Meditations - Selected Passages
By Marcus Aurelius
Public-domain source text:
Project Gutenberg, Meditations of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus.
Source URL omitted so this fixture stays self-contained.
Translation note: George W. Chrystal's 1902 rendering, based on the Foulis translation of 1742.
This file is a manually curated, sectional markdown excerpt for extraction and formatting tests.
Book II
On Meeting Difficult People
Say this to yourself in the morning: Today I shall have to do with meddlers, with the ungrateful, with the insolent, with the crafty, with the envious and the selfish.
All these vices have beset them, because they know not what is good and what is evil.
I cannot be angry with my brother, or sever myself from him, for we are made by nature for mutual assistance, like the feet, the hands, the eyelids, the upper and lower rows of teeth.
Source: section 1
On Action and Character
Hourly and earnestly strive, as a Roman and a man, to do what falls to your hand with perfect unaffected dignity, with kindliness, freedom and justice, and free your soul from every other imagination.
This you will accomplish if you perform each action as if it were your last, without wilfulness, or any passionate aversion to what reason approves; without hypocrisy or selfishness, or discontent with the decrees of Providence.
Source: section 5
On Focusing Your Mind
Cares from without distract you: take leisure, then, to add some good thing to your knowledge; have done with vacillation, and avoid the other error.
For triflers, too, are they who, by their activities, weary themselves in life, and have no settled aim to which they may direct, once and for all, their every desire and project.
Source: section 7
On Looking Inward
Seldom are any found unhappy from not observing what is in the minds of others.
But such as observe not well the stirrings of their own souls must of necessity be unhappy.
Source: section 8
On Mortality
The duration of man's life is but an instant; his substance is fleeting, his senses dull; the structure of his body corruptible; the soul but a vortex.
In fine, the life of the body is but a river, and the life of the soul a misty dream.
Existence is a warfare, and a journey in a strange land; and the end of fame is to be forgotten.
Source: section 17
On Philosophy
What then avails to guide us? One thing, and one alone-Philosophy.
And this consists in keeping the divinity within inviolate and intact; victorious over pain and pleasure; free from temerity, free from falsehood, free from hypocrisy; independent of what others do or fail to do.
Source: section 17
Book III
On the Present Moment
Remember also that every man lives only this present moment, which is a fleeting instant: the rest of time is either spent or quite unknown.
Short is the time which each of us has to live, and small the corner of the earth he has to live in.
Source: section 10
Book IV
On Simplicity
Let no action be done at random, nor otherwise than in complete accordance with the principles involved.
Source: section 2
On Retreat Within Yourself
Men seek retirement in the country, on the sea-coast, in the mountains; and you too have frequent longings for such distractions.
Yet surely this is great folly, since you may retire into yourself at any hour you please.
Nowhere can a man find any retreat more quiet and more full of leisure than in his own soul.
Source: section 3
On Pain and Judgment
Suppress the thought; and the cry "I am hurt!" is gone.
Suppress "I am hurt!" and you suppress the injury.
Source: section 7
Curator Note
The excerpt keeps several short passages together so extraction tests can verify headings, block quotes, and ordinary paragraphs in one document.
During review, the archive team marked this paragraph as a parser coverage note because it appears after several nested sections rather than at the top of the file.
On Changing Your Mind
For two things be ever ready: First, to do that only which reason, the sovereign and legislative faculty, suggests for the good of mankind: Secondly, to change your course on meeting any one who can correct and alter your opinion.
But let the change be made because you really believe it to be in the interest of justice or the public good, or such like, and not with any view to pleasure or glory for yourself.
Source: section 12