Continue reading “The World Is Change, The Life – Perception”So keep this refuge in mind: the back roads of yourself. Above all, no strain and stress. Be straightforward. Look at things like a man,like a human being, like a citizen, like a mortal. And among the things you turn to, these two:
Get Away By Going Within
Continue reading “Get Away By Going Within”People try to get away from it all – to the country , to the beach, to the mountains. You always wish that you could too. Which is idiotic: you can get away with it anytime you like. By going within.
The Chain That Links Heaven and Earth
Doctors keep their scalpels and other instrument handy, for emergency. Keep your philosophy ready too – to understand heaven and earth. In everything you do , even the smallest thing, remember the chain that links them. Nothing earthy succeeds by ignoring heaven, nothing heavenly by ignoring the earth.
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
In Harmony With Nature, Always.
Do not ever forget this things:
The nature of the world.
My nature.
How I relate to the world.
What proportion of it I make up.
That you are part of nature, and no one can prevent you from speaking and acting in harmony with it, always.
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, II.9.
If You Can Manage This…
Concentrate every minute like a Roman – like a man – on doing what’s in front of you with precise and genuine seriousness , tenderly , willingly, with justice. And on freeing yourself from all other distractions. Yes, you can – if you do everything as if it were the last thing you were doing in your life, and stop being aimless, stop letting your emotions override what your mind tells you, stop being hypocritical, self-centred, irritable. You see how few things you have to do to live satisfying and reverent life? If you can manage this, that’s all even the gods can ask of you.
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, II.5.
The Banquet Of Life
Continue reading “The Banquet Of Life”Remember to conduct yourself as if at banquet. As something being passed around to you , reach out your hand and take a moderate helping. Does it pass you by?
Life, Death, and Philosophy
Continue reading “Life, Death, and Philosophy”The time of a man’s life is as a point; the substance of it ever flowing, the sense obscure; and the whole composition of the body tending to corruption. His soul is restless, fortune uncertain, and fame doubtful; to be brief, as a stream so are all things belonging to the body; as a dream, or as a smoke, so are all that belong unto the soul. Our life is a warfare, and a mere pilgrimage. Fame after life is no better than oblivion. What is it then that will adhere and follow?
Control and Choice
Continue reading “Control and Choice”The chief task in life is simply this: to identify and separate matters so that I can say clearly to myself which are externals not under my control, and which have to do with the choices I actually control. Where then I look for good and evil? Not to uncontrollable externals, but within myself to the choices that are my own…
On The Nature of Wrongdoers
Continue reading “On The Nature of Wrongdoers”BEGIN the morning by saying to thyself, I shall meet with the busy-body, the ungrateful, arrogant, deceitful, envious, unsocial. All these things happen to them by reason of their ignorance of what is good and evil.
On The Shortness of Life
Continue reading “On The Shortness of Life”Men are frivolous with the most valuable thing in the world, blind to its value because it is intangible, because it can not be seen, and for this reason it is considered a very cheap thing – even of almost no value at all.
Thinker's Notes 