ought to have been used, by way of answer, or as it were in joint support of the assertion, or as a joint consideration of the thing itself and not of the language, or by some such graceful reminder.

11. From Fronto, to note the envy, the subtlety, and the dissimulation which are habitual to a tyrant; and that, as a general rule, those amongst us who rank as patricians are somewhat wanting in natural affection.

12. From Alexander the Platonist, not to say to anyone often or without necessity, nor write in a letter, I am too busy, nor in this fashion constantly plead urgent affairs as an excuse for evading the obligations entailed upon us by our relations towards those around us.

13. From Catulus, not to disregard a friend's expostulation even when it is unreasonable, but to try to bring him back to his usual friendliness; and to speak with whole-hearted good-will of one's teachers, as it is recorded that Domitius did of Athenodotus; and to be genuinely fond of one's children.

14. From my 'brother' Severus, love of family, love of truth, love of justice, and (thanks to him!) to know Thrasea, Helvidius, Cato, Dion, Brutus; and the conception of a state with one law for all, based upon individual equality and freedom of speech, and of a sovranty which prizes above all things the liberty of the subject; and furthermore from him also to set a well-balanced and unvarying value on philosophy; and readiness to do others a kindness, and eager generosity, and optimism, and confidence in the love of friends; and perfect openness in the case of those that came in for his censure; and the absence of any need for his friends to surmise what he did or did not wish, so plain was it.

15. From Maximus, self-mastery and stability of purpose; and cheeriness in sickness as well as in all other circumstances; and a character justly proportioned of sweetness and gravity; and to perform without grumbling the task that lies to one's hand.

16. From my Father, mildness, and an unshakable adherence to decisions deliberately come to; and no empty vanity in respect to so-called honours; and a love of work and thoroughness; and a readiness to hear any suggestions for the common good; and an inflexible determination to give every man his due; and to know by experience when is the time to insist and when to desist; and to suppress all passion for boys.

17. From the Gods, to have good grandfathers, good parents, a good sister, good teachers, good companions, kinsmen, friends—nearly all of them; and that I fell into no trespass against any of them, and yet I had a disposition that way inclined, such as might have led me into something of the sort, had it so chanced; but by the grace of God there was no such coincidence of circumstances as was likely to put me to the test.

### Book II
1. Say to thyself at daybreak: I shall come across the busy-body, the thankless, the bully, the treacherous, the envious, the unneighbourly. All this has befallen them because they know not good from evil. But I, in that I have comprehended the nature of the Good that it is beautiful, and the nature of Evil that it is ugly, and the nature of the wrong-doer himself that it is akin to me, not as partaker of the same blood and seed but of intelligence and a morsel of the Divine, can neither be injured by any of them—for no one can involve me in what is debasing—nor can I be wroth with my kinsman and hate him. For we have come into being for co-operation, as have the feet, the hands, the eyelids, the rows of upper and lower teeth. Therefore to thwart one another is against Nature; and we do thwart one another by shewing resentment and aversion.

2. This that I am, whatever it be, is mere flesh and a little breath and the ruling Reason. Away with thy books! Be no longer drawn aside by them: it is not allowed. But as one already dying disdain the flesh: it is naught but gore and bones and a network compact of nerves and veins and arteries. Look at the breath too, what sort of thing it is; air: and not even that always the same, but every minute belched forth and again gulped down. Then, thirdly, there is the ruling Reason. Put thy thought thus: thou art an old man; let this be a thrall no longer, no more a puppet pulled aside by every selfish impulse; nor let it grumble any longer at what is allotted to it in the present or dread it in the future.

3. Full of Providence are the works of the Gods, nor are Fortune's works independent of Nature or of the woven texture and interlacement of all that is under the control of Providence. Thence are all things derived; but Necessity too plays its part and the Welfare of the whole Universe of which thou art a portion. But good for every part of Nature is that which the Nature of the Whole brings about, and which goes to preserve it. Now it is the changes not only of the elements but of the things compounded of them that preserve the Universe. Let these reflections suffice thee, if thou hold them as principles. But away with thy thirst for books, that thou mayest die not murmuring but with a good grace, truly and from thy heart grateful to the Gods.

4. Call to mind how long thou deferrest these things, and how many times thou hast received from the Gods grace of the appointed day and thou usest it not. Yet now, if never before, shouldest thou realize of what Universe thou art a part, and as an emanation from what Controller of that Universe thou dost subsist; and that a limit has been set to thy time, which if thou use not to let daylight into thy soul, it will be gone—and thou!—and never again shall the chance be thine.

5. Every hour make up thy mind sturdily as a Roman and a man to do what thou hast in hand with scrupulous and unaffected dignity and love of thy kind and independence and justice; and to give thyself rest from all other impressions. And thou wilt give thyself this, if thou dost execute every act of thy life as though it were thy last, divesting thyself of all aimlessness and all passionate antipathy to the convictions of reason, and all hypocrisy and self-love and dissatisfaction with thy allotted share. Thou seest how few are the things, by mastering which a man may lead a life of tranquillity and godlikeness; for the Gods also will ask no more from him who keeps these precepts.

6. Wrong thyself, wrong thyself, O my Soul! But the time for honouring thyself will have gone by; for a man has but one life, and this for thee is well-nigh closed, and yet thou dost not hold thyself in reverence, but settest thy well-being in the souls of others.

7. Do those things draw thee at all away, which befall thee from without? Make then leisure for thyself for the learning of some good thing more, and cease being carried aside hither and thither. But therewith must thou take heed of the other error. For they too are triflers, who by their activities have worn themselves out in life without even having an aim whereto they can direct every impulse, aye and even every thought.

8. Not easily is a man found to be unhappy by reason of his not regarding what is going on in another man's soul; but those who do not attend closely to the motions of their own souls must inevitably be unhappy.

9. This must always be borne in mind, what is the Nature of the whole Universe, and what mine, and how this stands in relation to that, being too what sort of a part of what sort of a whole; and that no one can prevent thee from doing and saying always what is in keeping with the Nature of which thou art a part.

10. Theophrastus in his comparison of wrong-doings—for, speaking in a somewhat popular way, such comparison may be made—says in the true philosophical spirit that the offences which are due to lust are more heinous than those which are due to anger. For the man who is moved with anger seems to turn his back upon reason with some pain and unconscious compunction; but he that does wrong from lust, being mastered by pleasure, seems in some sort to be more incontinent and more unmanly in his wrong-doing. Rightly then, and not unworthily of a philosopher, he said that the wrongdoing which is allied with pleasure calls for a severer condemnation than that which is allied with pain; and, speaking generally, that the one wrong-doer is more like a man, who, being sinned against first, has been driven by pain to be angry, while the other, being led by lust to do some act, has of his own motion been impelled to do evil.

11. Let thine every deed and word and thought be those of a man who can depart from life this moment. But to go away from among men, if there are Gods, is nothing dreadful; for they would not involve thee in evil. But if indeed there are no Gods, or if they do not concern themselves with the affairs of men, what boots it for me to live in a Universe where there are no Gods, where Providence is not? Nay, but there are Gods, and they do concern themselves with human things; and they have put it wholly in man's power not to fall into evils that are truly such. And had there been any evil in what lies beyond, for this too would they have made provision, that it should be in every man's power not to fall into it. But how can that make a man's life worse which does not make the man worse? Yet the Nature of the Whole could not have been guilty of an oversight from ignorance or, while cognizant of these things, through lack of power to guard against or amend them; nor could it have gone so far amiss either from inability or unskilfulness, as to allow good and evil to fall without any discrimination alike upon the evil and the good. Still it is a fact that death and life, honour and dishonour, pain and pleasure, riches and penury, do among men one and all betide the Good and the Evil alike, being in themselves neither honourable nor shameful. Consequently they are neither good nor evil.

12. How quickly all things vanish away, in the Universe their actual bodies, and the remembrance of them in Eternity, and of what character are all objects of sense, and particularly those that entice us with pleasure or terrify us with pain or are acclaimed by vanity—how worthless and despicable and unclean and ephemeral and dead!—this is for our faculty of intelligence to apprehend; as also what they really are whose conceptions and whose voices award renown; what it is to die, and that if a man look at death in itself, and with the analysis of reason strip it of its phantom terrors, no longer will he conceive it to be aught but a function of Nature,—but if a man be frightened by a function of Nature, he is childish; and this is not only Nature's function but her welfare;—and how man is in touch with God and with what part of himself, and in what disposition of this portion of the man.

13. Nothing can be more miserable than the man who goes through the whole round of things, and, as the poet says, pries into the secrets of the earth, and would fain guess the thoughts in his neighbour's heart, while having no conception that he needs but to associate himself with the divine 'genius' in his bosom, and to serve it truly. And service of it is to keep it pure from passion and aimlessness and discontent with anything that proceeds from Gods or men. For that which proceeds from the Gods is worthy of reverence in that it is excellent; and that which proceeds from men, of love, in that they are akin, and, at times and in a manner, of compassion, in that they are ignorant of good and evil—a defect this no less than the loss of power to distinguish between white and black.

14. Even if thy life is to last three thousand years or for the matter of that thirty thousand, yet bear in mind that no one ever parts with any other life than the one he is now living, nor lives any other than that which he now parts with. The longest life, then, and the shortest amount but to the same. For the present time is of equal duration for all, while that which we lose is not ours; and consequently what is parted with is obviously a mere moment. No man can part with either the past or the future. For how can a man be deprived of what he does not possess? These two things, then, must needs be remembered: the one, that all things from time everlasting have been cast in the same mould and repeated cycle after cycle, and so it makes no difference whether a man see the same things recur through a hundred years or two hundred, or through eternity: the other, that the longest liver and he whose time to die comes soonest part with no more the one than the other. For it is but the present that a man can be deprived of, if, as is the fact, it is this alone that he has, and what he has not a man cannot part with.

15. Remember that everything is but what we think it. For obvious indeed is the saying fathered on Monimus the Cynic, obvious too the utility of what was said, if one accept the gist of it as far as it is true.

16. The soul of man does wrong to itself then most of all, when it makes itself, as far as it can do so, an imposthume and as it were a malignant growth in the Universe. For to grumble at anything that happens is a rebellion against Nature, in some part of which are bound up the natures of all other things. And the soul wrongs itself then again, when it turns away from any man or even opposes him with intent to do him harm, as is the case with those who are angry. It does wrong to itself, thirdly, when it is overcome by pleasure or pain. Fourthly, when it assumes a mask, and in act or word is insincere or untruthful. Fifthly, when it directs some act or desire of its own towards no mark, and expends its energy on any thing whatever aimlessly and unadvisedly, whereas even the most trifling things should be done with reference to the end in view. Now the end for rational beings is to submit themselves to the reason and law of that archetypal city and polity —the Universe.

17. Of the life of man the duration is but a point, its substance streaming away, its perception dim, the fabric of the entire body prone to decay, and the soul a vortex, and fortune incalculable, and fame uncertain. In a word all the things of the body are as a river, and the things of the soul as a dream and a vapour; and life is a warfare and a pilgrim's sojourn, and fame after death is only forgetfulness. What then is it that can help us on our way? One thing and one alone—Philosophy; and this consists in keeping the divine 'genius' within pure and unwronged, lord of all pleasures and pains, doing nothing aimlessly or with deliberate falsehood and hypocrisy, independent of another's action or inaction; and furthermore welcoming what happens and is allotted, as issuing from the same source, whatever it be, from which the man himself has issued; and above all waiting for death with a good grace as being but a setting free of the elements of which every thing living is made up. But if there be nothing terrible in each thing being continuously changed into another thing, why should a man look askance at the change and dissolution of all things? For it is in the way of Nature, and in the way of Nature there can be no evil.

### Book III
1. We ought not to think only upon the fact that our life each day is waning away, what is left of it being ever less, but this also should be a subject for thought, that even if life be prolonged, yet is it uncertain whether the mind will remain equally fitted in the future for the understanding of facts and for that contemplation which strains after the knowledge of things divine and human. For if a man has entered upon his dotage, there will still be his the power of breathing, and digestion, and thought, and desire, and all such-like faculties; but the full use of himself, the accurate appreciation of the items of duty, the nice discrimination of what presents itself to the senses, and a clear judgment on the question whether it is time for him to end his own life, and all such decisions, as above all require well-trained powers of reasoning—these are already flickering out in him. It needs, then, that we should press onwards, not only because we come each moment nearer to death, but also because our insight into facts and our close touch of them is gradually ceasing even before we die.

2. Such things as this also we ought to note with care, that the accessories too of natural operations have a charm and attractiveness of their own. For instance, when bread is in the baking, some of the parts split open, and these very fissures, though in a sense thwarting the bread-maker's design, have an appropriateness of their own and in a peculiar way stimulate the desire for food. Again when figs are at their ripest, they gape open; and in olives that are ready to fall their very approach to over-ripeness gives a peculiar beauty to the fruit. And the full ears of corn bending downwards, and the lion's beetling brows, and the foam dripping from the jaws of the wild-boar, and many other things, though, if looked at apart from their setting, they are far from being comely, yet, as resultants from the operations of Nature, lend them an added charm and excite our admiration.

3. Hippocrates, after healing many a sick man, fell sick himself and died. Many a death have Chaldaeans foretold, and then their own fate has overtaken them also. Alexander, Pompeius and Gaius Caesar times without number utterly destroyed whole cities, and cut to pieces many myriads of horse and foot on the field of battle, yet the day came when they too departed this life. Heraclitus, after endless speculations on the destruction of the world by fire, came to be filled internally with water, and died beplastered with cowdung. And lice caused the death of Democritus, and other vermin of Socrates.

4. Fritter not away what is left of thy life in thoughts about others, unless thou canst bring these thoughts into relation with some common interest. For verily thou dost hereby cut thyself off from other work, that is, by thinking what so and so is doing and why, what he is saying, having what in mind, contriving what, and all the many like things such as whirl thee aside from keeping close watch over thine own ruling Reason.

5. Do that thou doest neither unwillingly nor selfishly nor without examination nor against the grain. Dress not thy thought in too fine a garb. Be not a man of superfluous words or superfluous deeds. Moreover let the god that is in thee be lord of a living creature, that is manly, and of full age, and concerned with statecraft, and a Roman, and a ruler, who hath taken his post as one who awaits the signal of recall from life in all readiness, needing no oath nor any man as his voucher. Be thine the cheery face and independence of help from without and independence of such ease as others can give. It needs then to stand, and not be set, upright.

6. If indeed thou findest in the life of man a better thing than justice, than truth, than temperance, than manliness, and, in a word, than thy mind's satisfaction with itself in things wherein it shews thee acting according to the true dictates of reason, and with destiny in what is allotted thee apart from thy choice—if, I say, thou seest anything better than this, turn to it with all thy soul and take thy fill of the best, as thou findest it.

7. Prize not anything as being to thine interest that shall ever force thee to break thy troth, to surrender thine honour, to hate, suspect, or curse anyone, to play the hypocrite, to lust after anything that needs walls and curtains. For he that has chosen before all else his own intelligence and good genius, and to be a devotee of its supreme worth, does not strike a tragic attitude or whine, nor will he ask for either a wilderness or a concourse of men; above all he will live neither chasing anything nor shunning it. And he recks not at all whether he is to have his soul imprisoned in his body for a longer or a shorter span of time, for even if he must take his departure at once, he will go as willingly as if he were to discharge any other function that can be discharged with decency and orderliness, making sure through life of this one thing, that his thoughts should not in any case assume a character out of keeping with a rational and civic creature.

8. In the mind of the man that has been chastened and thoroughly cleansed thou wilt find no foul abscess or gangrene or hidden sore. Nor is his life cut short, when the day of destiny overtakes him, as we might say of a tragedian's part, who leaves the stage before finishing his speech and playing out the piece. Furthermore there is nothing there slavish or affected, no dependence on others or severance from them, no sense of accountability or skulking to avoid it.

9. Hold sacred thy capacity for forming opinions. With that it rests wholly that thy ruling Reason should never admit any opinion out of harmony with Nature, and with the constitution of a rational creature. This ensures due deliberation and fellowship with mankind and fealty to the Gods.

10. Jettison everything else, then, and lay hold of these things only, few as they are; and remember withal that it is only this present, a moment of time, that a man lives: all the rest either has been lived or may never be. Little indeed, then, is a man's life, and little the nook of earth whereon he lives, and little even the longest after-fame, and that too handed on through a succession of manikins, each one of them very soon to be dead, with no knowledge even of themselves, let alone of a man who has died long since.

11. To the stand-bys mentioned add one more, that a definition or delineation should be made of every object that presents itself, so that we may see what sort of thing it is in its essence stripped of its adjuncts, a separate whole taken as such, and tell over with ourselves both its particular designation and the names of the elements that compose it and into which it will be disintegrated.

12. If in obedience to right reason thou doest the thing that thy hand findeth to do earnestly, manfully, graciously, and in no sense as a by-work, and keepest that divine 'genius' of thine in its virgin state, just as if even now thou wert called upon to restore it to the Giver—if thou grapple this to thee, looking for nothing, shrinking from nothing, but content with a present sphere of activity such as Nature allows, and with old-world truth in every word and utterance of thy tongue, thou shalt be happy in thy life. And there is no one that is able to prevent this.

13. Just as physicians always keep their lancets and instruments ready to their hands for emergency operations, so also do thou keep thine axioms ready for the diagnosis of things human and divine, and for the performing of every act, even the pettiest, with the fullest consciousness of the mutual ties between these two. For thou shalt never carry out well any human duty unless thou correlate it to the divine, nor the reverse.

14. Go astray no more; for thou art not likely to read thy little Memoranda, or the Acts of the Romans and the Greeks of Old Time, and the extracts from their writings which thou wast laying up against thine old age. Haste then to the consummation and, casting away all empty hopes, if thou carest aught for thy welfare, come to thine own rescue, while it is allowed thee.

15. They know not how full of meaning are—to thieve, to sow, to buy, to be at peace, to see what needs doing, and this is not a matter for the eye but for another sort of sight.

16. Body, Soul, Intelligence: for the body sensations, for the soul desires, for the intelligence axioms. To receive impressions by way of the senses is not denied even to cattle; to be as puppets pulled by the strings of desire is common to wild beasts and to pathics and to a Phalaris and a Nero. Yet to have the intelligence a guide to what they deem their duty is an attribute of those also who do not believe in Gods and those who fail their country in its need and those who do their deeds behind closed doors.

### Book IV
1. That which holds the mastery within us, when it is in accordance with Nature, is so disposed towards what befalls, that it can always adapt itself with ease to what is possible and granted us. For it is wedded to no definite material, but, though in the pursuit of its high aims it works under reservations, yet it converts into material for itself any obstacle that it meets with, just as fire when it gets the mastery of what is thrown in upon it. A little flame would have been stifled by it, but the blazing fire instantly assimilates what is cast upon it and, consuming it, leaps the higher in consequence.

2. Take no act in hand aimlessly or otherwise than in accordance with the true principles perfective of the art.

3. Men seek out retreats for themselves in the country, by the seaside, on the mountains, and thou too art wont to long intensely for such things. But all this is unphilosophical to the last degree, when thou canst at a moment's notice retire into thyself. For nowhere can a man find a retreat more full of peace or more free from care than his own soul—above all if he have that within him, a steadfast look at which and he is at once in all good ease, and by good ease I mean nothing other than good order. Make use then of this retirement continually and regenerate thyself. Let thy axioms be short and elemental, such as, when set before thee, will at once rid thee of all trouble, and send thee away with no discontent at those things to which thou art returning.

4. If the intellectual capacity is common to us all, common too is the reason, which makes us rational creatures. If so, that reason also is common which tells us to do or not to do. If so, law also is common. If so, we are citizens. If so, we are fellow-members of an organised community. If so, the Universe is as it were a state —for of what other single polity can the whole race of mankind be said to be fellow-members?—and from it, this common State, we get the intellectual, the rational, and the legal instinct, or whençe do we get them? For just as the earthy part has been portioned off for me from some earth, and the watery from another element, and the aerial from some source, and the hot and fiery from some source of its own—for nothing comes from the non-existent, any more than it disappears into nothingness—so also the intellect has undoubtedly come from somewhere.

5. Death like birth is a secret of Nature—a combination of the same elements, a breaking up into the same—and not at all a thing in fact for any to be ashamed of, for it is not out of keeping with an intellectual creature or the reason of his constitution.

6. Given such men, it was in the nature of the case inevitable that their conduct should be of this kind. To wish it otherwise, is to wish that the fig-tree had no acrid juice. As a general conclusion call this to mind, that within a very short time both thou and he will be dead, and a little later not even your names will be left behind you.

7. Efface the opinion, I am harmed, and at once the feeling of being harmed disappears; efface the feeling, and the harm disappears at once.

8. That which does not make a man himself worse than before cannot make his life worse either, nor injure it whether from without or within.

9. The nature of the general good could not but have acted so.

10. Note that all that befalls befalleth justly. Keep close watch and thou wilt find this true, I do not say, as a matter of sequence merely but as a matter of justice also, and as would be expected from One whose dispensation is based on desert. Keep close watch, then, as thou hast begun, and whatsoever thou doest, do it as only a good man should in the strictest sense of that word. In every sphere of activity safeguard this.

11. Harbour no such opinions as he holds who does thee violence, or as he would have thee hold. See things in all their naked reality.

12. Thou shouldest have these two readinesses always at hand; the one which prompts thee to do only what thy reason in its royal and law-making capacity shall suggest for the good of mankind; the other to change thy mind, if one be near to set thee right, and convert thee from some vain conceit. But this conversion should be the outcome of a persuasion in every case that the thing is just or to the common interest—and some such cause should be the only one—not because it is seemingly pleasant or popular.

13. Hast thou reason? I have. Why then not use it? For if this performs its part, what else wouldest thou have?

14. Thou hast subsisted as part of the Whole. Thou shalt vanish into that which begat thee, or rather thou shalt be taken again into its Seminal Reason by a process of change.

15. Many little pellets of frankincense fall upon the same altar, some are cast on it sooner, some later: but it makes no difference.

16. Ere ten days are past, thou shalt rank as a god with them that hold thee now a wild-beast or an ape, if thou but turn back to thy axioms and thy reverence of reason.

17. Behave not as though thou hadst ten thousand years to live. Thy doom hangs over thee. While thou livest, while thou mayest, become good.

18. What richness of leisure doth he gain who has no eye for his neighbour's words or deeds or thoughts, but only for his own doings, that they be just and righteous! Verily it is not for the good man to peer about into the blackness of another's heart, but to 'run straight for the goal with never a glance aside.'

19. He whose heart flutters for after-fame does not reflect that very soon every one of those who remember him, and he himself, will be dead, and their successors again after them, until at last the entire recollection of the man will be extinct, handed on as it is by links that flare up and are quenched. But put the case that those who are to remember are even immortal, and the remembrance immortal, what then is that to thee? To the dead man, I need scarcely say, the praise is nothing, but what is it to the living, except, indeed, in a subsidiary way? For thou dost reject the bounty of nature unseasonably in the present, and clingest to what others shall say of thee hereafter.

20. Everything, which has any sort of beauty of its own, is beautiful of itself, and looks no further than itself, not counting praise as part of itself. For indeed that which is praised is made neither better nor worse thereby. This is true also of the things that in common parlance are called beautiful, such as material things and works of art. Does, then, the truly beautiful need anything beyond? Nay, no more than law, than truth, than kindness, than modesty. Which of these owes its beauty to being praised, or loses it by being blamed? What! Does an emerald forfeit its excellence by not being praised? Does gold, ivory, purple, a lyre, a poniard, a floweret, a shrub?

21. If souls outlive their bodies, how does the air contain them from times everlasting? How does the earth contain the bodies of those who have been buried in it for such endless ages? For just as on earth the change of these bodies, after continuance for a certain indefinite time, followed by dissolution, makes room for other dead bodies, so souls, when transferred into the air, after lasting for a certain time, suffer change and are diffused and become fire, being taken again into the Seminal Reason of the Whole, and so allow room for those that subsequently take up their abode there. This would be the answer one would give on the assumption that souls outlive their bodies.

22. Be not whirled aside; but in every impulse fulfil the claims of justice, and in every impression safeguard certainty.

23. All that is in tune with thee, O Universe, is in tune with me! Nothing that is in due time for thee is too early or too late for me! All that thy seasons bring, O Nature, is fruit for me! All things come from thee, subsist in thee, go back to thee. There is one who says Dear City of Cecrops! Wilt thou not say O dear City of Zeus?

24. If thou wouldest be tranquil in heart, says the Sage, do not many things. Is not this a better maxim: do but what is needful, and what the reason of a living creature born for a civic life demands, and as it demands. For this brings the tranquillity which comes of doing few things no less than of doing them well. For nine tenths of our words and deeds being unnecessary, if a man retrench there, he will have more abundant leisure and fret the less. Wherefore forget not on every occasion to ask thyself, Is this one of the unnecessary things? But we must retrench not only actions but thoughts which are unnecessary, for then neither will distracting actions follow.

25. Try living the life of the good man who is more than content with what is allotted to him out of the whole, and is satisfied with his own acts as just and his own disposition as kindly: see how that answers.

26. Hast thou looked on that side of the picture? Look now on this! Fret not thyself; study to be simple. Does a man do wrong? The wrong rests with him. Has something befallen thee? It is well. Everything that befalls was from the beginning destined and spun for thee as thy share out of the Whole. In a word, life is short. Make profit of the present by right reasoning and justice. In thy relaxation be sober.

27. Either there is a well-arranged Order of things or a medley that is confused, yet still an order. Or can a sort of order subsist in thee, while in the Universe there is no order, and that too when all things, though separated and dispersed, are still in sympathetic connexion?

28. A black character, an unmanly character, an obstinate character, inhuman, animal, childish, stupid, counterfeit, shameless, mercenary, tyrannical.

29. If he is an alien in the Universe who has no cognizance of the things that are in it, no less is he an alien who has no cognizance of what is happening in it. He is an exile, who exiles himself from civic reason; blind, he who will not see with the eyes of his understanding; a beggar, he who is dependent on another, and cannot draw from his own resources all that his life requires; an imposthume on the Universe, he who renounces, and severs himself from, the reason of our common Nature, because he is ill pleased at what happens—for the same Nature brings this into being, that also brought thee; a limb cut off from the community, he who cuts off his own soul from the soul of all rational things, which is but one.

30. One philosopher goes without a shirt, a second without a book, a third yonder half-naked: says he, I am starving for bread, yet cleave I fast to Reason; and I get no living out of my learning, yet cleave I to her.

31. Cherish the art, though humble, that thou hast learned, and take thy rest therein; and pass through the remainder of thy days as one that with his whole soul has given all that is his in trust to the Gods, and has made of himself neither a tyrant nor a slave to any man.

32. Think by way of illustratiou upon the times of Vespasian, and thou shalt see all these things: mankind marrying, rearing children, sickening, dying, warring, making holiday, trafficking, tilling, flattering others, vaunting themselves, suspecting, scheming, praying for the death of others, murmuring at their own lot, loving, hoarding, coveting a consulate, coveting a kingdom. Not a vestige of that life of theirs is left anywhere any longer.

33. Expressions once in use are now obsolete. So also the names of those much be-sung heroes of old are in some sense obsolete, Camillus, Caeso, Volesus, Dentatus, and a little later Scipio and Cato, then also Augustus, and then Hadrianus and Antoninus. For all things quickly fade away and become legendary, and soon absolute oblivion encairns them. And here I speak of those who made an extraordinary blaze in the world. For the rest, as soon as the breath is out of their bodies, it is, Out of sight, out of mind. But what, when all is said, is even ever-lasting remembrance? Wholly vanity. What then is it that calls for our devotion? This one thing: justice in thought, in act unselfishness and a tongue that cannot lie and a disposition ready to welcome all that befalls as unavoidable, as familiar, as issuing from a like origin and fountain-head.

34. Offer thyself whole-heartedly to Clotho, letting her spin thy thread to serve what purpose soever she will.

35. Ephemeral all of them, the rememberer as well as the remembered!

36. Unceasingly contemplate the generation of all things through change, and accustom thyself to the thought that the Nature of the Universe delights above all in changing the things that exist and making new ones of the same pattern. For in a manner everything that exists is the seed of that which shall come out of it. But thou imaginest that only to be seed that is deposited in the earth or the womb, a view beyond measure unphilosophical.

37. A moment and thou wilt be dead; and not even yet art thou simple, nor unperturbed, nor free from all suspicion that thou canst be injured by externals, nor gracious to all, nor convinced that wisdom and just dealing are but one.

38. Consider narrowly their ruling Reason, and see what wise men avoid and what they seek after.

39. Harm to thee cannot depend on another's ruling Reason, nor yet on any vagary or phase of thy environment. On what then? On the power that is thine of judging what is evil. Let this, then, pass no judgment, and all is well. Even if its closest associate, the poor body, be cut, be burnt, fester, gangrene, yet let the part which forms a judgment about these things hold its peace, that is, let it assume nothing to be either good or bad, which can befall a good man or a bad indifferently. For that which befalls alike the man who lives by the rule, and the man who lives contrary to the rule, of Nature, is neither in accordance with Nature nor contrary to it.

40. Cease not to think of the Universe as one living Being, possessed of a single Substance and a single Soul; and how all things trace back to its single sentience; and how it does all things by a single impulse; and how all existing things are joint causes of all things that come into existence; and how intertwined in the fabric is the thread and how closely woven the web.

41. Thou art a little soul bearing up a corpse, as Epictetus said.

42. Nothing is evil to that which is subject to change, even as there is no good for that which exists as the result of change.

43. As a river consisting of all things that come into being, aye, a rushing torrent, is Time. No sooner is a thing sighted than it is carried past, and lo, another is passing, and it too will be carried away.

44. Everything that happens is as usual and familiar, as the rose in spring and the fruit in autumn. The same applies to disease and death and slander and treachery and all that gladdens the foolish or saddens them.

45. That which comes after always has a close relationship to what has gone before. For it is not like some enumeration of items separately taken and following a mere inevitable sequence, but there is a rational connection; and just as existing things have been combined in a harmonious order, so also all that comes into being bears the stamp not of a mere succession but of a wonderful relationship.

46. Always bear in mind what Heraclitus said: The death of earth is to pass into water, and the death of water to pass into air, and of air to pass into fire, and so back again. Bear in mind too: the wayfarer who forgets the trend of his way, and that men are at variance with the one thing with which they are in the most unbroken communion, the Reason that administers the whole Universe; and that what they encounter every day, this they deem strange; and that we must not act and speak like men asleep, —for in fact even in sleep we seem to act and speak;—and that there should be nothing of the children from parents style, that is, no mere perfunctory what our Fathers have told us.

47. Just as, if a God had told thee, Thou shalt die to-morrow or in any case the day after, thou wouldest no longer count it of any consequence whether it were the day after to-morrow or to-morrow, unless thou art in the last degree mean-spirited, for how little is the difference! —so also deem it but a trifling thing that thou shouldest die after ever so many years rather than to-morrow.

48. Cease not to bear in mind how many physicians are dead after puckering up their brows so often over their patients; and how many astrologers after making a great parade of predicting the death of others; and how many philosophers after endless disquisitions on death and immortality; how many great captains after butchering thousands; how many tyrants after exercising with revolting insolence their power of life and death, as though themselves immortal; and how many entire cities are, if I may use the expression, dead, Helice and Pompeii and Herculaneum, and others without number.

49. Be like a headland of rock on which the waves break incessantly; but it stands fast and around it the seething of the waters sinks to rest.

50. An unphilosophical, but none the less an effective, help to the contemning of death is to tell over the names of those who have clung long and tenaciously to life. How are they better off than those who were cut off before their time? After all, they lie buried somewhere at last, Cadicianus, Fabius, Julianus, Lepidus, and any others like them, who after carrying many to their graves were at last carried to their own. Small, in any point of view, is the difference in length, and that too lived out to the dregs amid what great cares and with what sort of companions and in what kind of a body! Count it then of no consequence. For look at the yawning gulf of Time behind thee, and before thee at another Infinity to come. In this Eternity the life of a baby of three days and the life of a Nestor of three centuries are as one.

51. Run ever the short way; and the short way is the way of Nature, that leads to all that is most sound in speech and act. For a resolve such as this is a release from troubles and strife, from all mental reservation and affectation.

### Book V
1. At daybreak, when loth to rise, have this thought ready in thy mind: I am rising for a man's work. Am I then still peevish that I am going to do that for which I was born and for the sake of which I came into the world? Or was I made for this, that I should nuzzle under the bed-clothes and keep myself warm? But this is pleasanter. Hast thou been made then for pleasure, in a word, I ask thee, to be acted upon or to act? Consider each little plant, each tiny bird, the ant, the spider, the bee, how they go about their own work and do each his part for the building up of an orderly Universe. Dost thou then refuse to do the work of a man? Dost thou not hasten to do what Nature bids thee. But some rest, too, is necessary. I do not deny it. Howbeit Nature has set limits to this, and no less so to eating and drinking. Yet thou exceedest these limits and exceedest sufficiency. But in acts it is no longer so; there thou comest short of the possibility.

2. How easy a thing it is to put away and blot out every impression that is disturbing or alien, and to be at once in perfect peace.

3. Deem no word or deed that is in accord with Nature to be unworthy of thee, and be not plucked aside by the consequent censure of others or what they say, but if a thing is good to do or say, judge not thyself unworthy of it. For those others have their own ruling Reason and follow their own bent. Do not thou turn thine eyes aside, but keep to the straight path, following thy own and the universal Nature; and the path of these twain is one.

4. I fare forth through all that Nature wills until the day when I shall sink down and rest from my labours, breathing forth my last breath into the air whence I daily draw it in, and falling upon that earth, whence also my father gathered the seed, and my mother the blood, and my nurse the milk; whence daily for so many years I am fed and watered; which bears me as I tread it under foot and make full use of it in a thousand ways.

5. Sharpness of wit men cannot praise thee for. Granted! Yet there are many other qualities of which thou canst not say: I had not that by nature. Well then, display those which are wholly in thy power, sterling sincerity, dignity, endurance of toil, abstinence from pleasure. Grumble not at thy lot, be content with little, be kindly, independent, frugal, serious, high-minded. Seest thou not how many virtues it is in thy power to display now, in respect of which thou canst plead no natural incapacity or incompatibility, and yet thou art. content still with a lower standard? Or art thou forced to be discontented, to be grasping, to flatter, to inveigh against the body, to play the toady and the braggart, and to be so unstable in thy soul, because forsooth thou hast no natural gifts? By the Gods, No! but long ere now couldest thou have shaken thyself free from all this and have lain under the imputation only, if it must be so, of being somewhat slow and dull of apprehension. And this too thou must amend with training and not ignore thy dulness or be in love with it.

6. One man, when he has done another a kindness, is ready also to reckon on a return. A second is not ready to do this, but yet in his heart of hearts ranks the other as a debtor, and he is conscious of what he has done. But a third is in a manner not conscious of it, but is like the vine that has borne a cluster of grapes, and when it has once borne its due fruit looks for no reward beyond, as it is with a steed when it has run its course, a hound when it has singled out the trail, a bee when she hath made her comb. And so a man when he hath done one thing well, does not cry it abroad, but betakes himself to a second, as a vine to bear afresh her clusters in due season.

7. A prayer of the Athenians: Rain, Rain, O dear Zeus, upon the corn-land of the Athenians and their meads. Either pray not at all, or in this simple and frank fashion.

8. We have all heard, Aesculapius has prescribed for so and so riding exercise, or cold baths, or walking barefoot. Precisely so it may be said that the Universal Nature has prescribed for so and so sickness or maim or loss or what not of the same kind. For, in the former case, prescribed has some such meaning as this: He ordained this for so and so as conducive to his health; while in the latter what befalls each man has been ordained in some way as conducive to his destiny. For we say that things fall to us, as the masons too say that the huge squared stones in walls and pyramids fall into their places, adjusting themselves harmoniously to one another in a sort of structural unity. For, in fine, there is one harmony of all things, and just as from all bodies the Universe is made up into such a body as it is, so from all causes is Destiny made up into such a Cause. This is recognized by the most unthinking, for they say: Fate brought this on him. So then this was brought on this man, and this prescribed for this man. Let us then accept our fate, as we accept the prescriptions of Aesculapius. And in fact in these, too, there are many "bitter pills," but we welcome them in hope of health.

9. Do not feel qualms or despondency or discomfiture if thou dost not invariably succeed in acting from right principles; but when thou art foiled, come back again to them, and rejoice if on the whole thy conduct is worthy of a man, and love the course to which thou returnest. Come not back to Philosophy as to a schoolmaster, but as the sore-eyed to their sponges and their white of egg, as this patient to his plaster and that to his fomentations. Thus wilt thou rest satisfied with Reason, yet make no parade of obeying her. And forget not that Philosophy wishes but what thy nature wishes, whereas thy wish was for something else that accords not with Nature. Yes, for it would have been the acme of delight. Ah, is not that the very reason why pleasure trips us up? Nay, see if these be not more delightful still: high-mindedness, independence, simplicity, tenderness of heart, sanctity of life. Why what is more delightful than wisdom herself, when thou thinkest how sure and smooth in all its workings is the faculty of understanding and knowledge?

10. Things are in a sense so wrapped up in mystery that not a few philosophers, and they no ordinary ones, have concluded that they are wholly beyond our comprehension: nay, even the Stoics themselves find them hard to comprehend. Indeed every assent we give to the impressions of our senses is liable to error, for where is the man who never errs? Pass on then to the objective things themselves, how transitory they are, how worthless, the property, quite possibly, of a boy-minion, a harlot, or a brigand. After that turn to the characters of thine associates, even the most refined of whom it is difficult to put up with, let alone the fact that a man has enough to do to endure himself.

11. To what use then am I putting my soul? Never fail to ask thyself this question and to cross-examine thyself thus: What relation have I to this part of me which they call the ruling Reason? And whose Soul have I got now? The Soul of a child? Of a youth? Of a woman? Of a tyrant? Of a domestic animal? Of a wild beast?

12. What are counted as good things in the estimation of the many thou canst gather even from this. For if a man fix his mind upon certain things as really and unquestionably good, such as wisdom, temperance, justice, manliness, with this preconception in his mind he could no longer bear to listen to the poet's, By reason of his wealth of goods; for it would not apply. But, if a man first fix his mind upon the things which appear good to the multitude, he will listen and readily accept as aptly added the quotation from the Comic Poet. In this way even the multitude have a perception of the difference. For otherwise this jest would not offend and be repudiated, while we accept it as appropriately and wittily said of wealth and of the advantages which wait upon luxury and popularity. Go on, then, and ask whether we should prize and count as good those things, with which first fixed in our mind we might germanely quote of their possessor, that for his very wealth of goods he has no place to ease himself in.

13. I am made up of the Causal and the Material, and neither of these disappears into nothing, just as neither did it come into existence out of nothing. So shall my every part by change be told off to form some part of the Universe, and that again be changed into another part of it, and so on to infinity. It was by such process of change that I too came into being and my parents, and so backwards into a second infinity. And the statement is quite legitimate, even if the Universe be arranged according to completed cycles.

14. Reason and the art of reasoning are in themselves and in their own proper acts self-sufficing faculties. Starting from a principle peculiar to them, they journey on to the end set before them. Wherefore such actions are termed right acts, as signifying that they follow the right way.

15. Call none of those things a man's that do not fall to him as man. They cannot be claimed of a man; the man's nature does not guarantee them; they are no consummations of that nature. Consequently neither is the end for which man lives placed in these things, nor yet that which is perfective of the end, namely The Good. Moreover, if any of these things did fall to a man, it would not fall to him to contemn them and set his face against them, nor would a man be commendable who shewed himself independent of these things, nor yet would he be a good man who came short of his own standard in any of them, if so be these things were good. But as it is, the more a man can cut himself free, or even be set free, from these and other such things with equanimity, by so much the more is he good.

16. The character of thy mind will be such as is the character of thy frequent thoughts, for the soul takes its dye from the thoughts. Dye her then with a continuous succession of such thoughts as these: Where life is possible, there it is possible also to live well.— But the life is life in a Court. Well, in a Court too it is possible to live well. And again: A thing is drawn towards that for the sake of which it has been made, and its end lies in that towards which it is drawn and, where its end lies, there lie also its interest and its good. The Good, then, for a rational creature is fellowship with others. For it has been made clear long ago that we were constituted for fellowship. Or was it not obvious that the lower were for the sake of the higher and the higher for the sake of one another? And living things are higher than lifeless, and those that have reason than those that have life only.

17. To crave impossibilities is lunacy; but it is impossible for the wicked to act otherwise.

18. Nothing befalls anyone that he is not fitted by nature to bear. Others experience the same things as thou, but either from ignorance that anything has befallen them, or to manifest their greatness of mind, they stand firm and get no hurt. A strange thing indeed that ignorance and vanity should prove stronger than wisdom!

19. Things of themselves cannot take the least hold of the Soul, nor have any access to her, nor deflect or move her; but the Soul alone deflects and moves herself, and whatever judgments she deems it right to form, in conformity with them she fashions for herself the things that submit themselves to her from without.

20. In one respect a man is of very close concern to us, in so far as we must do him good and forbear; but in so far as any stand in the way of those acts which concern us closely, then man becomes for me as much one of things indifferent as the sun, as the wind, as a wild-beast. Though a man may in some sort fetter my activity, yet on my own initiative and mental attitude no fetters can be put because of the power they possess of conditional action and of adaptation to circumstances. For everything that stands in the way of its activity is adapted and transmuted by the mind into a furtherance of it, and that which is a check on this action is converted into a help to it, and that which is a hindrance in our path goes but to make it easier.

21. Prize the most excellent thing in the Universe; and this is that which utilizes all things and controls all things. Prize in like manner the most excellent thing in thyself; and this is that which is akin to the other. For this, which utilizes all else is in thee too, and by it thy life is governed.

22. That which is not hurtful to the community cannot hurt the individual. Test every case of apparent hurt by this rule: if the community be not hurt by this, neither am I hurt; but if the community be hurt, there is no need to be angry with him that hath done the hurt, but to enquire, What hath he seen amiss?

23. Think often on the swiftness with which the things that exist and that are coming into existence are swept past us and carried out of sight. For all substance is as a river in ceaseless flow, its activities ever changing and its causes subject to countless variations, and scarcely anything stable; and ever beside us is this infinity of the past and yawning abyss of the future, wherein all things are disappearing. Is he not senseless who in such an environment puffs himself up, or is distracted, or frets as over a trouble lasting and far-reaching?

24. Keep in memory the universal Substance, of which thou art a tiny part; and universal Time, of which a brief, nay an almost momentary span has been allotted thee; and Destiny, in which how fractional thy share?

25. Another does me some wrong? He shall see to it. His disposition is his own, his activities are his own. What the universal Nature wills me to have now, that I now have, and what my nature wills me now to do, that I do.

26. Let the ruling and master Reason of thy soul be proof against any motions in the flesh smooth or rough. Let it not mingle itself with them, but isolate and restrict those tendencies to their true spheres. But when in virtue of that other sympathetic connection these tendencies grow up into the mind as is to be expected in a single organism, then must thou not go about to resist the sensation, natural as it is, but see that thy ruling Reason adds no opinion of its own as to whether such is good or bad.

27. Walk with the Gods! And he does walk with the Gods, who lets them see his soul invariably satisfied with its lot and carrying out the will of that 'genius,' a particle of himself, which Zeus has given to every man as his captain and guide —and this is none other than each man's intelligence and reason.

28. If a man's armpits are unpleasant, art thou angry with him? If he has foul breath? What would be the use? The man has such a mouth, he has such armpits. Some such effluvium was bound to come from such a source. But the man has sense, quotha! With a little attention he could see wherein he offends. I congratulate thee! Well, thou too hast sense. By a rational attitude, then, in thyself evoke a rational attitude in him, enlighten him, admonish him. If he listen, thou shalt cure him, and have no need of anger.

29. Thou canst live on earth as thou dost purpose to live when departed. But if men will not have it so, then is it time for thee even to go out of life, yet not as one who is treated ill. ' Tis smoky and I go away. Why think it a great matter? But while no such cause drives me forth, I remain a free man, and none shall prevent me from doing what I will, and I will what is in accordance with the nature of a rational and social creature.

30. The intelligence of the Universe is social. It hath at any rate made the lower things for the sake of the higher, and it adapted the higher to one another. Thou seest how it hath subordinated, coordinated, and given each its due lot and brought the more excellent things into mutual accord.

31. How hast thou borne thyself heretofore towards Gods, parents, brothers, wife, children, teachers, tutors, friends, relations, household? Canst thou say truly of them all to this day,

32. Why do unskilled and ignorant souls confound him who has skill and has knowledge? What soul, then, has skill and knowledge? Even that which knoweth beginning and end, and the reason that informs all Substance, and governs the Whole from ordered cyele to cycle through all eternity.

33. But a little while and thou shalt be burnt ashes or a few dry bones, and possibly a name, possibly not a name even. And a name is but sound and a far off echo. And all that we prize so highly in our lives is empty and rotten and paltry, and we but as puppies snapping at each other, as quarrelsome children now laughing and anon in tears. But faith and modesty and justice and truth

34. Thou hast it in thy power that the current of thy life be ever fair, if also 'tis thine to make fair way, if also in ordered way to think and act. The Soul of God and the souls of men and of every rational creature have these two characteristics in common: to suffer no let or hindrance from another, and to find their good in a condition and practice of justice, and to confine their propension to this.

35. If this be no vice of mine nor the outcome of any vice of mine, and if the common interest does not suffer, why concern myself about it? And how can the common interest suffer?

36. Be not carried incontinently away by sense-impressions, but rally to the fight as thou canst and as is due. If there be failure in things indifferent, think not there is any great harm done; for that is an evil habit. But as the greybeard (in the play) taking his leave reclaimed his foster-child's top, not forgetting that it was but a top, so do thou here also. Since indeed thou art found haranguing on the hustings, O Man, hast thou forgotten what this really means? Aye, but people will have it. Must thou too be a fool in consequence?

### Book VI
1. The Universal Substance is docile and ductile; and the Reason that controls it has no motive in itself to do wrong. For it hath no wrongness and doeth no wrong, nor is anything harmed by it. But all things come into being and fulfil their purpose as it directs.

2. Make no difference in doing thy duty whether thou art shivering or warm, drowsy or sleep-satisfied, defamed or extolled, dying or anything else. For the act of dying too is one of the acts of life. So it is enough in this also to get the work in hand done well.

3. Look within. Let not the special quality or worth of anything escape thee.

4. All objective things will anon be changed and either etherialized into the Universal Substance, if that indeed be one, or dispersed abroad.

5. The controlling Reason knows its own bent and its work and the medium it works in.

6. The best way of avenging thyself is not to do likewise.

7. Delight in this one thing and take thy rest therein—from social act to go on to social act, keeping all thy thoughts on God.

8. The ruling Reason it is that can arouse and deflect itself, make itself whatever it will, and invest everything that befalls with such a semblance as it wills.

9. In accordance with the Nature of the Universe is accomplished each several thing. For surely this cannot be in accordance with any other nature, that either envelops it from without, or is enveloped by it within, or exists in external detachment outside it.

10. Either a medley and a tangled web and a dispersion abroad, or a unity and a plan and a Providence. If the former, why should I even wish to abide in such a random welter and chaos? Why care for anything else than to turn again to the dust at last. Why be disquieted? For, do what I will, the dispersion must overtake me. But if the latter, I bow in reverence, my feet are on the rock, and I put my trust in the Power that rules.

11. When forced, as it seems, by thine environment to be utterly disquieted, return with all speed into thy self, staying in discord no longer than thou must. By constant recurrence to the harmony, thou wilt gain more command over it.

12. Hadst thou at once a stepmother and a mother thou wouldst pay due service to the former, and yet thy constant recourse would be to thy mother. So hast thou now the court and philosophy for stepmother and mother. Cease not then to come to the latter and take thy rest in her, whereby shall both thy court life seem more tolerable to thee, and thou to thy court life.

13. As in the case of meat and similar eatables the thought strikes us, this is the dead body of a fish, this of a fowl or pig; and again that this Falernian is merely the juice of a grape-cluster, and this purple-edged robe is nought but sheep's wool steeped in the blood of a shell-fish; or, of sexual intercourse, that it is merely internal attrition and the spasmodic excretion of mucus —such, I say, as are these impressions that get to grips with the actual things and enter into the heart of them, so as to see them as they really are, thus should it be thy life through, and where things look to be above measure convincing, laying them quite bare, behold their paltriness and strip off their conventional prestige. For conceit is a past master in fallacies and, when thou flatterest thyself most that thou art engaged in worthy tasks, then art thou most of all deluded by it. At any rate, see what Crates has to say about none other than Xenocrates.

14. Objects admired by the common sort come chiefly under things of the most general kind, which are held together by physical coherence, such as stones and wood, or by a natural unity, such as figs, vines, olives; and those which are admired by persons of a somewhat higher capacity may be classed as things which are held together by a conscious life, such as flocks and herds; and those which are admired by persons still more refined, as things held together by a rational soul; I do not mean rational as part of the Universal Reason, but in the sense of master of an art or expert in some other way, or merely in so far as to own a host of slaves. But he that prizes a soul which is rational, universal, and civic, no longer turns after anything else, but rather than everything besides keeps his own soul, in itself and in its activity, rational and social, and to this end works conjointly with all that is akin to him.

15. Some things are hastening to be, others to be no more, while of those that haste into being some part is already extinct. Fluxes and changes perpetually renew the world, just as the unbroken march of time makes ever new the infinity of ages. In this river of change, which of the things which swirl past him, whereon no firm foothold is possible, should a man prize so highly? As well fall in love with a sparrow that flits past and in a moment is gone from our eyes. In fact a man's life itself is but as an exhalation from blood and an inhalation from the air. For just as it is to draw in the air once into our lungs and give it back again, as we do every moment, so is it to give back thither, whence thou didst draw it first, thy faculty of breathing which thou didst receive at thy birth yesterday or the day before.

16. Neither is it an inner respiration, such as that of plants, that we should prize, nor the breathing which we have in common with cattle and wild animals, nor the impressions we receive through our senses, nor that we are pulled by our impulses like marionettes, nor our gregarious instincts, nor our need of nutriment; for that is on a par with the rejection of the waste products of our food.

17. Up, down, round-wise sweep the elements along. But the motion of virtue is in none of these ways. It is something more divine, and going forward on a mysterious path fares well upon its way.

18. What a way to act! Men are chary of commending their contemporaries and associates, while they themselves set great store by the commendation of posterity, whom they have never seen or shall see. But this is next door to taking it amiss that thy predecessors also did not commend thee.

19. Because thou findest a thing difficult for thyself to accomplish do not conceive it to be impracticable for others; but whatever is possible for a man and in keeping with his nature consider also attainable by thyself.

20. Suppose that a competitor in the ring has gashed us with his nails and butted us violently with his head, we do not protest or take it amiss or suspect our opponent in future of foul play. Still we do keep an eye on him, not indeed as an enemy, or from suspicion of him, but with good-humoured avoidance. Act much in the same way in all the other parts of life. Let us make many allowances for our fellow-athletes as it were. Avoidance is always possible, as I have said, without suspicion or hatred.

21. If any one can prove and bring home to me that a conception or act of mine is wrong, I will amend it, and be thankful. For I seek the truth, whereby no one was ever harmed. But he is harmed who persists in his own self-deception and ignorance.

22. I do my own duty; other things do not distract me. For they are either inanimate or irrational, or such as have gone astray and know not the road.

23. Conduct thyself with magnanimity and freedom towards irrational creatures and, generally, towards circumstances and objective things, for thou hast reason and they have none. But men have reason, therefore treat them as fellow creatures. And in all cases call upon the Gods, and do not concern thyself with the question, How long shall I do this? Three hours are enough so spent.

24. Death reduced to the same condition Alexander the Macedonian and his muleteer, for either they were taken back into the same Seminal Reason of the Universe or scattered alike into the atoms.

25. Bear in mind how many things happen to each one of us with respect to our bodies as well as our souls in the same momentary space of time, so wilt thou cease to wonder that many more things—not to say all the things that come into existence in that One and Whole which in fact we call the Universe—subsist in it at one time.

26. If one enquire of thee, How is the name Antoninus written? wilt thou with vehemence enunciate each constituent letter? What then? If thy listeners lose their temper, wilt thou lose thine? Wouldst thou not go on gently to enumerate each letter? So recollect that in life too every duty is the sum of separate items. Of these thou must take heed, and carry through methodically what is set before thee, in no wise troubled or shewing counter-irritation against those who are irritated with thee.

27. How intolerant it is not to permit men to cherish an impulse towards what is in their eyes congenial and advantageous! Yet in a sense thou withholdest from them the right to do this, when thou resentest their wrong-doing. For they are undoubtedly drawn to what they deem congenial and advantageous. But they are mistaken. Well, then, teach and enlighten them without any resentment.

28. Death is a release from the impressions of sense, and from impulses that make us their puppets, from the vagaries of the mind, and the hard service of the flesh.

29. It is a disgrace for the soul to be the first to succumb in that life in which the body does not succumb.

30. See thou be not Caesarified, nor take that dye, for there is the possibility. So keep thyself a simple and good man, uncorrupt, dignified, plain, a friend of justice, god-fearing, gracious, affectionate, manful in doing thy duty. Strive to be always such as Philosophy minded to make thee. Revere the Gods, save mankind. Life is short. This only is the harvest of earthly existence, a righteous disposition and social acts.

31. Be sober once more and call back thy senses, and being roused again from sleep and, realizing that they were but dreams that beset thee, now awake again, look at these realities as thou didst at those thy dreams.

32. I consist of body and soul. To the body indeed all things are indifferent, for it cannot concern itself with them. But to the mind only those things are indifferent which are not its own activities; and all those things that are its own activities are in its own power. Howbeit, of these it is only concerned with the present; for as to its activities in the past and the future, these two rank at once among things indifferent.

33. For hand or foot to feel pain is no violation of nature, so long as the foot does its own appointed work, and the hand its own. Similarly pain for a man, as man, is no unnatural thing so long as he does a man's appointed work. But, if not unnatural, then is it not an evil either.

34. The pleasures of the brigand, the pathic, the parricide, the tyrant —just think what they are!

35. Dost thou not see how the mechanic craftsman, though to some extent willing to humour the non-expert, yet holds fast none the less to the principles of his handicraft, and cannot endure to depart from them. Is it not strange that the architect and the physician should hold the rationale of their respective arts in higher reverence than a man his own reason, which he has in common with the Gods?

36. Asia, Europe, corners of the Universe: the whole Ocean a drop in the Universe: Athos but a little clod therein: all the present a point in Eternity:—everything on a tiny scale, so easily changed, so quickly vanished.

37. He, who sees what now is, hath seen all that ever hath been from times everlasting, and that shall be to eternity; for all things are of one lineage and one likeness.

38. Meditate often on the intimate union and mutual interdependence of all things in the Universe. For in a manner all things are mutually intertwined, and thus all things have a liking for one another. For these things are consequent one on another by reason of their contracting and expanding motion, the sympathy that breathes through them, and the unity of all substance.

39. Fit thyself to the environment that is thy portion, and love the men among whom thy lot is thrown, but whole-heartedly.

40. Every implement, tool, or vessel is well if it do the work for which it is made, and yet in their case the maker is not at hand. But in the things which owe their organic unity to Nature, the Power that made is within them and abides there. Wherefore also must thou reverence it the more, and realize that if thou keep and conduct thyself ever according to its will, all is to thy mind. So also to its mind are the things of the Universe.

41. If thou regardest anything not in thine own choice as good or evil for thyself, it is inevitable that, on the incidence of such an evil or the miscarriage of such a good, thou shouldst upbraid the Gods, aye, and hate men as the actual or supposed cause of the one or the other; and in fact many are the wrongdoings we commit by setting a value on such things. But if we discriminate as good and evil only the things in our power, there is no occasion left for accusing the Gods or taking the stand of an enemy towards men.

42. We are all fellow-workers towards the fulfilment of one object, some of us knowingly and intelligently, others blindly; just as Heraclitus, I think, says that even when they sleep men are workers and fellow-agents in all that goes on in the world. One is a co-agent in this, another in that, and in abundant measure also he that murmurs and seeks to hinder or disannul what occurs. For the Universe had need of such men also. It remains then for thee to decide with whom thou art ranging thyself. For He that controls the Universe will in any case put thee to a good use and admit thee to a place among his fellow-workers and coadjutors. But see that thou fill no such place as the paltry and ridiculous line in the play which Chrysippus mentions.

43. Does the sun take upon himself to discharge the functions of the rain? or Asclepius of the Fruit-bearer? And what of each particular star? Do they not differ in glory yet co-operate to one end?

44. If the Gods have taken counsel about me and the things to befall me, doubtless they have taken good counsel. For it is not easy even to imagine a God without wisdom. And what motive could they have impelling them to do me evil? For what advantage could thereby accrue to them or to the Universe which is their special care? But if the Gods have taken no counsel for me individually, yet they have in any case done so for the interests of the Universe, and I am bound to welcome and make the best of those things also that befall as a necessary corollary to those interests. But if so be they take counsel about nothing at all—an impious belief—in good sooth let us have no more of sacrifices and prayers and oaths, nor do any other of these things every one of which is a recognition of the Gods as if they were at our side and dwelling amongst us—but if so be, I say, they do not take counsel about any of our concerns, it is still in my power to take counsel about myself, and it is for me to consider my own interest. And that is to every man's interest which is agreeable to his own constitution and nature. But my nature is rational and civic; my city and country, as Antoninus, is Rome; as a man, the world. The things then that are of advantage to these communities, these, and no other, are good for me.

45. All that befalls the Individual is to the interest of the Whole also. So far, so good. But further careful observation will shew thee that, as a general rule, what is to the interest of one man is also to the interest of other men. But in this case the word interest must be taken in a more general sense as it applies to intermediate things.

46. As the shows in the amphitheatre and such places grate upon thee as being an everlasting repetition of the same sight, and the similarity makes the spectacle pall, such must be the effect of the whole of life. For everything above and below is ever the same and the result of the same things. How long then?

47. Never lose sight of the fact that men of all kinds, of all sorts of vocations and of every race under heaven, are dead; and so carry thy thought down even to Philistion and Phoebus and Origanion. Now turn to the other tribes of men. We must pass at last to the same bourne whither so many wonderful orators have gone, so many grave philosophers, Heraclitus, Pythagoras, Socrates: so many heroes of old time, and so many warriors, so many tyrants of later days: and besides them, Eudoxus, Hipparchus, Archimedes, and other acute natures, men of large minds, lovers of toil, men of versatile powers, men of strong will, mockers, like Menippus and many another such, of man's perishable and transitory life itself. About all these reflect that they have long since been in their graves. What terrible thing then is this for them? What pray for those whose very names are unknown? One thing on earth is worth much—to live out our lives in truth and justice, and in charity with liars and unjust men.

48. When thou wouldst cheer thine heart, think upon the good qualities of thy associates; as for instance, this one's energy, that one's modesty, the generosity of a third, and some other trait of a fourth. For nothing is so cheering as the images of the virtues mirrored in the characters of those who live with us, and presenting themselves in as great a throng as possible. Have these images then ever before thine eyes.

49. Thou art not aggrieved, art thou, at being so many pounds in weight and not three hundred? Then why be aggrieved if thou hast only so many years to live and no more? For as thou art contented with the amount of matter allotted thee, so be content also with the time.

50. Try persuasion first, but even though men would say thee nay, act when the principles of justice so direct. Should any one however withstand thee by force, take refuge in being well-content and unhurt, and utilize the obstacle for the display of some other virtue. Recollect that the impulse thou hadst was conditioned by circumstances, and thine aim was not to do impossibilities. What then was it? To feel some such impulse as thou didst. In that thou art successful. That which alone was in the sphere of our choice is realized.

51. The lover of glory conceives his own good to consist in another's action, the lover of pleasure in his own feelings, but the possessor of understanding in his own actions.

52. We need not form any opinion about the thing in question or be harassed in soul, for Nature gives the thing itself no power to compel our judgments.

53. Train thyself to pay careful attention to what is being said by another and as far as possible enter into his soul.

54. That which is not in the interests of the hive cannot be in the interests of the bee.

55. If the sailors spoke ill of a steersman or the sick of a physician, what else would they have in mind but how the man should best effect the safety of the crew or the health of his patients?

56. How many have already left the world who came into it with me!

57. To the jaundiced honey tastes bitter; and the victim of hydrophobia has a horror of water; and to little children their ball is a treasure. Why then angry? Or dost thou think that error is a less potent factor than bile in the jaundiced and virus in the victim of rabies?

58. From living according to the reason of thy nature no one can prevent thee: contrary to the reason of the Universal Nature nothing shall befall thee.

59. The persons men wish to please, the objects they wish to gain, the means they employ—think of the character of all these! How soon will Time hide all things! How many a thing has it already hidden!

### Book VII
1. What is vice? A familiar sight enough. So in everything that befalls have the thought ready: This is a familiar sight. Look up, look down, everywhere thou wilt find the same things, whereof histories ancient, medieval, and modern are full; and full of them at this day are cities and houses. There is no new thing under the sun. Everything is stereotyped, everything fleeting.

2. How else can thy axioms be made dead than by the extinction of the ideas that answer to them? And these it lies with thee ever to kindle anew into flame. I am competent to form the true conception of a thing. If so, why am I harassed? What is outside the scope of my mind has absolutely no concern with my mind. Learn this lesson and thou standest erect.

3. Empty love of pageantry, stage-plays, flocks and herds, sham-fights, a bone thrown to lap-dogs, crumbs cast in a fish-pond, painful travail of ants and their bearing of burdens, skurryings of scared little mice, puppets moved by strings. Amid such environment therefore thou must take thy place graciously and not 'snorting defiance,' nay thou must keep abreast of the fact that everyone is worth just so much as those things are worth in which he is interested.

4. In conversation keep abreast of what is being said, and, in every effort, of what is being done. In the latter see from the first to what end it has reference, and in the former be careful to catch the meaning.

5. Is my mind competent for this or not? If competent, I apply it to the task as an instrument given me by the Universal Nature. If not competent, I either withdraw from the work in favour of someone who can accomplish it better, unless for other reasons duty forbids; or I do the best I can, taking to assist me any one that can utilize my ruling Reason to effect what is at the moment seasonable and useful for the common welfare. For in whatsoever I do either by myself or with another I must direct my energies to this alone, that it shall conduce to the common interest and be in harmony with it.

6. How many much-lauded heroes have already been given as a prey unto forgetfulness, and how many that lauded them have long ago disappeared!

7. Blush not to be helped; for thou art bound to carry out the task that is laid upon thee as a soldier to storm the breach. What then, if for What then, if for very lameness thou canst not mount the ramparts unaided, but canst do this with another's help?

8. Be not disquieted about the future. If thou must come thither, thou wilt come armed with the same reason which thou appliest now to the present.

9. All things are mutually intertwined, and the tie is sacred, and scarcely anything is alien the one to the other. For all things have been ranged side by side, and together help to order one ordered Universe. For there is both one Universe, made up of all things, and one God immanent in all things, and one Substance, and one Law, one Reason common to all intelligent creatures, and one Truth, if indeed there is also one perfecting of living creatures that have the same origin and share the same reason.

10. A little while and all that is material is lost to sight in the Substance of the Universe, a little while and all Cause is taken back into the Reason of the Universe, a little while and the remembrance of everything is encairned in Eternity.

11. To the rational creature the same act is at once according to nature and according to reason.

12. Upright, or made upright.

13. The principle which obtains where limbs and body unite to form one organism, holds good also for rational things with their separate individualities, constituted as they are to work in conjunction. But the perception of this shall come more home to thee, if thou sayest to thyself, I am a limb of the organized body of rational things. But if [using the letter R] thou sayest thou art but a part, not yet dost thou love mankind from the heart, nor yet does well-doing delight thee for its own sake. Thou dost practise it still as a bare duty, not yet as a boon to thyself.

14. Let any external thing, that will, be incident to whatever is able to feel this incidence. For that which feels can, if it please, complain. But I, if I do not consider what has befallen me to be an evil, am still unhurt. And I can refuse so to consider it.

15. Let any say or do what he will, I must for my part be good. So might the emerald—or gold or purple—never tire of repeating, Whatever any one shall do or say, I must be an emerald and keep my colour.

16. The ruling Reason is never the disturber of its own peace, never, for instance, hurries itself into lust. But if another can cause it fear or pain, let it do so. For it will not let its own assumptions lead it into such aberrations.

17. Well-being is a good Being, or a ruling Reason that is good. What then doest thou here, O Imagination? Avaunt, in God's name, as thou camest, for I desire thee not! But thou art come according to thine ancient wont. I bear thee no malice; only depart from me!

18. Does a man shrink from change? Why, what can come into being save by change? What be nearer or dearer to the Nature of the Universe? Canst thou take a hot bath unless the wood for the furnace suffer a change? Couldst thou be fed, if thy food suffered no change, and can any of the needs of life be provided for apart from change? Seest thou not that a personal change is similar, and similarly necessary to the Nature of the Universe?

19. Through the universal Substance as through a rushing torrent all bodies pass on their way, united with the Whole in nature and activity, as our members are with one another.

20. I am concerned about one thing only, that I of myself do not what man's constitution does not will, or wills not now, or in a way that it wills not.

21. A little while and thou wilt have forgotten everything, a little while and everything will have forgotten thee.

22. It is a man's especial privilege to love even those who stumble. And this love follows as soon as thou reflectest that they are of kin to thee and that they do wrong involuntarily and through ignorance, and that within a little while both they and thou will be dead; and this, above all, that the man has done thee no hurt; for he has not made thy ruling Reason worse than it was before.

23. The Nature of the Whole out of the Substance of the Whole, as out of wax, moulds at one time a horse, and breaking up the mould kneads the material up again into a tree, then into a man, and then into something else; and every one of these subsists but for a moment. It is no more a hardship for the coffer to be broken up than it was for it to be fitted together.

24. An angry scowl on the face is beyond measure unnatural, and when it is often seen there, all comeliness begins at once to die away, or in the end is so utterly extinguished that it can never be rekindled at all. From this very fact try to reach the conclusion that it is contrary to reason. The consciousness of wrong-doing once lost, what motive is left for living any more?

25. Everything that thou seest will the Nature that controls the Universe change, no one knows how soon, and out of its substance make other compounds, and again others out of theirs, that the world may ever renew its youth.

26. Does a man do thee wrong? Go to and mark what notion of good and evil was his that did the wrong. Once perceive that and thou wilt feel compassion not surprise or anger. For thou hast still thyself either the same notion of good and evil as he or another not unlike. Thou needs must forgive him then. But if thy notions of good and evil are no longer such, all the more easily shalt thou be gracious to him that sees awry.

27. Dream not of that which thou hast not as though already thine, but of what thou hast pick out the choicest blessings, and do not forget in respect of them how eagerly thou wouldst have coveted them, had they not been thine. Albeit beware that thou do not inure thyself, by reason of this thy delight in them, to prize them so highly as to be distressed if at any time they are lost to thee.

28. Gather thyself into thyself. It is characteristic of the rational Ruling Faculty to be satisfied with its own righteous dealing and the peace which that brings.

29. Efface imagination! Cease to be pulled as a puppet by thy passions. Isolate the present. Recognize what befalls either thee or another. Dissect and analyze all that comes under thy ken into the Causal and the Material. Meditate on thy last hour. Let the wrong thy neighbour does thee rest with him that did the wrong.

30. Do thy utmost to keep up with what is said. Let thy mind enter into the things that are done and the things that are doing them.

31. Make thy face to shine with simplicity and modesty and disregard of all that lies between virtue and vice. Love human-kind. Follow God. Says the Sage: All things by Law, but in very truth only elements. And it suffices to remember that all things are by law: there thou hast it briefly enough.

32. Of Death: Either dispersion if atoms; or, if a single Whole, either extinction or a change of state.

33. Of Pain: When unbearable it destroys us, when lasting, it is bearable, and the mind safeguards its own calm by withdrawing itself, and the ruling Reason takes no hurt. As to the parts that are impaired by the pain, let them say their say about it as they can.

34. Of Glory: Look at the minds of its votaries, their characteristics, ambitions, antipathies. Remember too that, as the sands of the sea drifting one upon the other bury the earlier deposits, so in life the earlier things are very soon hidden under what comes after.

35. [From Plato.] Dost thou think that the life of man can seem any great matter to him who has true grandeur of soul and a comprehensive outlook on all Time and all Substance? " It cannot seem so, " said he. Will such a man then deem death a terrible thing? " Not in the least. "

36. [From Antisthenes.] ' Tis royal to do well and be ill spoken of.

37. It is a shame that while the countenance is subject to the mind, taking its cast and livery from it, the mind cannot take its cast and its livery from itself.

38. It nought availeth to be wroth with things, For they reck not of it.

39. Unto the deathless Gods and to us give cause for rejoicing.

40. Our lives are reaped like the ripe ears of corn, And as one falls, another still is born.

41. Though me and both my sons the Gods have spurned, For this too there is reason.

42. For justice and good luck shall bide with me.

43. No chorus of loud dirges, no hysteria.

44. [Citations from Plato]: I might fairly answer such a questioner: Thou art mistaken if thou thinkest that a man, who is worth anything at all, ought to let considerations of life and death weigh with him rather than in all that he does consider but this, whether it is just or unjust and the work of a good man or a bad.

45. This, O men of Athens, is the true state of the case: Wherever a man has stationed himself, deeming it the best for him, or has been stationed by his commander, there methinks he ought to stay and run every risk, taking into account neither death nor any thing else save dishonour.

46. But, my good sir, see whether nobility and goodness do not mean something other than to save and be saved; for surely a man worthy of the name must waive aside the question of the duration of life however extended, and must not cling basely to life, but leaving these things in the hands of God pin his faith to the women's adage, his destiny no man can flee,' and thereafter consider in what way he may best live for such time as he has to live.

47. Watch the stars in their courses as one that runneth about with them therein; and think constantly upon the reciprocal changes of the elements, for thoughts on these things cleanse away the mire of our earthly life.

48. Noble is this saying of Plato's. Moreover he who discourses of men should, as if from some vantage-point above, take a bird's-eye view of the things of earth, in its gatherings, armies, husbandry, its inarriages and separations, its births and deaths, the din of the law-court and the silence of the desert, barbarous races manifold, its feasts and mournings and markets, the medley of it all and its orderly conjunction of contraries.

49. Pass in review the far-off things of the past and its succession of sovranties without number. Thou canst look forward and see the future also. For it will most surely be of the same character, and it cannot but carry on the rhythm of existing things. Consequently it is all one, whether we witness human life for forty years or ten thousand. For what more shalt thou see?

50. All that is earth-born gravitates earthwards,

51. Again:

52. Better at the cross-buttock, may be, but not at shewing public spirit or modesty, or being readier for every contingency or more gracious to our neighbour if he sees awry.

53. A work that can be accomplished in obedience to that reason which we share with the Gods is attended with no fear. For no harm need be anticipated, where by an activity that follows the right road, and satisfies the demands of our constitution, we can ensure our own weal.

54. At all times and in all places it rests with thee both to be content with thy present lot as a worshipper of the Gods, and to deal righteously with thy present neighbours, and to labour lovingly at thy present thoughts, that nothing unverified should steal into them.

55. Look not about thee at the ruling Reason of others, but look with straight eyes at this, To what is Nature guiding thee? —both the Nature of the Universe, by means of what befalls thee and thy nature by means of the acts thou hast to do. But everyone must do what follows from his own constitution; and all other things have been constituted for the sake of rational beings—just as in every other case the lower are for the sake of the higher —but the rational for their own sake.

56. As one that is dead, and his life till now lived and gone, must thou count the rest of thy days as so much to the good, and live according to Nature.

57. Love only what befalls thee and is spun for thee by fate. For what can be more befitting for thee?

58. In every contingency keep before thine eyes those who, when these same things befell them, were straightway aggrieved, estranged, rebellious. Where are they now? Nowhere! What then? Wouldst thou be like them? Why not leave those alien deflections to what deflects and is deflected by them, and devote thyself wholly to the question how to turn these contingencies to the best advantage? For then wilt thou make a noble use of them, and they shall be thy raw material. Only in thought and will take heed to be beautiful to thyself in all that thou doest. And remember, in rejecting the one and using the other, that the thing which matters is the aim of the action.

59. Look within. Within is the fountain of Good, ready always to well forth if thou wilt alway delve.

60. The body too should be firmly set and suffer no distortion in movement or bearing. For what the mind effects in the face, by keeping it composed and well-favoured, should be looked for similarly in the whole body. But all this must be secured without conscious effort.

61. The business of life is more akin to wrestling than dancing, for it requires of us to stand ready and unshakable against every assault however unforeseen.

62. Continually reflect, who they are whose favourable testimony thou desirest, and what their ruling Reason; for thus wilt thou not find fault with those who unintentionally offend, nor wilt thou want their testimony, when thou lookest into the inner springs of their opinions and desires.

63. Every soul, says Plato, is reft of truth against its will. Therefore it is the same also with justice and temperance and lovingkindness and every like quality. It is essential to keep this ever in mind, for it will make thee gentler towards all.

64. Whenever thou art in pain, have this reflection ready, that this is nothing to be ashamed of, nor can it make worse the mind that holds the helm. For it cannot impair it in so far as it is rational or in so far as it is social. In most pains, however, call to thy rescue even Epicurus when he says that a pain is never unbearable or interminable, so that thou remember its limitations and add nothing to it in imagination. Recollect this too that many of our every-day discomforts are really pain in disguise, such as drowsiness, a high temperature, want of appetite. When inclined to be vexed at any of these, say to thyself: I am giving in to pain.

65. See that thou never have for the inhuman the feeling which the inhuman have for human kind.

66. How do we know that Telauges may not have excelled Socrates in character? For it is not enough that Socrates died a more glorious death, and disputed more deftly with the Sophists, and with more hardihood braved whole nights in the frost, and, when called upon to fetch the Salaminian, deemed it more spirited to disobey, and that he carried his head high as he walked —and about the truth of this one can easily judge—; but the point to elucidate is this: what sort of soul had Socrates, and could he rest satisfied with being just in his dealings with men and religious in his attitude towards the Gods, neither resentful at the wickedness of others nor yet lackeying the ignorance of anyone, nor regarding as alien to himself anything allotted to him from the Whole, nor bearing it as a burden intolerable, nor letting his intelligence be swayed sympathetically by the affections of the flesh?

67. Nature did not make so intimate a blend in the compound as not to allow a man to isolate himself and keep his own things in his own power. For it is very possible to be a godlike man and yet not to be recognized by any. Never forget this nor that the happy life depends on the fewest possible things; nor because thou hast been baulked in the hope of becoming skilled in dialectics and physics, needest thou despair of being free and modest and unselfish and obedient to God.

68. Thou mayest live out thy life with none to constrain thee in the utmost peace of mind even though the whole world cry out against thee what they will, even though beasts tear limb from limb this plastic clay that has encased thee with its growth. For what in all this debars the mind from keeping itself in calmness, in a right judgment as to its environment, and in readiness to use all that is put at its disposal? so that the judgment can say to that which meets it: In essential substance thou art this, whatever else the common fame would have thee be. And the use can say to the object presented to it: Thee was I seeking. For the thing in hand is for me ever material for the exercise of rational and civic virtue, and in a word for the art of a man or of God. For everything that befalls is intimately connected with God or man, and is not new or difficult to deal with, but familiar and feasible.

69. This is the mark of a perfect character, to pass through each day as if it were the last, without agitation, without torpor, without pretence.

70. The Gods—and they are immortal—do not take it amiss that for a time so long they must inevitably and always put up with worthless men who are what they are and so many; nay they even befriend them in all manner of ways. But thou, though destined to die so soon, criest off, and that too though thou art one of the worthless ones thyself.

71. It is absurd not to eschew our own wickedness, which is possible, but to eschew that of others, which is not possible.

72. Whatever thy rational and civic faculty discovers to be neither intelligent nor social, it judges with good reason to fall short of its own standard.

73. When thou hast done well to another and another has fared well at thy hands, why go on like the foolish to look for a third thing besides, that is, the credit also of having done well or a return for the same?

74. No one wearies of benefits received; and to act by the law of Nature is its own benefit. Weary not then of being benefited therein, wherein thou dost benefit others.

75. The Nature of the Whole felt impelled to the creation of a Universe; but now either all that comes into being does so by a natural sequence, or even the most paramount things, towards which the ruling Reason of the Universe feels an impulse of its own, are devoid of intelligence. Recollect this and thou wilt face many an ill with more serenity.

### Book VIII
1. This too serves as a corrective to vain-gloriousness, that thou art no longer able to have lived thy life wholly, or even from thy youth up, as a philosopher. Thou canst clearly perceive, and many others can see it too, that thou art far from Philosophy. So then thy life is a chaos, and no longer is it easy for thee to win the credit of being a philosopher; and the facts of thy life too war against it. If then thine eyes have verily seen where the truth lies, care no more what men shall think of thee, but be content if the rest of thy life, whether long or short, be lived as thy nature wills. Make sure then what that will is, and let nothing else draw thee aside. For past experience tells thee in how much thou hast gone astray, nor anywhere lighted upon the true life; no, not in the subtleties of logic, or in wealth or fame or enjoyment, or anywhere. Where then is it to be found? In doing that which is the quest of man's nature. How then shall a man do this? By having axioms as the source of his impulses and actions. What axioms? On the nature of Good and Evil, shewing that nothing is for a man's good save what makes him just, temperate, manly, free; nor any thing for his ill that makes him not the reverse of these.

2. In every action ask thyself, How does it affect me? Shall I regret it? But a little and I am dead and all that lies between is past. What more do I ask for, as long as my present work is that of a living creature, intelligent, social, and under one law with God?

3. What are Alexander and Gaius and Pompeius to Diogenes and Heraclitus and Socrates? For these latter had their eyes opened to things and to the causes and the material substance of things, and their ruling Reason was their very own. But those—what a host of cares, what a world of slavery!

4. Thou mayst burst thyself with rage, but they will go on doing the same things none the less.

5. Firstly, fret not thyself, for all things are as the Nature of the Universe would have them, and within a little thou shalt be non-existent, and nowhere, like Hadrianus and Augustus. Secondly, look steadfastly at the thing, and see it as it is and, remembering withal that thou must be a good man, and what the Nature of man calls for, do this without swerving, and speak as seemeth to thee most just, only be it graciously, modestly, and without feigning.

6. The Nature of the Universe is charged with this task, to transfer yonder the things which are here, to interchange them, to take them hence and convey them thither. All things are but phases of change, but nothing new-fangled need be feared; all things are of the wonted type, nay, their distributions also are alike.

7. Every nature is content with itself when it speeds well on its way; and a rational nature speeds well on its way, when in its impressions it gives assent to nothing that is false or obscure, and directs its impulses towards none but social acts, and limits its inclinations and its aversions only to things that are in its power, and welcomes all that the Universal Nature allots it. For it is a part of that, as the nature of the leaf is of the plant-nature; with the difference however, that in the case of the plant the nature of the leaf is part of a nature void both of sentience and reason, and liable to be thwarted, while a man's nature is part of a nature unthwartable and intelligent and just, if indeed it divides up equally and in due measure to every one his quotas of time, substance, cause, activity, circumstance. And consider, not whether thou shalt find one thing in every case equal to one thing, but whether, collectively, the whole of this equal to the aggregate of that.

8. Thou canst not be a student. But thou canst refrain from insolence; but thou canst rise superior to pleasures and pains; but thou canst tread under thy feet the love of glory; but thou canst forbear to be angry with the unfeeling and the thankless, aye and even care for them.

9. Let no one hear thee any more grumbling at life in a Court, nay let not thine own ears hear thee.

10. Repentance is a sort of self-reproach at some useful thing passed by; but the good must needs be a useful thing, and ever to be cultivated by the true good man; but the true good man would never regret having passed a pleasure by. Pleasure therefore is neither a useful thing nor a good.

11. What of itself is the thing in question as individually constituted? What is the substance and material of it? What the causal part? What doeth it in the Universe? How long doth it subsist?

12. When thou art loth to get up, call to mind that the due discharge of social duties is in accordance with thy constitution and in accordance with man's nature, while even irrational animals share with us the faculty of sleep; but what is in accordance with the nature of the individual is more congenial, more closely akin to him, aye and more attractive.

13. Persistently and, if possible, in every case test thy impressions by the rules of physics, ethics, logic.

14. Whatever man thou meetest, put to thyself at once this question: What are this man's convictions about good and evil? For if they are such and such about pleasure and pain and what is productive of them, about good report and ill report, about death and life, it will be in no way strange or surprising to me if he does such and such things. So I will remember that he is constrained to act as he does.

15. Remember that, as it is monstrous to be surprised at a fig-tree bearing figs, so also is it to be surprised at the Universe bearing its own particular crop. Likewise it is monstrous for a physician or a steersman to be surprised that a patient has fever or that a contrary wind has sprung up.

16. Remember that neither a change of mind nor a willingness to be set right by others is inconsistent with true freedom of will. For thine alone is the active effort that effects its purpose in accordance with thy impulse and judgment, aye and thy intelligence also.

17. If the choice rests with thee, why do the thing? if with another, whom dost thou blame? Atoms or Gods To do either would be crazy folly. No one is to blame. For if thou canst, set the offender right. Failing that, at least set the thing itself right. If that too be impracticable, what purpose is served by imputing blame? For without a purpose nothing should be done.

18. That which dies is not cast out of the Universe. As it remains here, it also suffers change here and is dissolved into its own constituents, which are the elements of the Universe and thy own. Yes, and they too suffer change and murmur not.

19. Every thing, be it a horse, be it a vine, has come into being for some end. Why wonder? Helios himself will say: I exist to do some work; and so of all the other Gods. For what then dost thou exist? For pleasure? Surely it is unthinkable.

20. Nature has included in its aim in every case the ceasing to be no less than the beginning and the duration, just as the man who tosses up his ball. But what good does the ball gain while tossed upwards, or harm as it comes down, or finally when it reaches the ground? Or what good accrues to the bubble while it coheres, or harm in its bursting? And the same holds good with the lamp-flame.

21. Turn it inside out and see what it is like, what it comes to be when old, when sickly, when carrion. They endure but for a season, both praiser and praised, rememberer and remembered. All this too in a tiny corner of this continent, and not even there are all in accord, no nor a man with himself; and the whole earth is itself a point.

22. Fix thy attention on the subject-matter or the act or the principle or the thing signified. Rightly served! Thou wouldst rather become a good man to-morrow than be one to-day.

23. Am I doing some thing? I do it with reference to the well-being of mankind. Does something befall me? I accept it with a reference to the Gods and to the Source of all things from which issue, linked together, the things that come into being.

24. What bathing is when thou thinkest of it—oil, sweat, filth, greasy water, everything revolting—such is every part of life and every object we meet with.

25. Lucilla buried Verus, then Lucilla was buried; Secunda Maximus, then Secunda; Epitynchanus Diotimus, then Epitynchanus; Antoņinus Faustina, then Antoninus. The same tale always: Celer buried Hadrianus and then Celer was buried. And those acute wits, men renowned for their prescience or their pride, where are they? Such acute wits, for instance, as Charax and Demetrius [the Platonist ] and Eudaemon, and others like them. All creatures of a day, dead long ago!—some not remembered even for a while, others transformed into legends, and yet others from legends faded into nothingness! Bear then in mind that either this thy composite self must be scattered abroad, or thy vital breath be quenched, or be transferred and set elsewhere.

26. It brings gladness to a man to do a man s true work. And a man's true work is to shew goodwill to his own kind, to disdain the motions of the senses, to diagnose specious impressions, to take a comprehensive view of the Nature of the Universe and all that is done at her bidding.

27. Thou hast three relationships—the first to the vessel thou art contained in; the second to the divine Cause wherefrom issue all things to all; and the third to those that dwell with thee.

28. Pain is an evil either to the body—let the body then denounce it —or to the Soul; but the Soul can ensure her own fair weather and her own calm sea, and refuse to account it an evil. For every conviction and impulse and desire and aversion is from within, and nothing climbs in thither.

29. Efface thy impressions, saying ever to thyself: Now lies it with me that this soul should harbour no wickedness nor lust nor any disturbing element at all; but that, seeing the true nature of all things, I should deal with each as is its due. Bethink thee of this power that Nature gives thee.

30. Say thy say in the Senate or to any person whatsoever becomingly and naturally. Use sound speech.

31. The court of Augustus—wife, daughter, descendants, ancestors, sister, Agrippa, kinsfolk, household, friends, Areius, Maecenas, physicians, haruspices—dead, the whole court of them! Pass on then to other records and the death not of individuals but of a clan, as of the Pompeii. And that well-known epitaph, Last of his race —think over it and the anxiety shewn by the man s ancestors that they might leave a successor. But after all some one must be the last of the line—here again the dearth of a whole race!

32. Act by act thou must build up thy life, and be content, if each act as far as may be fulfils its end. And there is never a man that can prevent it doing this. But there will be some impediment from without. There can be none to thy behaving justly, soberly, wisely. But what if some other exercise of activity be hindered? Well, a cheerful acceptance of the hindrance and a tactful transition to what is allowed will enable another action to be substituted that will be in keeping with the built-up life of which we are speaking.

33. Accept without arrogance, surrender without reluctance.

34. Thou hast seen a hand cut off or a foot, or a head severed from the trunk, and lying at some distance from the rest of the body. Just so does the man treat himself, as far as he may, who wills not what befalls and severs himself from mankind or acts unsocially. Say thou hast been torn away in some sort from the unity of Nature; for by the law of thy birth thou wast a part; but now thou hast cut thyself off. Yet here comes in that exquisite provision, that thou canst return again to thy unity. To no other part has God granted this, to come together again, when once separated and cleft asunder. Aye, behold His goodness, wherewith He hath glorified man! For He hath let it rest with a man that he be never rent away from the Whole, and if he do rend himself away, to return again and grow on to the rest and take up his position again as part.

35. Just as the Nature of rational things has given each rational being almost all his other powers, so also have we received this one from it; that, as this Nature moulds to its purpose whatever interference or opposition it meets, and gives it a place in the destined order of things, and makes it a part of itself, so also can the rational creature convert every hindrance into material for itself and utilize it for its own purposes.

36. Let not the mental picture of life as a whole confound thee. Fill not thy thoughts with what and how many ills may conceivably await thee, but in every present case ask thyself: What is there in this experience so crushing, so insupportable? Thou wilt blush to confess. Remind thyself further that it is not the future nor the past but the present always that brings thee its burden. But this is reduced to insignificance if thou isolate it, and take thy mind to task if it cannot hold out against this mere trifle.

37. Does Pantheia now watch by the urn of her lord, or Pergamus? What, does Chabrias or Diotimus by Hadrian's? Absurd! And had they sat there till now, would the dead have been aware of it? and, if aware of it, would they have been pleased? and, if pleased, would that have made the mourners immortal? Was it not destined that these like others should become old women and old men and then die? What then, when they were dead, would be left for those whom they had mourned to do? It is all stench and foul corruption in a sack of skin.

38. Hast thou keenness of sight? Use it with judgment ever so wisely, as the saying goes.

39. In the constitution of rational creatures I see no virtue incompatible with justice, but incompatible with pleasure I see—continence.

40. Take away thy opinion as to any imagined pain, and thou thyself art set in surest safety. What is 'thyself '? Reason. But I am not reason. Be it so. At all events let the Reason not cause itself pain, but if any part in thee is amiss, let it form its own opinion about itself.

41. To the animal nature a thwarting of sense-perception is an evil, as is also to the same nature the thwarting of impulse. There is similarly some other thing that can thwart the constitution of plants and is an evil to them. Thus then the thwarting of intelligence is an evil to the intelligent nature. Transfer the application of all this to thyself. Does pain, does pleasure take hold of thee? The senses shall look to it. Wast thou impelled to a thing and wast thwarted? If thy impulse counts on an unconditional fulfilment, failure at once becomes an evil to thee as a rational creature. But accept the universal limitation, and thou hast so far received no hurt nor even been thwarted. Indeed no one else is in a way to thwart the inner purposes of the mind. For it no fire can touch, nor steel, nor tyrant, nor obloquy, nor any thing soever: a sphere once formed continues round and true.

42. It were not right that I should pain myself for not even another have I ever knowingly pained.

43. One thing delights one, another thing another. To me it is a delight if I keep my ruling Reason sound, not looking askance at man or anything that befalls man, but regarding all things with kindly eyes, accepting and using everything for its intrinsic worth.

44. See thou dower thyself with this present time. Those that yearn rather for after-fame do not realize that their successors are sure to be very much the same as the contemporaries whom they find such a burden, and no less mortal. What is it anyway to thee if there be this or that far-off echo of their voices, or if they have this or that opinion about thee?

45. Take me up and cast me where thou wilt. For even there will I keep my 'genius' tranquil, that is, content if in itself and in its activity it follow the laws of its own constitution.

46. Nothing can befall a man that is not a contingency natural to man; nor befall an ox, that is not natural to oxen, nor a vine that is not natural to a vine, nor a stone that is not proper to it. If therefore only what is natural and customary befalls each, why be aggrieved? For the common Nature brings thee nothing that thou canst not bear.

47. When thou art vexed at some external cross, it is not the thing itself that troubles thee, but thy judgment on it. And this thou canst annul in a moment. But if thou art vexed at something in thine own character, who can prevent thee from rectifying the principle that is to blame? So also if thou art vexed at not undertaking that which seems to thee a sound act, why not rather undertake it than be vexed? But there is a lion in the path! Be not vexed then, for the blame of inaction rests not with thee. But life is not worth living, this left undone. Depart then from life, dying with the same kindly feelings as he who effects his purpose, and accepting with a good grace the obstacles that thwart thee.

48. Never forget that the ruling Reason shews itself unconquerable when, concentrated in itself, it is content with itself so it do nothing that it doth not will, even if it refuse from mere opposition and not from reason—much more, then, if it judge of a thing on reasonable grounds and advisedly. Therefore the Mind, unmastered by passions, is a very citadel, for a man has no fortress more impregnable wherein to find refuge and be untaken for ever. He indeed who hath not seen this is ignorant, but he that hath seen it and takes not refuge therein is luckless.

49. Say no more to thyself than what the initial impressions report. This has been told thee, that so and so speaks ill of thee. This has been told thee, but it has not been told thee that thou art harmed. I see that my child is ailing. I see it, but I do not see that he is in danger. Keep then ever to first impressions and supplement them not on thy part from within, and nothing happens to thee. And yet do supplement them with this, that thou art familiar with every possible contingency in the world.

50. The gherkin is bitter. Toss it away. There are briars in the path. Turn aside. That suffices, and thou needest not to add: Why are such things found in the world? For thou wouldst be a laughing stock to any student of nature; just as thou wouldst be laughed at by a carpenter and a cobbler if thou tookest them to task because in their shops are seen sawdust and parings from what they are making. And yet they have space for the disposal of their fragments; while the Universal Nature has nothing outside herself; but the marvel of her craftsmanship is that, though she is limited to herself, she transmutes into her own substance all that within her seems to be perishing and decrepit and useless, and again from these very things produces other new ones; whereby she shews that she neither wants any substance outside herself nor needs a corner where she may cast her decaying matter. Her own space, her own material, her own proper craftsmanship is all that she requires.

51. Be not dilatory in doing, nor confused in conversation, nor vague in thought; let not thy soul be wholly concentred in itself nor uncontrollably agitated; leave thyself leisure in thy life.

52. He that knoweth not what the Universe is knoweth not where he is. He that knoweth not the end of its being knoweth not who he is or what the Universe is. But he that is wanting in the knowledge of any of these things could not tell what is the end of his own being. What then must we think of those that court or eschew the verdict of the clappers, who have no conception where or who they are?

53. Carest thou to be praised by a man who execrates himself thrice within the hour? to win the approval of a man who wins not his own? Can he be said to win his own approval who regrets almost every thing he does?

54. Be no longer content merely to breathe in unison with the all-embracing air, but from this moment think also in unison with the all-embracing Intelligence. For that intelligent faculty is every where diffused and offers itself on every side to him that can take it in no less than the aerial to him that can breathe.

55. Taken collectively wickedness does no harm to the Universe, and the particular wickedness does no harm to others. It is harmful to the one individual alone, and he has been given the option of being quit of it the first moment he pleases.

56. To my power of choice the power of choice of my neighbour is as much a matter of indifference as is his vital breath and his flesh. For however much we may have been made for one another, yet our ruling Reason is in each case master in its own house. Else might my neighbour's wickedness become my bane; and this was not God s will, that another might not have my unhappiness in his keeping.

57. The sun's light is diffused down, as it seems, yes, and in every direction, yet it does not diffuse itself away. For this diffusion is an extension. At any rate the beams of the Sun are called Extension rays, because they have an extension in space. And what a ray is you may easily see, if you observe the sun's light entering through a narrow chink into a darkened room, for it extends straight on, and is as it were brought up against any solid body it encounters that cuts off the air beyond. There the ray comes to a standstill, neither slipping off nor sinking down. Such then should be the diffusion and circumfusion of the mind, never a diffusing away but extension, and it should never make a violent or uncontrollable impact against any obstacle it meets with, no, nor collapse, but stand firm and illuminate what receives it. For that which conducts it not on its way will deprive itself wilfully of its beams.

58. Dread of death is a dread of non-sensation or new sensation. But either thou wilt feel no sensation, and so no sensation of any evil; or a different kind of sensation will be thine, and so the life of a different creature, but still a life.

59. Mankind have been created for the sake of one another. Either instruct therefore or endure.

60. One is the way of an arrow, another of the mind. Howbeit the mind, both when it cautiously examines its ground and when it is engaged in its enquiry, is none the less moving straight forward and towards its goal.

61. Enter into every man's ruling Reason, and give every one else an opportunity to enter into thine.

### Book IX
1. Injustice is impiety. For in that the Nature of the Universe has fashioned rational creatures for the sake of one another with a view to mutual benefit based upon worth, but by no means for harm, the transgressor of her will acts with obvious impiety against the most venerable of Deities.

2. It were more graceful doubtless for a man to depart from mankind untainted with falsehood and all dissimulation and luxury and arrogance; failing that, however, the 'next best course' is to breathe out his life when his gorge has risen at these things. Or is it thy choice to throw in thy lot with vice, and does not even thy taste of it yet persuade thee to fly from the pestilence? For the corruption of the mind is a pest far worse than any such miasma and vitiation of the air which we breathe around us. The latter is a pestilence for living creatures and affects their life, the former for human beings and affects their humanity.

3. Despise not death, but welcome it, for Nature wills it like all else. For dissolution is but one of the processes of Nature, associated with thy life's various seasons, such as to be young, to be old, to wax to our prime and to reach it, to grow teeth and beard and gray hairs, to beget, conceive and bring forth. A man then that has reasoned the matter out should not take up towards death the attitude of indifference, reluctance, or scorn, but await it as one of the processes of Nature. Look for the hour when thy soul shall emerge from this its sheath, as now thou awaitest the moment when the child she carries shall come forth from thy wife's womb.

4. He that does wrong, does wrong to himself. The unjust man is unjust to himself, for he makes himself bad.

5. There is often an injustice of omission as well as of commission.

6. The present assumption rightly apprehended, the present act socially enacted, the present disposition satisfied with all that befalls it from the Cause external to it—these will suffice.

7. Efface imagination. Restrain impulse. Quench desire. Keep the ruling Reason in thine own power.

8. Among irrational creatures one life is distributed, and among the rational one intellectual soul has been parcelled out. Just as also there is one earth for all the things that are of the earth; and one is the light whereby we see, and one the air we all breathe that have sight and life.

9. All that share in a common element have an affinity for their own kind. The trend of all that is earthy is to earth; fluids all run together; it is the same with the aerial; so that only interposing obstacles and force can keep them apart. Fire indeed has a tendency to rise by reason of the elemental fire, but is so quick to be kindled in sympathy with all fire here below that every sort of matter, a whit drier than usual, is easily kindled owing to its having fewer constituents calculated to offer resistance to its kindling. So then all that shares in the Universal Intelligent Nature has as strong an affinity towards what is akin, aye even a stronger. For the measure of its superiority to all other things is the measure of its readiness to blend and coalesce with that which is akin to it.

10. They all bear fruit—Man and God and the Universe: each in its due season bears. It matters nought that in customary parlance such a term is strictly applicable only to the vine and such things. Reason too hath its fruit both for all and for itself, and there issue from it other things such as is Reason itself.

11. If thou art able, convert the wrong-doer. If not, bear in mind that kindliness was given thee to meet just such a case. The Gods too are kindly to such persons and even co-operate with them for certain ends—for health, to wit, and wealth and fame, so benignant are they. Thou too canst be the same; or say who is there that prevents thee.

12. Do thy work not as a drudge, nor as desirous of pity or praise. Desire one thing only, to act or not to act as civic reason directs.

13. This day have I got me out of all trouble, or rather have cast out all trouble, for it was not from without, but within, in my own imagination.

14. All these are things of familiar experience; in their duration ephemeral, in their material foul. Everything is now as it was in the days of those whom we have buried.

15. Objective things stand outside the door, keeping themselves to themselves, without knowledge of or message about themselves. What then has for us a message about them? The ruling Reason.

16. Not in being acted upon but in activity lies the evil and the good of the rational and civic creature, just as his virtue too and his vice lie in activity and not in being acted upon.

17. The stone that is thrown into the air is none the worse for falling down, or the better for being carried upwards.

18. Find the way within into their ruling Reason, and thou shalt see what these judges are whom thou fearest and what their judgment of themselves is worth.

19. Change is the universal experience. Thou art thyself undergoing a perpetual transformation and, in some sort, decay: aye and the whole Universe as well.

20. Another's wrong-doing should be left with him.

21. A cessation of activity, a quiescence from impulse and opinion and, as it were, their death, is no evil. Turn now to consider the stages of thy life—childhood, boyhood, manhood, old age—each step in the ladder of change a death. Is there anything terrible here? Pass on now to thy life under thy grandfather, then under thy mother, then under thy father, and finding there many other alterations, changes, and cessations, ask thyself: Is there anything terrible here? No, nor any in the ending and quiescence and change of the whole of life.

22. Speed to the ruling Reason of thyself, and of the Universe, and of thy neighbour of thine own, that thou mayest make it just; of that of the Universe, that thou mayest therewithal remember of what thou art a part; of thy neighbour, that thou mayest learn whether it was ignorance with him or understanding, and reflect at the same time that it is akin to thee.

23. As thou thyself art a part perfective of a civic organism, let also thine every act be a part perfective of civic life. Every act of thine then that has no relation direct or indirect to this social end, tears thy life asunder and destroys its unity, and creates a schism, just as in a commonwealth does the man who, as far as in him lies, stands aloof from such a concord of his fellows.

24. Children's squabbles and make-believe, and little souls bearing up corpses —the Invocation of the Dead might strike one as a more vivid reality!

25. Go straight to that which makes a thing what it is, its formative cause, and, isolating it from the material, regard it so. Then mark off the utmost time for which the individual object so qualified is calculated to subsist.

26. By not being content with thy ruling Reason doing the work for which it was constituted, thou hast borne unnumbered ills. Nay, 'tis enough!

27. When men blame or hate thee or give utterance to some such feelings against thee, turn to their souls, enter into them, and see what sort of men they are. Thou wilt perceive that thou needest not be concerned as to what they think of thee. Yet must thou feel kindly towards them, for Nature made them dear to thee. The Gods too lend them aid in divers ways by dreams and oracles, to win those very things on which their hearts are set.

28. The same, upwards, downwards, from cycle to cycle are the revolutions of the Universe. And either the Universal Mind feels an impulse to act in each separate case—and if this be so, accept its impulsion—or it felt this impulse once for all, and all subsequent things follow by way of consequence; and what matters which it be, for if you like to put it so the world is all atoms [or indivisible]. But as to the Whole, if God—all is well; if haphazard—be not thou also haphazard.

29. The World-Cause is as a torrent, it sweeps everything along. How negligible these manikins that busy themselves with civic matters and flatter themselves that they act therein as philosophers! Drivellers all! What then, O Man? Do what Nature asks of thee now. Make the effort if it be given thee to do so and look not about to see if any shall know it. Dream not of Utopias but be content if the least thing go forward, and count the outcome of the matter in hand as a small thing. For who can alter another's conviction? Failing a change of conviction, we merely get men pretending to be persuaded and chafing like slaves under coercion. Go to now and tell me of Alexander and Philip and Demetrius of Phalerum. Whether they realized the will of Nature and schooled themselves thereto, is their concern. But if they played the tragedy-hero, no one has condemned me to copy them. Simple and modest is the work of Philosophy: lead me not astray into pomposity and pride.

30. Take a bird's-eye view of the world, its endless gatherings and endless ceremonials, voyagings manifold in storm and calm, and the vicissitudes of things coming into being, participating in being, ceasing to be. Reflect too on the life lived long ago by other men, and the life that shall be lived after thee, and is now being lived in barbarous countries; and how many have never even heard thy name, and how many will very soon forget it, and how many who now perhaps acclaim, will very soon blame thee, and that neither memory nor fame nor anything thing else whatever is worth reckoning.

31. Freedom from perturbance in all that befalls from the external Cause, and justice in all that thine own inner Cause prompts thee to do; that is, impulse and action finding fulfilment in the actual performance of social duty as being in accordance with thy nature.

32. It is in thy power to rid thyself of many unnecessary troubles, for they exist wholly in thy imagination. Thou wilt at once set thy feet in a large room by embracing the whole Universe in thy mind and including in thy purview time everlasting, and by observing the rapid change in every part of everything, and the shortness of the span between birth and dissolution, and that the yawning immensity before birth is only matched by the infinity after our dissolution.

33. All that thine eyes behold will soon perish and they, who live to see it perish, will in their turn perish no less quickly; and he who outlives all his contemporaries and he who dies before his time will be as one in the grave.

34. What is the ruling Reason of these men, and about what sort of objects have they been in earnest, and from what motives do they lavish their love and their honour! View with the mind's eye their poor little souls in their nakedness. What immense conceit this of theirs, when they fancy that there is bane in their blame and profit in their praises!

35. Loss and change, they are but one. Therein doth the Universal Nature take pleasure, through whom are all things done now as they have been in like fashion from time everlasting; and to eternity shall other like things be. Why then dost thou say that all things have been evil and will remain evil to the end, and that no help has after all been found in Gods, so many as they be, to right these things, but that the fiat hath gone forth that the Universe should be bound in an unbroken chain of ill?

36. Seeds of decay in the underlying material of everything—water, dust, bones, reek! Again, marble but nodules of earth, and gold and silver but dross, garments merely hair-tufts, and purple only blood. And so so with everything else. The soul too another like thing and liable to change from this to that.

37. Have done with this miserable way of life, this grumbling, this apism! Why fret? What is the novelty here? What amazes thee? The Cause? Look fairly at it. What then, the Material? Look fairly at that. Apart from these two, there is nothing. But in regard to the Gods also now even at the eleventh hour show thyself more simple, more worthy.

38. If he did wrong, with him lies the evil. But maybe he did no wrong.

39. Either there is one intelligent source, from which as in one body all after things proceed—and the part ought not to grumble at what is done in the interests of the whole—or there are atoms, and nothing but a medley and a dispersion. Why then be harassed? Say to thy ruling Reason: Thou art dead! Thou art corrupt! Thou hast become a wild beast! Thou art a hypocrite! Thou art one of the herd! Thou battenest with them!

40. Either the Gods have no power or they have power. If they have no power, why pray to them? But if they have power, why not rather pray that they should give thee freedom from fear of any of these things and from lust for any of these things and from grief at any of these things [rather] than that they should grant this or refuse that. For obviously if they can assist men at all, they can assist them in this. But perhaps thou wilt say: The Gods have put this in my power. Then is it not better to use what is in thy power like a free man than to concern thyself with what is not in thy power like a slave and an abject? And who told thee that the Gods do not co-operate with us even in the things that are in our power? Begin at any rate with prayers for such things and thou wilt see. One prays: How may I lie with that woman! Thou: How may I not lust to lie with her! Another: How may I be quit of that man! Thou: How may I not wish to be quit of him! Another: How may I not lose my little child! Thou: How may I not dread to lose him. In a word, give thy prayers this turn, and see what comes of it.

41. Listen to Epicurus where he says: In my illness my talk was not of any bodily feelings, nor did I chatter about such things to those who came to see me, but I went on with my cardinal disquisitions on natural philosophy, dwelling especially on this point, hom the mind, having perforce its share in such affections of the flesh, yet remains unperturbed, safeguarding its own proper good. Nor did I —he goes on— let the physicians ride the high horse as if they were doing grand things, but my life went on well and happily. Imitate him then in sickness, if thou art sick, and in any other emergency; for it is a commonplace of every sect not to renounce Philosophy whatever difficulties we encounter, nor to consent to babble as he does that is unenlightened in philosophy and nature;... devote thyself to thy present work alone and thy instrument for performing it.

42. When thou art offended by shamelessness in any one, put this question at once to thyself: Can it be that shameless men should not exist in the world? It can not be. Then ask not for what can not be. For this man in question also is one of the shameless ones that must needs exist in the world. Have the same reflection ready for the rogue, the deceiver, or any other wrongdoer whatever. For the remembrance that this class of men cannot but exist will bring with it kindlier feelings towards individuals of the class. Right useful too is it to bethink thee at once of this: What virtue has Nature given man as a foil to the wrong-doing in question? For as an antidote against the unfeeling man she has given gentleness, and against another man some other resource.

### Book X
1. Wilt thou then, O my Soul, ever at last be good and simple and single and naked, shewing thyself more visible than the body that overlies thee? Wilt thou ever taste the sweets of a loving and a tender heart? Ever be full-filled and self-sufficing, longing for nothing, lusting after nothing animate or inanimate, for the enjoyment of pleasures—not time wherein the longer to enjoy them, nor place or country or congenial climes or men nearer to thy liking—but contented with thy present state and delighted with thy present everything, convincing thyself withal that all that is present for thee is present from the Gods, and that everything is and shall be well with thee that is pleasing to them and that they shall hereafter grant for the conservation of that Perfect Being that is good and just and beautiful, the Begetter and Upholder of all things, that embraces and gathers them in, when they are dissolved, to generate therefrom other like things? Wilt thou ever at last fit thyself so to be a fellow-citizen with the Gods and with men as never to find fault with them or incur their condemnation?

2. Observe what thy nature asks of thee, as one controlled by Nature alone, then do this and with a good grace, if thy nature as a living creature is not to be made worse thereby. Next must thou observe what thy nature as a living creature asks of thee. And this must thou wholly accept, if thy nature as a rational living creature be not made worse thereby. Now the rational is indisputably also the civic. Comply with these rules then and be not needlessly busy about anything.

3. All that befalls either so befalls as thou art fitted by nature to bear it or as thou art not fitted. If the former, take it not amiss, but bear it as thou art fitted to do. If the latter, take not that amiss either, for when it has destroyed thee, it will itself perish. Howbeit be assured that thou art fitted by nature to bear everything which it rests with thine own opinion about it to render bearable and tolerable, according as thou thinkest it thy interest or thy duty to do so.

4. If a man makes a slip, enlighten him with loving-kindness, and shew him wherein he hath seen amiss. Failing that, blame thyself or not even thyself.

5. Whatever befalls thee was set in train for thee from everlasting, and the iiiterplication of causes was from eternity weaving into one fabric thy existence and the coincidence of this event.

6. Whether there be atoms or a Nature, let it be postulated first, that I am a part of the whole Universe controlled by Nature; secondly, that I stand in some intimate connexion with other kindred parts. For bearing this in mind, as I am a part, I shall not be displeased with anything allotted me from the Whole. For what is advantageous to the whole can in no wise be injurious to the part. For the Whole contains nothing that is not advantageous to itself; and all natures have this in common, but the Universal Nature is endowed with the additional attribute of never being forced by any external cause to engender anything hurtful to itself.

7. The parts of the Whole—all that Nature has comprised in the Universe—must inevitably perish, taking “perish" to mean "be changed." But if this process is by nature for them both evil and inevitable, the Whole could never do its work satisfactorily, its parts ever going as they do from change to change and being constituted to perish in diverse ways. Did Nature herself set her hand to bringing evil upon parts of herself and rendering them not only liable to fall into evil but of necessity fallen into it, or was she not aware that such was the case? Both alternatives are incredible.

8. Assuming for thyself the appellations, a good man, a modest man, a truthteller, wise of heart, sympathetic of heart, great of heart, take heed thou be not new-named. And if thou shouldst forfeit these titles, e'en make haste to get back to them. And bear in mind that wise of heart was meant to signify for thee a discerning consideration of every object and a thoroughness of thought; sympathetic of heart, a willing acceptance of all that the Universal Nature allots thee; great of heart an uplifting of our mental part above the motions smooth or rough of the flesh, above the love of empty fame, the fear of death, and all other like things. Only keep thyself entitled to these appellations, not itching to receive them from others, and thou wilt be a new man and enter on a new life. For to be still such as thou hast been till now, and to submit to the rendings and defilements of such a life, is worthy of a man that shews beyond measure a dull senselessness and a clinging to life, and is on a level with the wild-beast fighters that are half-devoured in the arena, who, though a mass of wounds and gore, beg to be kept till the next day, only to be thrown again, torn as they are, to the same teeth and talons.

9. Stage-apery, warfare, cowardice, torpor, servility—these will day by day obliterate all those holy principles of thine which, as a student of Nature, thou dost conceive and accept. But thou must regard and do everything in such a way that at one and the same time the present task may be carried through, and full play given to the faculty of pure thought, and that the self-confidence engendered by a knowledge of each individual thing be kept intact, unobtruded yet unconcealed.

10. A spider prides itself on capturing a fly; one man on catching a hare, another on netting a sprat, another on taking wild boars, another bears, another Sarmatians. Are not these brigands, if thou test their principles?

11. Make thy own a scientific system of enquiry into the mutual change of all things, and pay diligent heed to this branch of study and exercise thyself in it. For nothing is so conducive to greatness of mind. Let a man do this and he divests himself of his body and, realizing that he must almost at once relinquish all these things and depart from among men, he gives himself up wholly to just dealing in all his actions, and to the Universal Nature in all that befalls him. What others may say or think about him or do against him he does not even let enter his mind, being well satisfied with these two things—justice in all present acts and contentment with his present lot. And he gives up all engrossing cares and ambitions, and has no other wish than to achieve the straight course through the Law and, by achieving it, to be a follower of God.

12. What need of surmise when it lies with thee to decide what should be done, and if thou canst see thy course, to take it with a good grace and not turn aside; but if thou canst not see it, to hold back and take counsel of the best counsellors and if any other obstacles arise therein, to go forward as thy present means shall allow with careful deliberation holding to what is clearly just? For to succeed in this is the best thing of all, since in fact to fail in this would be the only failure.

13. Ask thyself as soon as thou art roused from sleep: Will it make any difference to me if another does what is just and right? It will make none. Hast thou forgotten that those who play the wanton in their praise and blame of others, are such as they are in their beds, at their board; and what are the things that they do, the things that they avoid or pursue, and how they pilfer and plunder, not with hands and feet but with the most precious part of them, whereby a man calls into being at will faith, modesty, truth, law, and a good 'genius'?

14. Says the well-schooled and humble heart to Nature that gives and takes back all we have; Give what thou wilt, take back what thou wilt. But he says it without any bravado of fortitude, in simple obedience and good will to her.

15. Thou has but a short time left to live. Live as on a mountain; for whether it be here or there, matters not provided that, wherever a man live, he live as a citizen of the World-City. Let men look upon thee, cite thee, as a man in very deed that lives according to Nature. If they cannot bear with thee, let them slay thee. For it were better so than to live their life.

16. Put an end once for all to this discussion of what a good man should be, and be one.

17. Continually picture to thyself Time as a whole, and Substance as a whole, and every individual thing, in respect of substance, as but a fig-seed and, in respect to time, as but a twist of the drill.

18. Regarding attentively every existing thing reflect that it is already disintegrating and changing, and as it were in a state of decomposition and dispersion, or that everything is by nature made but to die.

19. What are they like when eating, sleeping, coupling, evacuating, and the rest! What again when lording it over others, when puffed up with pride, when filled with resentment or rebuking others from a loftier plane! Yet but a moment ago they were lackeying how many and for what ends, and anon will be at their old trade.

20. What the Universal Nature brings to every thing is for the benefit of that thing, and for its benefit then when she brings it.

21. The earth is in love with showers and the majestic sky is in love. And the Universe is in love with making whatever has to be. To the Universe I say: Together with thee I will be in love. Is it not a way we have of speaking, to say, This or that loves to be so?

22. Either thy life is here and thou art inured to it; or thou goest elsewhere and this with thine own will; or thou diest and hast served out thy service. There is no other alternative. Take heart then.

23. Never lose sight of the fact that a man's 'freehold' is such as I told thee, and how all the conditions are the same here as on the top of a mountain or on the sea-shore or wherever thou pleasest. Quite apposite shalt thou find to be the words of Plato: Compassed about (by the city wall as) by a sheep-fold on the mountain, and milking flocks.

24. What is my ruling Reason and what am I making of it now? To what use do I now put it? Is it devoid of intelligence? Is it divorced and severed from neighbourliness? Does it so coalesce and blend with the flesh as to be swayed by it?

25. He that flies from his master is a runaway. But the Law is our master, and he that transgresses the Law is a runaway. Now he also, that is moved by grief or wrath or fear, is fain that something should not have happened or be happening or happen in the future of what has been ordained by that which controls the whole Universe, that is by the Law laying down all that falls to a man's lot. He then is a runaway who is moved by fear, grief, or wrath.

26. A man passes seed into a womb and goes his way, and anon another cause takes it in hand and works upon it and perfects a babe—what a consummation from what a beginning! Again he passes food down the throat, and anon another cause taking up the work creates sensation and impulse and in fine, life and strength and other things how many and how mysterious! Muse then on these things that are done in such secrecy, and detect the efficient force, just as we detect the descensive and the ascensive none the less clearly that it is not with our eyes.

27. Bear in mind continually how all such things as now exist existed also before our day and, be assured, will exist after us. Set before thine eyes whole dramas and their settings, one like another, all that thine own experience has shewn thee or thou hast learned from past history, for instance the entire court of Hadrianus, the entire court of Antoninus, the entire court of Philip, of Alexander, of Croesus. For all those scenes were such as we see now, only the performers being different.

28. Picture to thyself every one that is grieved at any occurrence whatever or dissatisfied, as being like the pig which struggles and screams when sacrificed; like it too him who, alone upon his bed, bewails in silence the fetters of our fate; and that to the rational creature alone has it been granted to submit willingly to what happens, mere submission being imperative on all.

29. In every act of thine pause at each step and ask thyself: Is death to be dreaded for the loss of this?

30. Does another's wrong-doing shock thee? Turn incontinently to thyself and bethink thee what analogous wrong-doing there is of thine own, such as deeming money to be a good or pleasure or a little cheap fame and the like. For by marking this thou wilt quickly forget thy wrath, with this reflection too to aid thee, that a man is under constraint; for what should he do? Or, if thou art able, remove the constraint.

31. Let a glance at Satyron call up the image of Socraticus or Eutyches or Hymen, and a glance at Euphrates the image of Eutychion or Silvanus, and a glance at Alciphron Tropaeophorus, and at Severus Xenophon or Crito. Let a glance at thyself bring to mind one of the Caesars, and so by analogy in every case. Then let the thought strike thee: Where are they now? Nowhere, or none can say where. For thus shalt thou habitually look upon human things as mere smoke and as naught; and more than ever so, if thou bethink thee that what has once changed will exist no more throughout eternity. Why strive then and strain? Why not be content to pass this thy short span of life in becoming fashion?

32. Give no one the right to say of thee with truth that thou art not a sincere, that thou art not a good man, but let anyone that shall form any such an idea of thee be as one that maketh a lie. All this rests with thee. For who is there to hinder thee from being good and sincere? Resolve then to live no longer if thou be not such. For neither doth Reason in that case insist that thou shouldest.

33. Taking our ‘material' into account, what can be said or done in the soundest way? Be it what it may, it rests with thee to do or say it. And let us have no pretence that thou art being hindered.

34. Even an obvious and quite brief aphorism can serve to warn him that is bitten with the true doctrines against giving way to grief and fear; as for instance,

35. The sound eye should see all there is to be seen, but should not say: I want what is green only. For that is characteristic of a disordered eye. And the sound hearing and smell should be equipped for all that is to be heard or smelled. And the sound digestion should act towards all nutriment as a mill towards the grist which it was formed to grind. So should the sound mind be ready for all that befalls. But the mind that says: Let my children be safe! Let all applaud my every act! is but as an eye that looks for green things or as teeth that look for soft things.

36. There is no one so fortunate as not to have one or two standing by his death-bed who will welcome the evil which is befalling him. Say he was a worthy man and a wise; will there not be some one at the very end to say in his heart, We can breathe again at last, freed from this schoolmaster, not that he was hard on any of us, but I was all along conscious that he tacitly condemns us? So much for the worthy, but in our own case how many other reasons can be found for which hundreds would be only too glad to be quit of us! Think then upon this when dying, and thy passing from life will be easier if thou reason thus: I am leaving a life in which even my intimates for whom I have so greatly toiled, prayed, and thought, aye even they wish me gone, expecting belike to gain thereby some further ease. Why then should anyone cling to a longer sojourn here?

37. In every act of another habituate thyself as far as may be to put to thyself the question: What end has the man in view? But begin with thyself, cross-examine thyself first.

38. Bear in mind that what pulls the strings is that Hidden Thing within us: that makes our speech, that our life, that, one may say, makes the man. Never in thy mental picture of it include the vessel that overlies it nor these organs that are appurtenances thereof. They are like the workman's adze, only differing from it in being naturally attached to the body. Since indeed, severed from the Cause that bids them move and bids them stay, these parts are as useless as is the shuttle of the weaver, the pen of the writer, and the whip of the charioteer.

### Book XI
1. The properties of the Rational Soul are these: it sees itself, dissects itself, moulds itself to its own will, itself reaps its own fruits —whereas the fruits of the vegetable kingdom and the corresponding produce of animals are reaped by others,—it wins to its own goal wherever the bounds of life be set. In dancing and acting and such-like arts, if any break oceurs, the whole action is rendered imperfect; but the rational soul in every part and wheresoever taken shews the work set before it fulfilled and all-sufficient for itself, so that it can say: I have to the full what is my own.

2. Thou wilt think but meanly of charming songs and dances and the pancratium, if thou analyze the melodious utterance into its several notes and in the case of each ask thyself: Has this the mastery over me? For thou wilt recoil from such a confession. So too with the dance, if thou do the like for each movement and posture. The same holds good of the pancratium. In fine, virtue and its sphere of action excepted, remember to turn to the component parts, and by analyzing them come to despise them. Bring the same practice to bear on the whole of life also.

3. What a soul is that which is ready to be released from the body at any requisite moment, and be quenched or dissipated or hold together! But the readiness must spring from a man's inner judgment, and not be the result of mere opposition [as is the case with the Christians]. It must be associated with deliberation and dignity and, if others too are to be convinced, with nothing like stage-heroics.

4. Have I done some social act? Well, I am amply rewarded. Keep this truth ever ready to turn to, and in no wise slacken thine efforts.

5. What is thy vocation? To be a good man. But how be successful in this save by assured conceptions on the one hand of the Universal Nature and on the other of the special constitution of man?

6. Originally tragedies were brought on to remind us of real events, and that such things naturally occur, and that on life's greater stage you must not be vexed at things, which on the stage you find so attractive. For it is seen that these things must be gone through, and they too have to endure them, who cry Ah, Kithaeron! Aye, and the dramatic writers contain some serviceable sayings. For example this more especially:

7. How clearly is it borne in on thee that there is no other state of life so fitted to call for the exercise of Philosophy as this in which thou now findest thyself.

8. A branch cut off from its neighbour branch cannot but be cut off from the whole plant. In the very same way a man severed from one man has fallen away from the fellowship of all men. Now a branch is cut off by others, but a man separates himself from his neighbour by his own agency in hating him or turning his back upon him; and is unaware that he has thereby sundered himself from the whole civic community. But mark the gift of Zeus who established the law of fellowship. For it is in our power to grow again to the neighbour branch, and again become perfective of the whole. But such a schism constantly repeated makes it difficult for the seceding part to unite again and resume its former condition. And in general the branch that from the first has shared in the growth of the tree and lived with its life is not like that which has been cut off and afterwards grafted on to it, as the gardeners are apt to tell you. Be of one bush, but not of one mind.

9. As those who withstand thy progress along the path of right reason will never be able to turn thee aside from sound action, so let them not wrest thee from a kindly attitude towards them; but keep a watch over thyself in both directions alike, not only in steadfastness of judgment and action but also in gentleness towards those who endeavour to stand in thy path or be in some other way a thorn in thy side. For in fact it is a sign of weakness to be wroth with them, no less than to shrink from action and be terrified into surrender. For they that do the one or the other are alike deserters of their post, the one as a coward, the other as estranged from a natural kinsman and friend.

10. ' Nature in no case cometh short of art.' For indeed the arts are copiers of various natures. If this be so, the most consummate and comprehensive Nature of all cannot be outdone by the inventive skill of art. And in every art the lower things are done for the sake of the higher; and this must hold good of the Universal Nature also. Aye and thence is the origin of Justice, and in justice all the other virtues have their root, since justice will not be maintained if we either put a value on things indifferent, or are easily duped and prone to slip and prone to change.

11. If therefore the things, the following after and eschewing of which disturb thee, come not to thee, but thou in a manner dost thyself seek them out, at all events keep thy judgment at rest about them and they will remain quiescent, and thou shalt not be seen following after or eschewing them.

12. The soul is 'a sphere truly shaped,' when it neither projects itself towards anything outside nor shrinks together inwardly, neither expands nor contracts, but irradiates a light whereby it sees the reality of all things and the reality that is in itself.

13. What if a man think scorn of me? That will be his affair. But it will be mine not to be found doing or saying anything worthy of scorn. But what if he hate me? That will be his affair. But I will be kindly and goodnatured to everyone, and ready to shew even my enemy where he has seen amiss, not by way of rebuke nor with a parade of forbearance, but genuinely and chivalrously like the famous Phocion, unless indeed he was speaking ironically. For such should be the inner springs of a man's heart that the Gods see him not wrathfully disposed at any thing or counting it a hardship. What evil can happen to thee if thou thyself now doest what is congenial to thy nature, and welcomest what the Universal Nature now deems well-timed, thou who art a man intensely eager that what is for the common interest should by one means or another be brought about?

14. Thinking scorn of one another, they yet fawn on one another, and eager to outdo their rivals they grovel one to another.

15. How rotten at the core is he, how counterfeit, who proclaims aloud: I have elected to deal straightforwardly with thee! Man, what art thou at? There is no need to give this out. The fact will instantly declare itself. It ought to be written on the fore head. There is a ring in the voice that betrays it at once, it flashes out at once from the eyes, just as the loved one can read at a glance every secret in his lover's looks. The simple and good man should in fact be like a man who has a strong smell about him, so that, as soon as ever he comes near, his neighbour is, will-he nill-he, aware of it. A calculated simplicity is a stiletto. There is nothing more hateful than the friendship of the wolf for the lamb. Eschew that above all things. The good man, the kindly, the genuine, betrays these characteristics in his eyes and there is no hiding it.

16. Vested in the soul is the power of living ever the noblest of lives, let a man but be indifferent towards things indifferent. And he will be indifferent, if he examine every one of these things both in its component parts and as a whole, and bear in mind that none of them is the cause in us of any opinion about itself, nor obtrudes itself on us. They remain quiescent, and it is we who father these judgments about them and as it were inscribe them on our minds, though it lies with us not to inscribe them and, if they chance to steal in undetected, to erase them at once. Bear in mind too that we shall have but a little while to attend to such things and presently life will be at an end. But why complain of the perversity of things? If they are as Nature wills, delight in them and let them be no hardship to thee. If they contravene Nature, seek then what is in accord with thy nature and speed towards that, even though it be unpopular. For it is pardonable for every man to seek his own good.

17. Think whence each thing has come, of what it is built up, into what it changes, what it will be when changed; and that it cannot take any harm.

18. Firstly: Consider thy relation to mankind and that we came into the world for the sake of one another; and taking another point of view, that I have come into it to be set over men, as a ram over a flock or a bull over a herd. Start at the beginning from this premiss: If not atoms, then an all-controlling Nature. If the latter, then the lower are for the sake of the higher and the higher for one another.

19. Against four perversions of the ruling Reason thou shouldest above all keep unceasing watch, and, once detected, wholly abjure them, saying in each case to thyself: This thought is not necessary; this is destructive of human fellowship; this could be no genuine utterance from the heart.—And not to speak from the heart, what is it but a contradiction in terms?—The fourth case is that of self-reproach, for that is an admission that the divine part of thee has been worsted by and acknowledges its inferiority to the body, the baser and mortal partner, and to its gross notions.

20. Thy soul and all the fiery part that is blended with thee, though by Nature ascensive, yet in submission to the system of the Universe are held fast here in thy compound personality. And the entire earthy part too in thee and the humid, although naturally descensive, are yet upraised and take up a station not their natural one. Thus indeed, we find the elements also in subjection to the Whole and, when set anywhere, remaining there under constraint until the signal sound for their release again therefrom.

21. He who has not ever in view one and the same goal of life cannot be throughout his life one and the same. Nor does that which is stated suffice, there needs to be added what that goal should be. For just as opinion as to all the things that in one way or another are held by the mass of men to be good is not uniform, but only as to certain things, such, that is, as affect the common weal, so must we set before ourselves as our goal the common and civic weal. For he who directs all his individual impulses towards this goal will render his actions homogeneous and thereby be ever consistent with himself.

22. Do not forget the story of the town mouse and the country mouse, and the excitement and trepidation of the latter.

23. Socrates used to nickname the opinions of the multitude Ghouls, bogies to terrify children.

24. The Spartans at their spectacles assigned to strangers seats in the shade, but themselves took their chance of seats anywhere.

25. Socrates refused the invitation of Perdiccas to his court, That I come not, said he, to a dishonoured grave, meaning, that I be not treated with generosity and have no power to return it.

26. In the writings of the Ephesians was laid down the advice to have constantly in remembrance some one of the ancients who lived virtuously.

27. Look, said the Pythagoreans, at the sky in the morning, that we may have in remembrance those hosts of heaven that ever follow the same course and accomplish their work in the same way, and their orderly system, and their purity, and their nakedness; for there is no veil before a star.

28. Think of Socrates with the sheepskin wrapped round him, when Xanthippe had gone off with his coat, and what he said to his friends when they drew back in their embarrassment at seeing him thus accoutred.

29. In reading and writing thou must learn first to follow instruction before thou canst give it. Much more is this true of life.

30. ' Tis not for thee, a slave, to reason why.

31..... and within me my heart laughed.

32. Virtue they will upbraid and speak harsh words in her hearing.

33. Only a madman will look for figs in winter. No better is he who looks for a child when he may no longer have one.

34. A man while fondly kissing his child, says Epictetus, should whisper in his heart: ' To-morrow peradventure thou wilt die.' Ill-omened words these! Nay, said he, nothing is ill-omened that signifies a natural process. Or it is ill-omened also to talk of ears of corn being reaped.

35. The grape unripe, mellow, dried-in every stage we have a change, not into non-existence, but into the not now existent.

36. Hear Epictetus: no one can rob us of our free choice.

37. We must, says he, hit upon the true science of assent and in the sphere of our impulses pay good heed that they be subject to proper reservations, that they have in view our neighbour's welfare; that they are proportionate to worth. And we must abstain wholly from inordinate desire and shew avoidance in none of the things that are not in our control.

38. It is no casual matter, then, said he, that is at stake, but whether we are to be sane or no.

39. Socrates was wont to say: What would ye have? The souls of reasoning or unreasoning creatures? Of reasoning creatures. Of what kind of reasoning creatures? Sound or vicious? Sound. Why then not make a shift to get them? Because we have them already. Why then fight and wrangle?

### Book XII
1. All those things, which thou prayest to attain by a roundabout way, thou canst have at once if thou deny them not to thyself; that is to say, if thou leave all the Past to itself and entrust the Future to Providence, and but direct the Present in the way of piety and justice: piety, that thou mayest love thy lot, for Nature brought it to thee and thee to it; justice, that thou mayest speak the truth freely and without finesse, and have an eye to law and the due worth of things in all that thou doest; and let nothing stand in thy way, not the wickedness of others, nor thine own opinion, nor what men say, nor even the sensations of the flesh that has grown around thee; for the part affected will see to that.

2. God sees the Ruling Parts of all men stripped of material vessels and husks and sloughs. For only with the Intellectual Part of Himself is He in touch with those emanations only which have welled forth and been drawn off from Himself into them. But if thou also wilt accustom thyself to do this, thou wilt free thyself from the most of thy distracting care. For he that hath no eye for the flesh that envelopes him will not, I trow, waste his time with taking thought for raiment and lodging and popularity and such accessories and frippery.

3. Thou art formed of three things in combination—body, vital breath, intelligence. Of these the first two are indeed thine, in so far as thou must have them in thy keeping, but the third alone is in any true sense thine. Wherefore, if thou cut off from thyself, that is from thy mind, all that others do or say and all that thyself hast done or said, and all that harasses thee in the future, or whatever thou art involved in independently of thy will by the body which envelopes thee and the breath that is twinned with it, and whatever the circumambient rotation outside of thee sweeps along, so that thine intellectual faculty, delivered from the contingencies of destiny, may live pure and undetached by itself, doing what is just, desiring what befalls it, speaking the truth—if, I say, thou strip from this ruling Reason all that cleaves to it from the bodily influences and the things that lie beyond in time and the things that are past, and if thou fashion thyself like the Empedoclean

4. Often have I marvelled how each one of us loves himself above all men, yet sets less store by his own opinion of himself than by that of everyone else. At any rate, if a God or some wise teacher should come to a man and charge him to admit no thought or design into his mind that he could not utter aloud as soon as conceived, he could not endure this ordinance for a single day. So it is clear that we pay more deference to the opinion our neighbours will have of us than to our own.

5. How can the Gods, after disposing all things well and with good will towards men, ever have overlooked this one thing, that some of mankind, and they especially good men, who have had as it were the closest commerce with the Divine, and by devout conduct and acts of worship have been in the most intimate fellowship with it, should when once dead have no second existence but be wholly extinguished? But if indeed this be haply so, doubt not that they would have ordained it otherwise, had it needed to be otherwise. For had it been just, it would also have been feasible, and had it been in conformity with Nature, Nature would have brought it about. Therefore from its not being so, if indeed it is not so, be assured that it ought not to have been so. For even thyself canst see that in this presumptuous enquiry of thine thou art reasoning with God. But we should not thus be arguing with the Gods were they not infinitely good and just. But in that case they could not have overlooked anything being wrongly and irrationally neglected in their thorough Ordering of the Universe.

6. Practise that also wherein thou hast no expectation of success. For even the left hand, which for every other function is inefficient by reason of a want of practice, has yet a firmer grip of the bridle than the right. For it has had practice in this.

7. Reflect on the condition of body and soul befitting a man when overtaken by death, on the shortness of life, on the yawning gulf of the past and of the time to come, on the impotence of all matter.

8. Look at the principles of causation stripped of their husks; at the objective of actions; at what pain is, what pleasure, what death, what fame. See who is to blame for a man's inner unrest; how no one can be thwarted by another; that nothing is but what thinking makes it.

9. In our use of principles of conduct we should imitate the pancratiast not the gladiator. For the latter lays aside the blade which he uses, and takes it up again, but the other always has his hand and needs only to clench it.

10. See things as they really are, analyzing them into Matter, Cause, Objective.

11. What a capacity Man has to do only what God shall approve and to welcome all that God assigns him!

12. Find no fault with Gods for what is the course of Nature, for they do no wrong voluntarily or involuntarily; nor with men, for they do none save involuntarily. Find fault then with none.

13. How ludicrous is he and out of place who marvels at anything that happens in life.

14. There must be either a predestined Necessity and inviolable plan, or a gracious Providence, or a chaos without design or director. If then there be an inevitable Necessity, why kick against the pricks? If a Providence that is ready to be gracious, render thyself worthy of divine succour. But if a chaos without guide, congratulate thyself that amid such a surging sea thou hast in thyself a guiding Reason. And if the surge sweep thee away, let it sweep away the poor Flesh and Breath with their appurtenances: for the Intelligence it shall never sweep away. (15.) What shall the truth that is in thee and the justice and the temperance be extinguished ere thou art, whereas the light of a lamp shines forth and keeps its radiance until the flame be quenched?

15. Another has given thee cause to think that he has done wrong: But how do I know that it is a wrong? And even if he be guilty, suppose that his own heart has condemned him, and so he is as one who wounds his own face?

16. If not meet, do it not: if not true, say it not. For let thine impulse be in thy own power.

17. Ever look to the whole of a thing, what exactly that is which produces the impression on thee, and unfold it, analyzing it into its causes, its matter, its objective, and into its life-span within which it must needs cease to be.

18. Become conscious at last that thou hast in thyself something better and more god-like than that which causes the bodily passions and turns thee into a mere marionette. What is my mind now occupied with? Fear? Suspicion? Concupiscence? Some other like thing?

19. Firstly, eschew action that is aimless and has no objective. Secondly, take as the only goal of conduct what is to the common interest.

20. Bethink thee that thou wilt very soon be no one and nowhere, and so with all that thou now seest and all who are now living. For by Nature's law all things must change, be transformed, and perish, that other things may in their turn come into being.

21. Remember that all is but as thy opinion of it, and that is in thy power. Efface thy opinion then, as thou mayest do at will, and lo, a great calm! Like a mariner that has turned the headland thou findest all at set-fair and a halcyon sea.

22. Any single form of activity, be it what it may, ceasing in its own due season, suffers no ill because it hath ceased, nor does the agent suffer in that it hath ceased to act. Similarly then if life, that sum total of all our acts, cease in its own good time, it suffers no ill from this very fact, nor is he in an ill plight who has brought this chain of acts to an end in its own due time. The due season and the terminus are fixed by Nature, at times even by our individual nature, as when in old age, but in any case by the Universal Nature, the constant change of whose parts keeps the whole Universe ever youthful and in its prime. All that is advantageous to the Whole is ever fair and in its bloom. The ending of life then is not only no evil to the individual—for it brings him no disgrace, if in fact it be both outside our choice and not inimical to the general weal—but a good, since it is timely for the Universe, bears its share in it and is borne along with it. For then is he, who is borne along on the same path as God, and borne in his judgment towards the same things, indeed a man god-borne.

23. Thou must have these three rules ready for use. Firstly, not to do anything, that thou doest, aimlessly, or otherwise than as Justice herself would have acted; and to realize that all that befalls thee from without is due either to Chance or to Providence, nor hast thou any call to blame Chance or to impeach Providence. Secondly this: to think what each creature is from conception till it receives a living soul, and from its reception of a living soul till its giving back of the same, and out of what it is built up and into what it is dissolved. Thirdly, that if carried suddenly into mid-heaven thou shouldest look down upon human affairs and their infinite diversity, thou wilt indeed despise them, seeing at the same time in one view how great is the host that peoples the air and the aether around thee; and that, however often thou wert lifted up on high, thou wouldst see the same sights, everything identical in kind, everything fleeting. Besides, the vanity of it all!

24. Overboard with opinion and thou art safe ashore. And who is there prevents thee from throwing it overboard?

25. In taking umbrage at anything, thou forgettest this, that everything happens in accordance with the Universal Nature; and this, that the wrong-doing is another's; and this furthermore that all that happens, always did happen, and will happen so, and is at this moment happening everywhere. And thou forgettest how strong is the kinship between man and mankind, for it is a community not of corpuscles, of seed or blood, but of intelligence. And thou forgettest this too, that each man's intelligence is God and has emanated from Him; and this, that nothing is a man's very own, but that his babe, his body, his very soul came forth from Him; and this, that everything is but opinion; and this, that it is only the present moment that a man lives and the present moment only that he loses.

26. Let thy mind dwell continually on those who have shewn unmeasured resentment at things, who have been conspicuous above others for honours or disasters or enmities or any sort of special lot. Then consider, Where is all that now? Smoke and dust and a legend or not a legend even. Take any instance of the kind—Fabius Catullinus in the country, Lusius Lupus in his gardens, Stertinius at Baiae, Tiberius in Capreae, and Velius Rufus—in fact a craze for any thing whatever arrogantly indulged. How worthless is everything so inordinately desired! How much more worthy of a philosopher is it for a man without any artifice to shew himself in the sphere assigned to him just, temperate, and a follower of the Gods. For the conceit that is conceited of its freedom from conceit is the most insufferable of all.

27. If any ask, Where hast thou seen the Gods or how hast thou satisfied thyself of their existence that thou art so devout a worshipper? I answer: In the first place, they are even visible to the eyes. In the next, I have not seen my own soul either, yet I honour it. So then from the continual proofs of their power I am assured that Gods also exist and I reverence them.

28. Salvation in life depends on our seeing everything in its entirety and and its reality, in its Matter and its Cause: on our doing what is just and speaking what is true with all our soul. What remains but to get delight of life by dovetailing one good act on to another so as not to leave the smallest gap between?

29. There is one Light of the Sun, even though its continuity be broken by walls, mountains, and countless other things. There is one common Substance, even though it be broken up into countless bodies individually characterized. There is one Soul, though it be broken up among countless natures and by individual limitations. There is one Intelligent Soul, though it seem to be divided. Of the things mentioned, however, all the other parts, such as Breath, are the material Substratum of things, devoid of sensation and the ties of mutual affinity—yet even they are knit together by the faculty of intelligence and the gravitation which draws them together. But the mind is peculiarly impelled towards what is akin to it, and coalesces with it, and there is no break in the feeling of social fellowship.

30. What dost thou ask for? Continued existence? But what of sensation? Of desire? Of growth? Of the use of speech? The exercise of thought? Which of these, thinkest thou, is a thing to long for? But if these things are each and all of no account, address thyself to a final endeavour to follow Reason and to follow God. But it militates against this to prize such things, and to grieve if death comes to deprive us of them.

31. How tiny a fragment of the boundless abyss of Time has been appointed to each man! For in a moment it is lost in eternity. And how tiny a part of the Universal Substance! How tiny of the Universal Soul! And on how tiny a clod of the whole Earth dost thou crawl! Keeping all these things in mind, think nothing of moment save to do what thy nature leads thee to do, and to bear what the Universal Nature brings thee.

32. How does the ruling Reason treat itself? That is the gist of the whole matter. All else, be it in thy choice or not, is but as dust and smoke.

33. Most efficacious in instilling a contempt for death is the fact that those who count pleasure a good and pain an evil have nevertheless contemned it.

34. Not even death can bring terror to him who regards that alone as good which comes in due season, and to whom it is all one whether his acts in obedience to right reason are few or many, and a matter of indifference whether he look upon the world for a longer or a shorter time.

35. Man, thou hast been a citizen in this World-City, what matters it to thee if for five years or a hundred? For under its laws equal treatment is meted out to all. What hardship then is there in being banished from the city, not by a tyrant or an unjust judge but by Nature who settled thee in it? So might a praetor who commissions a comic actor, dismiss him from the stage. But I have not played my five acts, but only three. Very possibly, but in life three acts count as a full play. For he, that is responsible for thy composition originally and thy dissolution now, decides when it is complete. But thou art responsible for neither. Depart then with a good grace, for he that dismisses thee is gracious.