Meditations

Translated by Gregory Hays

Not to feel exasperated, or defeated, or despondent because your days aren't packed with wise and moral actions. But to get back up when you fail, to celebrate behaving like a human – however imperfectly – and fully embrace the pursuit you've embarked on.

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.

Let it happen, if it wants, to whatever it can happen to. And what's affected can complain about it if it wants. It doesn't hurt me unless I interpret its happening as harmful to me. I can choose not to.

To welcome with affection what is sent by fate.

Forget the future. When and if it comes, you'll have the same resources to draw on – the same logos.

If you'd only let go of the past, entrust the future to Providence, and guide the present toward reverence and justice. Reverence: so you'll accept what you're allotted. Nature intended it for you, and you for it. Justice: so that you'll speak the truth, frankly and without evasions, and act as you should – and as other people deserve.

Nothing but first impressions. That someone has insulted you, for instance. That – but not that it's done you any harm. The fact that my son is sick – that I can see. But "that he might die of it," no. Stick with first impressions. Don't extrapolate.

Don't be overheard complaining... Not even to yourself.

Translated by Robin Waterfield

The command center doesn’t disturb itself, by which I mean that it doesn’t alarm itself, distress itself, or give in to desire. If anyone else is able to alarm or distress it, that’s up to him; the command center will not of its own accord cause any such worsening of itself. It’s up to the body to ensure that it doesn’t suffer, if it can, and it’s up to the soul – the part that feels fear and distress – to speak out if it has such experiences. But the faculty that forms beliefs about these things won’t be affected at all, because it won’t make that kind of judgment as a concession to the soul. In itself, the command center has no needs unless it creates one for itself, and it is therefore unperturbed and unhindered, unless it disturbs and hinders itself.