Quotes from Meditations

Quotations follow the Gregory Hays translation (Modern Library, 2002) — our recommended edition.

1. 2

   The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.

2. 3

   Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one.

3. 4

   The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts.

4. 5

   Begin the morning by saying to thyself, I shall meet with the busybody, the ungrateful, arrogant, deceitful, envious, unsocial.

5. 6

   Men seek retreats for themselves, houses in the country, seashores, and mountains; and thou too art wont to desire such things very much. But this is altogether a mark of the most common sort of men, for it is in thy power whenever thou shalt choose to retire into thyself.

6. 7

   Take away thy opinion, and then there is taken away the complaint, "I have been harmed." Take away the complaint, "I have been harmed," and the harm is taken away.

7. 8

   The best way of avenging thyself is not to become like the wrong doer.

8. 9

   Look within. Within is the fountain of good, and it will ever bubble up, if thou wilt ever dig.

9. 10

   And another thing too, that very little indeed is necessary for living a happy life.

10. 11

    Do not act as if thou wert going to live ten thousand years. Death hangs over thee. While thou livest, while it is in thy power, be good.

11. 12

    Waste no more time arguing what a good man should be. Be one.

12. 13

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

13. 14

    Men exist for the sake of one another. Teach them then or bear with them.

14. 15

    In the morning when thou risest unwillingly, let this thought be present—I am rising to the work of a human being.

15. 16

    The universe is transformation: life is opinion.

16. 17

    Such as are thy habitual thoughts, such also will be the character of thy mind; for the soul is dyed by the thoughts.

17. 18

    Everything harmonizes with me, which is harmonious to thee, O Universe. Nothing for me is too early nor too late, which is in due time for thee.

18. 19

    Soon, very soon, thou wilt be ashes, or a skeleton, and either a name or not even a name; but name is sound and echo.

19. 20

    Observe constantly that all things take place by change, and accustom thyself to consider that the nature of the Universe loves nothing so much as to change the things which are and to make new things like them.

20. 21

    That which is not good for the swarm, neither is it good for the bee.

21. 22

    Look round at the courses of the stars, as if thou wert going along with them; and constantly consider the changes of the elements into one another; for such thoughts purge away the filth of the terrene life.

22. 23

    Remember how long thou hast been putting off these things, and how often thou hast received an opportunity from the gods, and yet dost not use it.

23. 24

    Of human life the time is a point, and the substance is in a flux, and the perception dull, and the composition of the whole body subject to putrefaction.

24. 25

    How much trouble he avoids who does not look to see what his neighbour says or does or thinks, but only to what he does himself, that it may be just and pure.

25. 26

    Depart then satisfied, for he also who releases thee is satisfied.