Цитаты из книги автора Marcus Aurelius The Meditations

To read with diligence; not to rest satisfied with a light and superficial knowledge

Is any man so foolish as to fear change, to which all things that
once were not owe their being

Be not dis­gus­ted, nor dis­cour­aged, nor dis­sat­is­fied, if thou dost not suc­ceed in do­ing everything ac­cord­ing to right prin­ciples; but when thou hast failed, re­turn back again, and be con­tent if the greater part of what thou doest is con­sist­ent with man’s nature, and love this to which thou re­turn­est

How un­sound and in­sin­cere is he who says, I have de­term­ined to deal with thee in a fair way.—What art thou do­ing, man? There is no oc­ca­sion to give this no­tice. It will soon show it­self by acts. The voice ought to be plainly writ­ten on the fore­head.

No longer talk at all about the kind of man that a good man ought to be, but be such.

He who fol­lows reason in all things is both tran­quil and act­ive at the same time, and also cheer­ful and col­lec­ted.

When thou hast as­sumed these names, good, mod­est, true, ra­tional, a man of equan­im­ity, and mag­nan­im­ous, take care that thou dost not change these names; and if thou shouldst lose them, quickly re­turn to them.

If, then, it hap­pens to thee in such way as thou art formed by nature to bear it, do not com­plain, but bear it as thou art formed by nature to bear it. But if it hap­pens in such wise as thou art not formed by nature to bear it, do not com­plain, for it will per­ish after it has con­sumed thee. Re­mem­ber, how­ever, that thou art formed by nature to bear everything, with re­spect to which it de­pends on thy own opin­ion to make it en­dur­able and tol­er­able, by think­ing that it is either thy in­terest or thy duty to do this.

If thou art pained by any ex­ternal thing, it is not this thing that dis­turbs thee, but thy own judge­ment about it. And it is in thy power to wipe out this judge­ment now.

Indeed in the case of most pains let this re­mark of Epi­curus aid thee, that pain is neither in­tol­er­able nor ever­last­ing, if thou bearest in mind that it has its lim­its, and if thou ad­dest noth­ing to it in ima­gin­a­tion: and re­mem­ber this too, that we do not per­ceive that many things which are dis­agree­able to us are the same as pain, such as ex­cess­ive drowsi­ness, and the be­ing scorched by heat, and the hav­ing no ap­pet­ite. When then thou art dis­con­ten­ted about any of these things, say to thy­self, that thou art yield­ing to pain.