Words that everyone once used are now obsolete, and so are the men whose names were once on everyone's lips: Camillus, Caeso, Volesus, Dentatus, and to a lesser degree Scipio and Cato, and yes, even Augustus, Hadrian, and Antoninus are less spoken of now than they were in their own days. For all things fade away, become the stuff of legend, and are soon buried in oblivion. Mind you, this is true only for those who blazed once like bright stars in the firmament, but for the rest, as soon as a few clods of earth cover their corpses, they are 'out of sight, out of mind.' In the end, what would you gain from everlasting remembrance? Absolutely nothing. So what is left worth living for? This alone: justice in thought, goodness in action, speech that cannot deceive, and a disposition glad of whatever comes, welcoming it as necessary, as familiar, as flowing from the same source and fountain as yourself.

Meditations - Τὰ εἰς ἑαυτόν, Ta eis heauton, literally "thoughts/writings addressed to himself" is a series of personal writings by Marcus Aurelius, Roman Emperor, setting forth his ideas on Stoic philosophy.Translation by Scot and David Hicks.

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Whatever happens to you has been waiting to happen since the beginning of time. The twining strands of fate wove both of them together: your own existence and the things that happen to you.

Meditations - Τὰ εἰς ἑαυτόν, Ta eis heauton, literally "thoughts/writings addressed to himself" is a series of personal writings by Marcus Aurelius, Roman Emperor, setting forth his ideas on Stoic philosophy.Translation by Gregory Hays.

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As for others whose lives are not so ordered, he reminds himself constantly of the characters they exhibit daily and nightly at home and abroad , and of the sort of society they frequent; and the approval of such men, who do not even stand well in their own eyes has no value for him.

Meditations - Τὰ εἰς ἑαυτόν, Ta eis heauton, literally "thoughts/writings addressed to himself" is a series of personal writings by Marcus Aurelius, Roman Emperor, setting forth his ideas on Stoic philosophy.Translation by Maxwell Staniforth.

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When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: The people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous, and surly. They are like this because they can't tell good from evil. But I have seen the beauty of good, and the ugliness of evil, and have recognized that the wrongdoer has a nature related to my own - not of the same blood or birth, but the same mind, and possessing a share of the divine.

Meditations - Τὰ εἰς ἑαυτόν, Ta eis heauton, literally "thoughts/writings addressed to himself" is a series of personal writings by Marcus Aurelius, Roman Emperor, setting forth his ideas on Stoic philosophy.Translation by George Long - an English classical scholar.

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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.

Meditations - Τὰ εἰς ἑαυτόν, Ta eis heauton, literally "thoughts/writings addressed to himself" is a series of personal writings by Marcus Aurelius, Roman Emperor, setting forth his ideas on Stoic philosophy.Translation by George Long - an English classical scholar.

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Take away your opinion, and there is taken away the complaint, Take away the complaint, and the hurt is gone.

Meditations - Τὰ εἰς ἑαυτόν, Ta eis heauton, literally "thoughts/writings addressed to himself" is a series of personal writings by Marcus Aurelius, Roman Emperor, setting forth his ideas on Stoic philosophy.Translation by George Long - an English classical scholar.

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Shame on the soul, to falter on the road of life while the body still perseveres.

Meditations - Τὰ εἰς ἑαυτόν, Ta eis heauton, literally "thoughts/writings addressed to himself" is a series of personal writings by Marcus Aurelius, Roman Emperor, setting forth his ideas on Stoic philosophy.Translation by Maxwell Staniforth.

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Do not then consider life a thing of any value. For look at the immensity of time behind thee, and to the time which is before thee, another boundless space. In this infinity then what is the difference between him who lives three days and him who lives three generations?

Meditations - Τὰ εἰς ἑαυτόν, Ta eis heauton, literally "thoughts/writings addressed to himself" is a series of personal writings by Marcus Aurelius, Roman Emperor, setting forth his ideas on Stoic philosophy.Translation by George Long - an English classical scholar.

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Shame on the soul, to falter on the road of life while the body still perseveres.

Meditations - Τὰ εἰς ἑαυτόν, Ta eis heauton, literally "thoughts/writings addressed to himself" is a series of personal writings by Marcus Aurelius, Roman Emperor, setting forth his ideas on Stoic philosophy.Translation by Maxwell Staniforth.

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Never esteem anything as of advantage to you that will make you break your word or lose your self-respect.

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