Thoughts of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus · Emperor of Rome Marcus Aurelius
33. About pain: the pain which is intolerable carries us off; but that
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which lasts a long time is tolerable; and the mind maintains its own tranquillity by retiring into itself, and the ruling faculty is not made worse. But the parts which are harmed by pain, let them, if they can, give their opinion about it.
34. About fame: look at the minds [of those who seek fame], observe what they are, and what kind of things they avoid, and what kind of things they pursue. And consider that as the heaps of sand piled on one another hide the former sands; so in life the events which go before are soon covered by those which come after.
35. From Plato:[A] The man who has an elevated mind and takes a view of all time and of all substance, dost thou suppose it possible for him to think that human life is anything great? It is not possible, he said.—Such a man then will think that death also is no evil.—Certainly not.
36. From Antisthenes: It is royal to do good and to be abused.
37. It is a base thing for the countenance to be obedient and to regulate and compose itself as the mind commands, and for the mind not to be regulated and composed by itself.
38. It is not right to vex ourselves at things, For they care nought about it.[B]
39. To the immortal gods and us give joy.
40. Life must be reaped like the ripe ears of corn. One man is born; another dies.
[A] Plato, Pol. vi. 486.
[B] From the Bellerophon of Euripides.
From the Hypsipyle of Euripides. Cicero (Tuscul. iii. 25) has translated six lines from Euripides, and among them are these two lines,—
"Reddenda terrae est terra: tum vita omnibus Metenda ut fruges: Sic jubet necessitas."
41. If gods care not for me and my children, There is a reason for it.
42. For the good is with me, and the just.[A]
43. No joining others in their wailing, no violent emotion.
44. From Plato:[B] But I would make this man a sufficient answer, which is this: Thou sayest not well, if thou thinkest that a man who is good for anything at all ought to compute the hazard of life or death, and should not rather look to this only in all that he does, whether he is doing what is just or unjust, and the works of a good or bad man.
