"It's not impossible, it's necessary"

"From my tutor: not to become a Green or Blue supporter at the races, or side with the Lights or Heavies in the amphitheatre; to tolerate pain and feel few needs; to work with my own hands and mind my own bussines; to be deaf to malicious gossip."

"From Apollonius: moral freedom, the certainty to Ignore the dice of fortune, and have no other perspective, even for a moment, thay that of reason alone; to be always the same man, unchanged in sudden pain"

"In those things which conduce to the comfort of life and here fortune gave him plenty - to enjoy them without pride or apology either so no routine acceptance of their presence or regret in their absence; the fact that no one would ever describe him as a fraud or an impostor or a pedant, but rather as a man of mellow wisdom and mature experience, beyond flattery, able to take charge of his own and other's affairs."

"the acts of a man with an eye for precisely what needs to be done, not the glory of its doing."

"Strength of character and endurance or sobriety as the case may be - signifies the man of full and indomitable spirit, as mas shown by Maximus in his illness."

"Remember how long you have been putting this off how many times you have given a period of grace by the god's and not used it. It is high time now for you to understand the universe of which you are part, and the governor of that universe of whom you constitute an emanation: and that there is a limit circumscribed to your time - if you do not use it to clear guay your clouds, it will be gone, and you will be gone, and the opportunity will not return"

""All is as thinking makes it so!" The retort made to Monimus the Cynic is clear enough: but clear too is the value of his saying, if one talles the kernel of it, es far as it is true."

"In a man's life his time is a mere instant, his existence a flux, his perception fogged, his whole bodily composition rotting, his mind a whirling, his fortune unpredictable, his fame under. To put this shortly: all things of the body stream away like a river, all things of the mind are drea's and delusion; life is warfare, and a visit in a strange land; the only lasting fame is oblivion. What then escort us on our way? One thing and one only: Philosophy. This consists in keeping the divinity within us inviolate and free from harm,  master of pleasure and pain, doing nothing without aim, truth, or integrity, and independent of other's action or failure to act further, accepting all that happen's and is allotted to it as coming from that other source which is its own origin: and at all times awaiting death with the glad confidence that it is nothing more than the dissolution of the elements of which every living creature is composed. Now if there is nothing fearful for the elements themselves in their constant changing of each in to another, why should one look anxiously in prospect at the change and disolution of them all? This is in accordance with nature."

"Wherever it is in agreement with nature, the ruling Power within us takes a flexible approach to circumstances, always adopting itself easily to both practicality and the given event. It has no favoured material for its work, but sets out on its objects in a conditional way, turning any obstacle into material for its own use. It is like a fire mastering whatever falls into it. A small flame would be extinguished, but a bright fire rapidly claims as its own all that heaped on it. devours it all, and leaps up yet higher in consequence."

"No wandering. In every Impulse, give what is right: in every thought, stick to what is certain."

"If y ou want to be happy, says Democritus, 'do little'. May it not be better to do what is necessary, what the reason of a naturally social being demands, and to the way reason demands it done? This brings happiness both of right action and of little action. Most of what we say and do is unnecesary: remove the superfluity, and you will love more time and less bother. So in every case one should prompt oneself: 'Is this, or is it not, something neccessary?' And the removal of the unnecessary should apply not only to actions but to thoughts also; then no redundant actions elther will follow."

"The substance of the whole is passive and malleable, and the reason directing this substance has no cause in itself to do wrong, as there is no wrong in it: nothing it creates is wrongly made, nothing harmed by it. All things have their beginning and their end in accordance with it."

"All that exists will soon change. Either it will be turned into vapour, if all matter is a unity, or it will be scattered in atoms"

"The best revenge is not to be like your enemy"

"When circumstances force you to some sort of distress, quickly return to yourself. Do not stay out of rhythm for longer than you must: you will master the harmony the more by constantly going back to it."

"In the field of play an opponent scratches us with his naila, say, or gives us a butting blow with his head: but we don't 'mark' him for that, or take offence, or suspect him afterwards of deliberate attack. Tre, we do keep clear of him: but this is a good-nature avoidance, not suspicion or treating him as an enemy. Something similar should be the case in the other areas of life too: we have people who are our opponents in the game and we should overlook much of what they do. We can avoid them, as I say, without suspicion or enemity."

"If someone can prove me wrong and show me my mistake in any thought or actlon, I shall gladly change. I seek the truth wich never harmed anyone: the harm is to persist in one's own self-deception and ignorance"

"I do my own duty: the other things do not distract me. They are either inanimate or irrational, or have lost the road and are ignorant of the true way"

"Death is relief from reaction to the senses, from the puppet-strings of impulse; from the analytical mind, and from service to the flesh"

"Disgracefull if, in this life where your body does not fail, your soul should fail you first"

"Everything materlal rapidly dissappears in the universal substance; every cause is rapidly taken up into the universal reason, and the memory of everything is rapidly buried in eternity"

"Standing straight - or held straight"

"Soon you will have forgotten all things: soon all thing will have forgotten you"

"So if you have a true perception of how things lie, abandon any concern for reputation, and be satisfied if you can just live the rest of your life, whatever remains, in the way your nature wishes. You must consider, then, what those wishes are, and then let nothing else distract you. You know from experience that in all your wonderings you have nowhere found the good life - not in logic, not in wealth, not in glory, not in indulgence: nowhere. Where then is it to be found? In doing what man's nature regulies. And how is he to do this? By having principles to govern his impulses and actions what are these principles? Those of good and evil - the belife that nothing is good for a human being which does not make him just, selp-controlled brave, and free: and nothing evil which does not matte him the opposite of these"

"Constantly test your mental impressions - each one individialy If you can: investigate the cause, identify the emotion, apply the analysis of logic"

"If your distress has some external cause, it is not the thing itself that troubles you, but your judgement of it and you con erase this immediately"

"There can often be wrongs of omission as well as commission"

"Erase the print of Imagination, stop impulse, quench desire: keep your directing mind its own master"

"Work. Don't work as a miserable drudge, on in any expectation of pity or admiration. One aim only: action or inaction as civic cause demands"

"You have endured innumerable troubles by not leaving your directing mind to do the work it was made for. But enough"

"When another blames you or hates you, or people voice similar criticisms, go to their souls, penetrate inside and see what sort of people they are. You will realize that there is no need to be racked with anxiety that they should hold any porticolor opinion about you. But you should be kind to them. They are by nature your friends, and the gods too help them in various ways - dreams and divination - at least to the objects of their concern"

"The recurrent cycles of the universe are the same, up and down, from eternity to eternity. And either the mind of the Whole has a specific impulse for each individual case - if so, you should welcome the result - or it had a single original impulse from which all else follows in consequence and why should be anxious about that? The Whole is either a god - then all is well or if purposelless of random arrengement of atoms or molecules - you should not be without purpose yourself. In a moment the earth will cover us all. Then the earth too will change, and then further successive changes to infinity one reflecting on these waves of change and transformation and the speed of their flow, will hold all mortals things in contempt"

"Take a wiew from above - look of the thousands of flocks and herds, the thousands of human ceremonies, every sort of voyage in storm or calm, the range of creation, combination, and extinction. Consider too the lives once lived by others long before you, the lives that will be lived after you, the lives lived now among lforeign tribes; and how many have never even heard your name, how many will be very soon forget it, how many praise you now but quickly turn to blame. Reflect that neither memory nor fame, nor anything else at all has any importance worth thinking of."

"All that happens is an event either within your natural ability to bear it, or not. So if it is an event within that ability, do not complain, but bear it as you were born to. If outside that ability, do not complain either: it will take you away before you have the chance for complaint. Remember, though, that you are by nature born to bear all that your own judgement can decide bearable or tolarate in action, if you represent it to yourself as benefit of duty."

"A man following reason in all things combines relaxation with initiative, spark with composure"

"No more roundabout discussion of what makes a good man. Be one!"

"Just as those who try to block your progress along the straight path of reason will not be able to divert you from principled action, so you must not be able to divert you from principled action, so you must not let them knock you out of your good will towards them rather you should watch yourself equally on both fronts, keepiny not only a stability of judgement and action but also a mild response to those who try to stop you or are otherwise disaffected. To be angry with them is no less a weakness than to obandon your course of action and capitulate in panic. Both amount equally to desertion of duty - either being frightened into retreat, or setting yourself at odds with your natural kinsmen and friends"

"Someone despises me? That is his concern. But I will see to it that I am not found guilty of any word or action deserving contempt. Will he hate me?, that is his concern. But I will be kind and well-intentined to all and ready to show this very person what he is failing to see -not in criticism or display of tolerance, but with genuine good will, like the famous Phocion (if, that is, he was not speaking ironically)"

"Live through life in the best way you can. The power to do so is in a man's own soul. If he is indifferent to things indifferent. And he will be indifferent if he looks at these things both as a whole and analysed into their parts, end remembers that none of them imposes a judgement of itself on us. The things themselves are inert: it is we who procreate judgments about them and, as it were, imprint them on our minds - but there is need for imprinting at all, and any accidental print can inmediately be erased. Remember too that our attention to these things can only last a little while, and then life will be at an end. And what, any way, is the difficulty in them? If they are in accord with nature, welcome them and you will find them easy. If they are contrary to nature, look for what accords with your own nature and go straight for that, even if it brings you no glory. Anyone can be forgiven for seeking thing his own proper good"

"The closer to control of emotion, the closer to power"

"The Pythagoreans say, 'Look at the sky at dawn!' - to remind ourselves of the constancy of those heavenly bodies, their perpetual round of their own duty, their order, their purity, and theri nakedness. No star wears a veil."

"Grapes unripe, pipened, raisined: all changes, not into non-existence, but into not-yet existence"

"No thief can steal your will' - So Epictetus"

"- if, as I say, you separate from this directing mind of yours the baggage of passion, time future and time past, and make yourself like Empedocles 'perfect round rejoicing i n the solitude it enjoys', and seelk only to perfect this life you are living in the present, you will be able at least to live out the time remaining before your death calmly, kindly, and at peace with the god inside you"

"See things for what they are, analysing into material, cause, and reference"

"If it is not right, don't do it: if it is not true, don't say it"

"Your impulse on every acasion should be a a complete survey of what exactly this thing is which is making an impression on your wind - to open it out by analysis into cause, material, reference, and the time-span within which it must cease to be"

"Realize at long lost that you have within you some thing stronger and more numinous than those agents of emotion which make you a mere puppet on their strings. What is in my mind at this very moment? Fear, is it? Suspicion? Desire? Something else of that sort?"

"How does your directing mind employ itself? This is the whole issue. All else, of your own choice or not, it is just corpse and smoke"