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 joysboth 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 seedhas 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 sorceriesthey 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.

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 delightto 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 airreturns 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 itwith 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.

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.