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When We Consider We Are Bound To Be Serviceable To Mankind, And Bear With Their Faults, We Shall Perceive There Is A Common Tie Of Nature And Relation Between Us.

-Marcus Aurelius

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When We Consider We

Marcus Aurelius

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When We Consider We Are Bound To Be Serviceable To Mankind, And Bear With Their Faults, We Shall Perceive There Is A Common Tie Of Nature And Relation Between Us.

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The Constant Recollection Of Death Is The Test Of Human Conduct.

Think Of Yourself As Dead. You Have Lived Your Life. Now, Take What's Left And Live It Properly. What Doesn't Transmit Light Creates Its Own Darkness.

It Is Not Death That A Man Should Fear, But He Should Fear Never Beginning To Live.

Men Seek Out Retreats For Themselves In The Country, By The Seaside, On The Moutains . . . But All This Is Unphilosophical To The Last Degree . . . When Thou Canst At A Moment's Notice Retire Into Thyself.

Time Is A Kind Of River, An Irresistible Flood Sweeping Up Men And Events And Carrying Them Headlong, One After The Other, To The Great Sea Of Being.

Tranquility Is Nothing Else Than The Good Ordering Of The Mind.

If You Are Distressed By Anything External, The Pain Is Not Due To The Thing Itself, But To Your Estimate Of It; And This You Have The Power To Revoke At Any Moment.

The Universal Order And The Personal Order Are Nothing But Different Expressions And Manifestations Of A Common Underlying Principle.

Dwell On The Beauty Of Life. Watch The Stars, And See Yourself Running With Them.

Whatever Anyone Does Or Says, I Must Be Emerald And Keep My Colour.

Where A Man Can Live, He Can Also Live Well.

It Is A Shameful Thing For The Soul To Faint While The Body Still Perseveres.

Reflect Frequently Upon The Instability Of Things, And How Very Fast The Scenes Of Nature Are Shifted. Matter Is In Perpetual Flux. Change Is Always And Everywhere At Work; It Strikes Through Causes And Effects, And Leaves Nothing Fixed And Permanent.

Be Content To Seem What You Really Are.

Loving Yourself

Self Acceptance

The Object Of Life Is Not To Be On The Side Of The Majority, But To Escape Finding Oneself In The Ranks Of The Insane.

Art Thou Angry With Him Whose Armpits Stink? Art Thou Angry With Him Whose Mouth Smells Foul?

Anything In Any Way Beautiful Derives Its Beauty From Itself And Asks Nothing Beyond Itself. Praise Is No Part Of It, For Nothing Is Made Worse Or Better By Praise.

A Great Estate Is A Great Disadvantage To Those Who Do Not Know How To Use It, For Nothing Is More Common Than To See Wealthy Persons Live Scandalously And Miserably; Riches Do Them No Service In Order To Virtue And Happiness; Therefore 'tis Precept And Principle, Not An Estate, That Makes A Man Good For Something.

Wherever A Man Lives, He May Live Well.

Discard Everything Except These Few Truths: We Can Live Only In The Present Moment, In This Brief Now; All The Rest Of Our Life Is Dead And Buried Or Shrouded In Uncertainty. Short Is The Life We Lead, And Small Our Patch Of Earth.

In The Morning When Thou Risest Unwillingly, Let This Thought Be Present - I Am Rising To The Work Of A Human Being. Why Then Am I Dissatisfied If I Am Going To Do The Things For Which I Exist And For Which I Was Brought Into The World?

Ambition Means Tying Your Well-being To What Other People Say Or Do. Self-indulgence Means Tying It To The Things That Happen To You. Sanity Means Tying It To Your Own Actions.

Observe The Movements Of The Stars As If You Were Running Their Courses With Them, And Let Your Mind Constantly Dwell On The Changes Of The Elements Into Each Other. Such Imaginings Wash Away The Filth Of Life On The Ground.

Man Is Born For Deeds Of Kindness.

Stop Whatever You're Doing For A Moment And Ask Yourself: Am I Afraid Of Death Because I Won't Be Able To Do This Anymore?

Doctors Keep Their Scalpels And Other Instruments Handy, For Emergencies. Keep Your Philosophy Ready Too - Ready To Understand Heaven And Earth. In Everything You Do, Even The Smallest Thing, Remember The Chain That Links Them. Nothing Earthly Succeeds By Ignoring Heaven, Nothing Heavenly By Ignoring Earth.

I, Who Have Never Willfully Pained Another, Have No Business To Pain Myself.

As For Others Whose Lives Are Not So Ordered, He Reminds Himself Constantly Of The Characters They Exhibit Daily And Nightly At Home And Abroad, And Of The Sort Of Society They Frequent; And The Approval Of Such Men, Who Do Not Even Stand Well In Their Own Eyes, Has No Value For Him.

Life Is Neither Good Or Evil, But Only A Place For Good And Evil.

When You Find An Unwillingness To Rise Early In The Morning, Endeavor To Rouse Your Faculties, And Act Up To Your Kind, And Consider That You Have To Do The Business Of A Man; And That Action Is Both Beneficial And The End Of Your Being.

How Very Near Us Stand The Two Vast Gulfs Of Time, The Past And The Future, In Which All Things Disappear.

Mark How Fleeting And Paltry Is The Estate Of Man - Yesterday In Embryo, Tomorrow A Mummy Or Ashes. So For The Hairsbreadth Of Time Assigned To Thee, Live Rationally, And Part With Life Cheerfully, As Drops The Ripe Olive, Extolling The Season That Bore It And The Tree That Matured It.

The Nature Of The Universe Is The Nature Of Things That Are. Now, Things That Are Have Kinship With Things That Are From The Beginning. Further, This Nature Is Styled Truth; And It Is The First Cause Of All That Is True.

Today I Escaped All Circumstance, Or Rather I Cast Out All Circumstance, For It Was Not Outside Me, But Within My Judgements.

It Is In Your Power To Withdraw Yourself Whenever You Desire. Perfect Tranquility Within Consists In The Good Ordering Of The Mind, The Realm Of Your Own.

Nothing Befalls A Man Except What Is In His Nature To Endure.

Snow Endures But For A Season, And Joy Comes With The Morning.

The Gods Sustain And Guide All Their Works.

Everything Is Interwoven, And The Web Is Holy; None Of Its Parts Are Unconnected. They Are Composed Harmoniously, And Together - They Compose The World.

Poverty Is The Mother Of Crime.

Consider, For Example, And You Will Find That Almost All The Transactions In The Time Of Vespasian Differed Little From Those Of The Present Day. You There Find Marrying And Giving In Marriage, Educating Children, Sickness, Death, War, Joyous Holidays, Traffic, Agriculture, Flatterers, Insolent Pride, Suspicions, Laying Of Plots, Longing For The Death Of Others, Newsmongers, Lovers, Misers, Men Canvassing Far The Consulship And For The Kingdom; Yet All These Passed Away, And Are Nowhere.

In This Flowing Stream, Then, On Which There Is No Abiding, What Is There Of The Things Which Hurry By On Which A Man Would Set A High Price? It Would Be Just As If A Man Should Fall In Love With One Of The Sparrows Which Fly By, But It Has Already Passed Out Of Sight.

Falling In Love

A Wrongdoer Is Often A Man Who Has Left Something Undone, Not Always One Who Has Done Something.

‎"begin The Morning By Saying To Thyself, I Shall Meet With The Busy-body, The Ungrateful, Arrogant, Deceitful, Envious, Unsocial

Accept The Things To Which Fate Binds You, And Love The People With Whom Fate Brings You Together, But Do So With All Your Heart.

Remember That All Is Opinion.

If Someone Can Prove Me Wrong And Show Me My Mistake In Any Thought Or Action, I Shall Gladly Change. I Seek The Truth, Which Never Harmed Anyone: The Harm Is To Persist In One's Own Self-deception And Ignorance.

Constantly Regard The Universe As One Living Being, Having One Substance And One Soul; And Observe How All Things Have Reference To One Perception, The Perception Of This One Living Being; And How All Things Act With One Movement; And How All Things Are The Cooperating Causes Of All Things Which Exist; Observe Too The Continuous Spinning Of The Thread And The Contexture Of The Web.

Don't Let Your Imagination To Be Crushed By Life As A Whole. Don't Try To Pictures Everything Bad That Could Possibly Happen. Stick With The Situation At Hand. ...then Remind Yourself That Past And Present Have No Power Over You. Only The Present.

The Cucumber Is Bitter? Then Throw It Out. There Are Brambles In The Path? Then Go Around. That's All You Need To Know.

Bear In Mind That The Measure Of A Man Is The Worth Of The Things He Cares About. If It Is Good To Say Or Do Something, Then It Is Even Better To Be Criticized For Having Said Or Done It.

Let Goodness Go With The Doing.

Does What's Happened Keep You From Acting With Justice, Generosity, Self-control, Sanity, Prudence, Honesty, Humility, Straightforward Ness, And All Other Qualities That Allow A Person's Nature To Fulfill Itself? So Remember This Principle When Something Threatens To Cause You Pain: The Thing Itself Was No Misfortune At All; To Endure It And Prevail Is Great Good Fortune.

Limit Time To The Present. Meditate Upon Your Last Hour.

The Secret Of All Victory Lies In The Organization Of The Non-obvious.

All Those [events In History] Were Such Dramas As We See Now, Only With Different Actors.

Your Mind Will Be Like Its Habitual Thoughts; For The Soul Becomes Dyed With The Color Of Its Thoughts. Soak It Then In Such Trains Of Thoughts As, For Example: Where Life Is Possible At All, A Right Life Is Possible.

Enough Of This Wretched Life And Murmuring And Apish Tricks. Why Art Thou Disturbed? What Is There New In This? What Unsettles Thee? Is It The Form Of The Thing? Look At It. Or Is It The Matter? Look At It. But Besides These There Is Nothing. Towards The Gods, Then, Now Become At Last More Simple And Better. It Is The Same Whether We Examine These Things For A Hundred Years Or Three.

The Cucumber Is Bitter? Then Throw It Out. There Are Brambles In The Path? Then Go Around Them. That's All You Need To Know. Nothing More. Don't Demand To Know "why Such Things Exist." Anyone Who Understands The World Will Laugh At You, Just As A Carpenter Would If You Seemed Shocked At Finding Sawdust In His Workshop, Or A Shoemaker At Scraps Of Leather Left Over From Work.

A Man's Happiness,-to Do The Things Proper To Man.

He Would Be The Finer Gentleman That Should Leave The World Without Having Tasted Of Lying Or Pretence Of Any Sort, Or Of Wantonness Or Conceit.

The Things You Think About Determine The Quality Of Your Mind. Your Soul Takes On The Color Of Your Thoughts.

Positive Thinking

But If We Judge Only Those Things Which Are In Our Power To Be Good Or Bad, There Remains No Reason Either For Finding Fault With God Or Standing In A Hostile Attitude To Man.

I Seek The Truth...it Is Only Persistence In Self-delusion And Ignorance That Does Harm.

Remember That There Is A God Who Desires Neither Praise Nor Glory From Men Created In His Image, But Rather That They, Guided By The Understanding Given Them, Should In Their Actions Become Like Unto Him.

No One Loses Any Other Life Than The One He Now Lives, Nor Does One Live Any Other Life Than That Which He Will Lose.

All Things Are Changing; And Thou Thyself Art In Continuous Mutation And In A Manner In Continuous Destruction And The Whole Universe To.

Say To Yourself In The Early Morning: I Shall Meet Today Ungrateful, Violent, Treacherous, Envious, Uncharitable Men. All Of These Things Have Come Upon Them Through Ignorance Of Real Good And Ill... I Can Neither Be Harmed By Any Of Them, For No Man Will Involve Me In Wrong, Nor Can I Be Angry With My Kinsman Or Hate Him; For We Have Come Into The World To Work Together.

Past And Future Have No Power Over You. Just The Present - And Even That Can Be Minimized.

When You Arise In The Morning, Think Of What A Precious Privilege It Is To Be Alive - To Breathe, To Think, To Enjoy, To Love.

When Force Of Circumstance Upsets Your Equanimity Lose No Time In Recovering Your Self-control, And Do Not Remain Out Of Tune Longer Than You Can Help. Habitual Recurrence To The Harmony Will Increase Your Mastery Of It.

So You Know How Things Stand. Now Forget What They Think Of You. Be Satisfied If You Can Live The Rest Of Your Life, However Short, As Your Nature Demands. Focus On That, And Don't Let Anything Distract You. You've Wandered All Over And Finally Realized That You Never Found What You Were After: How To Live. Not In Syllogisms, Not In Money, Or Fame, Or Self-indulgence. Nowhere.

Every Moment Think Steadily As A Roman And A Man To Do What Thou Hast In Hand With Perfect And Simple Dignity, And Feeling Of Affection, And Freedom, And Justice; And To Give Thyself Relief From All Other Thoughts. And Thou Wilt Give Thyself Relief, If Thou Doest Every Act Of Thy Life As If It Were The Last, Laying Aside All Carelessness And Passionate Aversion From The Commands Of Reason, And All Hypocrisy, And Self-love, And Discontent With The Portion Which Has Been Given To Thee.

Nothing That Goes On In Anyone Else's Mind Can Harm You.

All Things Of The Body Stream Away Like A River, All Things Of The Mind Are Dreams And Delusion; Life Is Warfare, And A Visit To A Strange Land; The Only Lasting Fame Is Oblivion.

You Exist But As A Part Inherent In A Greater Whole. Do Not Live As Though You Had A Thousand Years Before You. The Common Due Impends; While You Live, And While You May, Be Good.

Take It That You Have Died Today, And Your Life's Story Is Ended; And Henceforward Regard What Future Time May Be Given You As Uncovenanted Surplus, And Live It Out In Harmony With Nature.

Outward Objects Cannot Take Hold Of The Soul, Nor Force Their Passage Into Her, Nor Set Any Of Her Wheels Going. No, The Impression Comes From Herself, And It Is Her Own Motions Which Affect Her. As For The Contingencies Of Fortune, They Are Either Great Or Little, According To The Opinion She Has Of Her Own Strength.

From Plato: The Man Who Has An Elevated Mind And Takes A View Of All Time And Of All Substance, Dost Thou Suppose It Possible For Him To Think That Human Life Is Anything Great? It Is Not Possible, He Said. Such A Man Then Will Think That Death Also Is No Evil.

It Is Man's Peculiar Duty To Love Even Those Who Wrong Him.

Pass Then Through This Little Space Of Time Conformably To Nature, And End Thy Journey In Content, Just As An Olive Falls Off When It Is Ripe, Blessing Nature Who Produced It, And Thanking The Tree On Which It Grew.

God Sees The Minds (ruling Principles) Of All Men Bared Of The Material Vesture And Rind And Impurities. For With His Intellectual Part Alone He Touches The Intelligence Only Which Has Flowed And Been Derived From Himself Into These Bodies. And If Thou Also Usest Thyself To Do This, Thou Wilt Rid Thyself Of Thy Much Trouble. For He Who Regards Not The Poor Flesh Which Envelops Him, Surely Will Not Trouble Himself By Looking After Raiment And Dwelling And Fame And Such Like Externals And Show.

Let Every Action Aim Solely At The Common Good.

It Is Not The Body, Nor The Personality That Is The True Self. The True Self Is Eternal. Even On The Point Of Death We Can Say To Ourselves, "my True Self Is Free. I Cannot Be Contained."

The Only Wealth Which You Will Keep Forever Is The Wealth You Have Given Away.

Keep Moving Forward

Imagine You Were Now Dead, Or Had Not Lived Before His Moment. Now View The Rest Of Your Life As A Bonus.

Rest Of Your Life

When You Are Annoyed At Someone's Mistake, Immediately Look At Yourself And Reflect How You Also Fail; For Example, In Thinking That Good Equals Money, Or Pleasure, Or A Bit Of Fame. By Being Mindful Of This You'll Quickly Forget Your Anger, Especially If You Realize That The Person Was Under Stress, And Could Do Little Else. And, If You Can, Find A Way To Alleviate That Stress.

All Those Things At Which Thou Wishest To Arrive By A Circuitous Road, Thou Canst Have Now, If Thou Dost Not Refuse Them To Thyself.

Never Forget That The Universe Is A Single Living Organism Possessed Of One Substance And One Soul, Holding All Things Suspended In A Single Consciousness And Creating All Things With A Single Purpose That They Might Work Together Spinning And Weaving And Knotting Whatever Comes To Pass.

That Which Is Really Beautiful Has No Need Of Anything; Not More Than Law, Not More Than Truth, Not More Than Benevolence Or Modesty.

Ifit Be A Thing External That Causes Thy Grief, Know, That It Is Not That Properly That Doth Cause It, But Thine Own Conceit And Opinion Concerning The Thing: Which Thou Mayest Rid Thyself Of, When Thou Wilt.

A Lucky Chance Is Constant In Nothing But Inconstancy.

It Is Right That Man Should Love Those Who Have Offended Him. He Will Do So When He Remembers That All Men Are His Relations, And That It Is Through Ignorance And Involuntarily That They Sin,--and Then We All Die So Soon.

Don't Be Ashamed To Need Help. Like A Soldier Storming A Wall, You Have A Mission To Accomplish. And If You've Been Wounded And You Need A Comrade To Pull You Up? So What?

Where Any Work Can Be Done Conformably To The Reason Which Is Common To Gods And Men, There We Have Nothing To Fear; For Where We Are Able To Get Profit By Means Of The Activity Which Is Successful And Proceeds According To Our Constitution, There No Harm Is To Be Suspected.

When Thou Art Offended At Any Man's Fault, Forthwith Turn To Thyself And Reflect In What Manner Thou Doest Error Thyself. For By Attending To This Thou Wilt Quickly Forget Thy Anger, If This Consideration Is Also Added, That The Man Is Compelled; For What Else Could He Do? Or, If Thou Art Able, Take Away From Him The Compulsion.

Objective Judgement, Now, At This Very Moment. Unselfish Action, Now, At This Very Moment. Willing Acceptance - Now, At This Very Moment - Of All External Events. That's All You Need.

Treat With Utmost Respect Your Power Of Forming Opinions, For This Power Alone Guards You Against Making Assumptions That Are Contrary To Nature And Judgments That Overthrow The Rule Of Reason.

There Is No Misfortune, But To Bear It Nobly Is Good Fortune.

That Which Comes After Ever Conforms To That Which Has Gone Before.

And Yet, After All, What Is Posthumous Fame? Altogether Vanity.

Nothing Is Worth Doing Pointlessly.

The Things... Which Are Proper To The Understanding No Other Man Is Used To Impede, For Neither Fire, Nor Iron, Nor Tyrant, Nor Abuse, Touches It In Any Way. When It Has Been Made A Sphere, It Continues A Sphere.

Remember This - That There Is A Proper Dignity And Proportion To Be Observed In The Performance Of Every Act Of Life.

Humans Have Come Into Being For The Sake Of Each Other, So Either Teach Them, Or Learn To Bear Them.

Failure To Read What Is Happening In Another's Soul Is Not Easily Seen As A Cause Of Unhappiness: But Those Who Fail To Attend The Motions Of Their Own Soul Are Necessarily Unhappy.

The Controlling Intelligence Understands Its Own Nature, And What It Does, And Whereon It Works.

He Who Fears Death Either Fears To Lose All Sensation Or Fears New Sensations. In Reality, You Will Either Feel Nothing At All, And Therefore Nothing Evil, Or Else, If You Can Feel Any Sensations, You Will Be A New Creature, And So Will Not Have Ceased To Have Life.

Thanks To The Gods I Didn't Spend Much Time While Growing Up With My Grandfather's Mistress And Preserved The Flower Of My Youth, Waiting For The Proper Time To Demonstrate My Virility.

It's Time You Realized That You Have Something In You More Powerful And Miraculous Than The Things That Affect You And Make You Dance Like A Puppet.

People Find Pressure In Different Ways. I Find It In Keeping My Mind Clear. In Not Turning Away From People Or The Things That Happen To Them. In Accepting And Welcoming Everything I See. In Treating Each Thing As It Deserves.

That Which Is Not Good For The Bee-hive Cannot Be Good For The Bees.

A Man's Life Is What His Thoughts Make Of It.

Positive Thinking

Accept Whatever Comes To You Woven In The Pattern Of Your Destiny, For What Could More Aptly Fit Your Needs?

A Person's Life Is What Their Thoughts Make It.

Above, Below, All Around Are The Movements Of The Elements. But The Motion Of Virtue Is In None Of These: It Is Something More Divine, And Advancing By A Way Hardly Observed It Goes Happily On Its Road.

Only To The Rational Animal Is It Given To Follow Voluntarily What Happens; But Simply To Follow Is A Necessity Imposed On All.

Be Like The Cliff Against Which The Waves Continually Break; But It Stands Firm And Tames The Fury Of The Water Around It.

Accustom Yourself Not To Be Disregarding Of What Someone Else Has To Say: As Far As Possible Enter Into The Mind Of The Speaker.

And In The Case Of Superior Things Like Stars, We Discover A Kind Of Unity In Separation. The Higher We Rise On The Scale Of Being, The Easier It Is To Discern A Connection Even Among Things Separated By Vast Distances.

We Are Born For Cooperation

Everything Is Interwoven, And The Web Is Holy.

The Blazing Fire Makes Flames And Brightness Out Of Everything Thrown Into It.

Death, Like Birth, Is One Of Nature's Mysteries, The Combining Of Primal Elements And Dissolving Of The Same Into The Same.

Remember That Man Lives Only In The Present, In This Fleeting Instant; All The Rest Of His Life Is Either Past And Gone, Or Not Yet Revealed.

People Generally Despise Where They Flatter, And Cringe To Those They Would Gladly Overtop; So That Truth And Ceremony Are Two Things.

The Whole Universe Is Change And Life Itself Is But What You Deem It - Either Gratefully Better Than Or Bitterly Worse Than Something Else That You Alone Choose.

Nature Has Given To Each Conscious Being Every Power She Possesses, And One Of These Abilities Is This: Just As Nature Converts And Alters Every Obstacle And Opposition, And Fits Them Into Their Predestined Place, Making Them A Part Of Herself, So Too The Rational Person Is Able To Finesse Every Obstacle Into An Opportunity, And To Use It For Whatever Purpose It May Suit.

From Apollonius I Learned Freedom Of Will And Undeviating Steadiness Of Purpose; And To Look To Nothing Else, Not Even For A Moment, Except To Reason.

Everything We Hear Is An Opinion, Not A Fact. Everything We See Is A Perspective, Not The Truth.

The Rottenness Of The Matter Which Is The Foundation Of Everything!

The Best Revenge Is To Be Unlike Him Who Performed The Injury.

All That Is Not Eternal Is Eternally Out Of Date. C. S. Lewis, The Four Loves Life Is Short. Eternity Is Long. Bentley Little, His Father's Son What We Do Now Echoes In Eternity.

At Day's First Light Have In Readiness, Against Disinclination To Leave Your Bed, The Thought That "i Am Rising For The Work Of Man."

Observe Constantly That All Things Take Place By Change.

Am I Doing Anything? I Do It With Reference To The Good Of Mankind. Does Anything Happen To Me? I Receive It And Refer It To The Gods, And The Source Of All Things, From Which All That Happens Is Derived.

I Am An Old Man And Have Had Many Worries, But Most Have Never Come To Pass.

Do Not Indulge In Dreams Of Having What You Have Not, But Reckon Up The Chief Of The Blessings You Do Possess, And Then Thankfully Remember How You Would Crave For Them If They Were Not Yours.

Every Man's Life Lies Within The Present; For The Past Is Spent And Done With, And The Future Is Uncertain.

Perhaps There Are None More Lazy, Or More Truly Ignorant, Than Your Everlasting Readers.

Aptitude Found In The Understanding And Is Often Inherited. Genius Coming From Reason And Imagination, Rarely.

Vivid Imagination

Consider Thyself To Be Dead, And To Have Completed Thy Life Up To The Present Time; And Live According To Nature The Remainder Which Is Allowed Thee.

Leave Other People's Mistakes Where They Lie.

Let It Judge That Nothing Is Either Bad Or Good Which Can Happen Equally To The Bad Man And The Good. For That Which Happens Equally To Him Who Lives Contrary To Nature And To Him Who Lives According To Nature, Is Neither According To Nature Nor Contrary To Nature.

There Is No Man So Fortunate That There Shall Not Be By Him When He Is Dying Some Who Are Pleased With What Is Going To Happen.

Be Not As One That Hath Ten Thousand Years To Live; Death Is Nigh At Hand: While Thou Livest, While Thou Hast Time, Be Good.

Nature In No Case Cometh Short Of Art, For The Arts Are Copiers Of Natural Forms.

Everything Is Born From Change. ...there Is Nothing Nature Loves More That To Alter What Exists And Make New Things Like It. All That Exists Is The Seed Of What Will Emerge From It. You Think The Only Seeds Are The One That Make Plants And Children? Go Deeper.

Your Life Is An Expression Of All Your Thoughts.

The Perfection Of Moral Character Consists In This, In Passing Every Day As The Last, And In Being Neither Violently Excited Nor Torpid Nor Playing The Hypocrite.

Practice Really Hearing What People Say. Do Your Best To Get Inside Their Mind.

Either An Ordered Universe Or A Medley Heaped Together Mechanically But Still An Order; Or Can Order Subsist In You And Disorder In The Whole! And That, Too, When All Things Are So Distinguished And Yet Intermingled And Sympathetic.

How Easy It Is To Repel And Release Every Impression Which Is Troublesome And Immediately To Be Tranquil.

Do Not Act As If You Were Going To Live Ten Thousand Years. Death Hangs Over You. While You Live, While It Is In Your Power, Be Good.

Remind Oneself Continually Of One Of Those Who Practiced Virtue In Days Gone By.

Reason And The Reasoning Faculty Need No Foreign Assistance, But Are Sufficient For Their Own Purposes. They Move Within Themselves, And Make Directly For The Point In View. Wherefore, Acts In Accordance With Them Are Called Right Acts, For They Lead Along The Right Road.

Let Thine Occupations Be Few, Saith The Sage, If Thou Wouldst Lead A Tranquil Life.

All Things From Eternity Are Of Like Forms And Come Round In Circle.

Why Should We Feel Anger At The World? As If The World Would Notice?

It's Normal To Feel Pain In Your Hands And Feet, If You're Using Your Feet As Feet And Your Hands As Hands. And For A Human Being To Feel Stress Is Normal - If He's Living A Normal Life. And If It's Normal, How Can It Be Bad?

Regain Your Senses, Call Yourself Back, And Once Again Wake Up. Now That You Realize That Only Dreams Were Troubling You, View This 'reality' As You View Your Dreams.

What Springs From Earth Dissolves To Earth Again, And Heaven-born Things Fly To Their Native Seat.

Remember That All Is Opinion. For What Was Said By The Cynic Monimus Is Manifest: And Manifest Too Is The Use Of What Was Said, If A Man Receives What May Be Got Out Of It As Far As It Is True.

It Is Not Right To Vex Ourselves At Things, For They Care Not About It.

If Any Man Despises Me, That Is His Problem. My Only Concern Is Not Doing Or Saying Anything Deserving Of Contempt.

I Bless The Gods For Not Letting My Education In Rhetoric, Poetry, And Other Literary Studies Come Easily To Me, And Thereby Sparing Me From An Absorbing Interest In These Subjects.

Everything Is Banal In Experience, Fleeting In Duration, Sordid In Content; In All Respects The Same Today As Generations Now Dead And Buried Have Found It To Be.

In The Case Of All Things Which Have A Certain Constitution, Whatever Harm May Happen To Any Of Them, That Which Is Affected Becomes Consequently Worse; But In Like Case, A Man Becomes Both Better... And More Worthy Of Praise, By Making The Right Use Of These Accidents.

Have I Done Something For The General Interest? Well Then I Have Had My Reward. Let This Always Be Present To Thy Mind, And Never Stop Doing Such Good.

The Most Complete Revenge Is Not To Imitate The Aggressor.

You Must Become An Old Man In Good Time If You Wish To Be An Old Man Long.

Do Not Disturb Yourself By Picturing Your Life As A Whole; Do Not Assemble In Your Mind The Many And Varied Troubles Which Have Come To You In The Past And Will Come Again In The Future, But Ask Yourself With Regard To Every Present Difficulty: 'what Is There In This That Is Unbearable And Beyond Endurance?'

Remember That The Sole Life Which A Man Can Lose Is That Which He Is Living At The Moment.

Nature Which Governs The Whole Will Soon Change All Things Which You See, And Out Of Their Substance Will Make Other Things And Again Other Things... In Order That The World May Be Ever New.

When You Have Been Compelled By Circumstances To Be Disturbed In Any Manner, Quickly Return To Yourself, And Do Not Continue Out Of Tune Longer Than The Compulsion Lasts. You Will Have Increasing Control Over Your Own Harmony By Continually Returning To It.

Adapt Yourself To The Things Among Which Your Lot Has Been Cast And Love Sincerely The Fellow Creatures With Whom Destiny Has Ordained That You Shall Live.

... Allow Yourself A Space Of Quiet, Wherein You Can Add To Your Knowledge Of The Good And Learn To Curb Your Restlessness. Guard Also Against Another Kind Of Error: The Folly Of Those Who Weary Their Days In Much Business, But Lack Any Aim On Which Their Whole Effort, Nay, Their Whole Thought, Is Focused.

Whenever You Are About To Find Fault With Someone, Ask Yourself The Following Question: What Fault Of Mine Most Nearly Resembles The One I Am About To Criticize?

Observe And Contemplate On The Hidden Things Of Life: How A Man's Seed Is But The Beginning, It Takes Others To Bring It To Fruition. Think How Food Undergoes Such Changes To Produce Health And Strength. See The Power Of These Hidden Things Which, Like The Wind Cannot Been Seen, But Its Effects Can Be.

Everything That Happens Either Happens In Such A Way As You Are Formed By Nature To Bear It, Or As You Are Not Formed By Nature To Bear It.

What We Do Now Echoes In Eternity.

Be Mindful At All Times Of The Following: The Nature Of The Whole Universe, The Nature Of The Part That Is Me, The Relation Of The One To The Other, The One So Vast, The Other So Small.

Life Is A Stranger's Sojourn, A Night At An Inn.

Everything Is In A State Of Metamorphosis. Thou Thyself Art In Everlasting Change And In Corruption To Correspond; So Is The Whole Universe.

To Expect An Impossibility Is Madness.

Glory Arrives Too Late When It Comes Only To One's Ashes

No Man Is Happy Who Does Not Think Himself So.

Find Joy In Simplicity, Self-respect, And Indifference To What Lies Between Virtue And Vice. Love The Human Race. Follow The Divine.

The World Is Mere Change, And This Life, Opinion.

Do Not Waste What Remains Of Your Life In Speculating About Your Neighbors, Unless With A View To Some Mutual Benefit. To Wonder What So-and-so Is Doing And Why, Or What He Is Saying, Or Thinking, Or Scheming -- In A Word, Anything That Distracts You From Fidelity To The Ruler Within You -- Means A Loss Of Opportunity For Some Other Task.

Both Happiness And Unhappiness Depend On Perception

...if A Man Comes To His Fortieth Year, And Has Any Understanding At All, He Has Virtually Seen - Thanks To Their Similarity - All Possible Happenings, Both Past And To Come.

Retire Into Thyself. The Rational Principle Which Rules Has This Nature, That It Is Content With Itself When It Does What Is Just, And So Secures Tranquility.

Men Are Born For Each Other's Sake, So Either Teach People Or Endure Them

The One Thing Worth Living For Is To Keep One's Soul Pure.

Waste Not The Remnant Of Thy Life In Those Imaginations Touching Other Folk, Whereby Thou Contributest Not To The Common Weal.

Failing To Understand The Workings Of One's Own Mind Is Bound To Lead To Unhappiness.

Which Is Recorded Of Socrates, That He Was Able Both To Abstain From, And To Enjoy, Those Things Which Many Are Too Weak To Abstain From, And Cannot Enjoy Without Excess. But To Be Strong Enough Both To Bear The One And To Be Sober In The Other Is The Mark Of A Man Who Has A Perfect And Invincible Soul.

Is Your Cucumber Bitter? Throw It Away. Are There Briars In Your Path? Turn Aside. That Is Enough. Do Not Go On And Ay, 'why Were Things Of This Sort Ever Brought Into The World?'

Within Ten Days Thou Wilt Seem A God To Those To Whom Thou Art Now A Beast And An Ape, If Thou Wilt Return To Thy Principles And The Worship Of Reason.

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