November

Don't seek for everything to happen as you wish it would, but rather wish that everything happens as it actually will - then your life will flow well.

But I haven't at any time been hindered in my will, nor forced against it. And how is this possible? I have bound up my choice to act with the will of God. God wills that I be sick, such is my will. He wills that I should choose something, so do I. He wills that I reach for something, or something be given to me - I wish for the same. What God doesn't will, I do not wish for.

Just as we commonly hear people say the doctor prescribed someone particular riding exercises, or ice baths, or walking without shoes, we should in the same way say that nature prescribed someone to be diseased, or disabled, or to suffer any kind of impairment. In the case of the doctor, prescribed means something ordered to help aid someone's healing. But in the case of nature, it means that what happens to each of us is ordered to help aid our destiny.

There is no evil in things changing, just as there is no good in persisting in a new state.

This is the very thing which makes up the virtue of the happy person and a well-flowing life—when the affairs of life are in every way tuned to the harmony between the individual divine spirit and the will of the director of the universe.

If the breaking day sees someone proud, The ending day sees them brought low. No one should put too much trust in triumph, No one should give up hope of trials improving. Clotho mixes one with the other and stops Fortune from resting, spinning every fate around. No one has had so much divine favor That they could guarantee themselves tomorrow. God keeps our lives hurtling on, Spinning in a whirlwind.

Don’t trust in your reputation, money, or position, but in the strength that is yours—namely, your judgments about the things that you control and don’t control. For this alone is what makes us free and unfettered, that picks us up by the neck from the depths and lifts us eye to eye with the rich and powerful.

Remember that you are an actor in a play, playing a character according to the will of the playwright—if a short play, then it’s short; if long, long. If he wishes you to play the beggar, play even that role well, just as you would if it were a cripple, a honcho, or an everyday person. For this is your duty, to perform well the character assigned you. That selection belongs to another.

The universe is change. Life is opinion.

Think by way of example on the times of Vespasian, and you’ll see all these things: marrying, raising children, falling ill, dying, wars, holiday feasts, commerce, farming, flattering, pretending, suspecting, scheming, praying that others die, grumbling over one’s lot, falling in love, amassing fortunes, lusting after office and power. Now that life of theirs is dead and gone … the times of Trajan, again the same …

When you are distressed by an external thing, it's not the thing itself that troubles you, but only your judgment of it. And you can wipe this out at a moment's notice.

If we judge as good and evil only the things in the power of our own choice, then there is no room left for blaming gods or being hostile to others.

Don't allow yourself to be heard any longer griping about public life, not even with your own ears!

He was sent to prison. But the observation 'he has suffered evil,' is an addition coming from you.

Meditate often on the swiftness with which all that exists and is coming into being is swept by us and carried away. For substance is like a river’s unending flow, its activities continually changing and causes infinitely shifting so that almost nothing at all stands still.

Hecato says, ‘cease to hope and you will cease to fear.’ … The primary cause of both these ills is that instead of adapting ourselves to present circumstances we send out thoughts too far ahead.

When philosophy is wielded with arrogance and stubbornly, it is the cause for the ruin of many. Let philosophy scrape off your own faults, rather than be a way to rail against the faults of others.

Our rational nature moves freely forward in its impressions when it: 1.) accepts nothing false or uncertain; 2.) directs its impulses only to acts for the common good; 3.) limits its desires and aversions only to what’s in its own power; 4.) embraces everything nature assigns it.

Lead on God and Destiny, To that Goal fixed for me long ago. I will follow and not stumble; even if my will is weak I will soldier on.

If you’ve seen the present, you’ve seen all things, from time immemorial into all of eternity. For everything that happens is related and the same.

A good isn’t increased by the addition of time, but if one is wise for even a moment, they will be no less happy than the person who exercises virtue for all time and happily passes their life in it.

Fortune falls heavily on those for whom she’s unexpected. The one always on the lookout easily endures.

In short, you must remember this — that if you hold anything dear outside of your own reasoned choice, you will have destroyed your capacity for choice.

Whenever you experience the pangs of losing something, don't treat it like a part of yourself but as a breakable glass, so when it falls you will remember that and won't be troubled. So too, whenever you kiss your child, sibling, or friend, don't layer on top of the experience all the things you might wish, but hold them back and stop them, just as those who ride behind triumphant generals remind them they are mortal. In the same way, remind yourself that your precious one isn't one of your possessions, but something given for now, not forever…

As for me, I would choose being sick over living in luxury, for being sick only harms the body, whereas luxury destroys both the body and the soul, causing weakness and incapacity in the body, and lack of control and cowardice in the soul. What's more, luxury breeds injustice because it also breeds greediness.

We are like many pellets of incense falling on the same altar. Some collapse sooner, others later, but it makes no difference.

How satisfying it is to dismiss and block out any upsetting or foreign impression, and immediately to have peace in all things.

If someone is slipping up, kindly correct them and point out what they missed. But if you can’t, blame yourself—or no one.

Don't lament this and don't get agitated.

The person who follows reason in all things will have both leisure and a readiness to act—they are at once both cheerful and self-composed.