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thebuddhistmind

Most of what we think, say or do in unnecessary.

Marcus Aurelius (via thebuddhistmind)

senecasredoubt

Disgraceful: for the soul to give up when the body is still going strong.

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations: A New Translation (4:29)

panatmansam

Don’t try to picture everything bad that could possibly happen. Stick with the situation at hand and ask, ‘Why is this so unbearable? Why can’t I endure it?’ You’ll be embarrassed to answer. Then remind yourself that past and future have no power over you. Only the present.

Marcus Aurelius (via panatmansam)

senecasredoubt

Nothing that goes on in anyone else’s mind can harm you. Nor can the shifts and changes in the world around you. —Then where is harm to be found? In your capacity to see it. Stop doing that and everything will be fine. Let the part of you that makes that judgment keep quiet even if the body it’s attached to is stabbed or burnt, or stinking with pus, or consumed by cancer. Or to put it another way: It needs to realize that what happens to everyone— bad and good alike— is neither good nor bad. That what happens in every life— lived naturally or not— is neither natural nor unnatural.

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations: A New Translation (4:39)

senecasredoubt

You need to avoid certain things in your train of thought: everything random, everything irrelevant. And certainly everything self-important or malicious. You need to get used to winnowing your thoughts, so that if someone says, “What are you thinking about?” you can respond at once (and truthfully) that you are thinking this or thinking that. And it would be obvious at once from your answer that your thoughts were straightforward and considerate ones— the thoughts of an unselfish person, one unconcerned with pleasure and with sensual indulgence generally, with squabbling, with slander and envy, or anything else you’d be ashamed to be caught thinking.

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations: A New Translation (3:4)

senecasredoubt

To do harm is to do yourself harm. To do an injustice is to do yourself an injustice— it degrades you. And you can also commit injustice by doing nothing.

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations: A New Translation (9:4-5)

senecasredoubt

That kindness is invincible, provided it’s sincere— not ironic or an act. What can even the most vicious person do if you keep treating him with kindness and gently set him straight— if you get the chance— correcting him cheerfully at the exact moment that he’s trying to do you harm. “No, no, my friend. That isn’t what we’re here for. It isn’t me who’s harmed by that. It’s you.” And show him, gently and without pointing fingers, that it’s so. That bees don’t behave like this— or any other animals with a sense of community. Don’t do it sardonically or meanly, but affectionately— with no hatred in your heart. And not ex cathedra or to impress third parties, but speaking directly. Even if there are other people around.

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations: A New Translation (11:18)

senecasredoubt

And how trivial the things we want so passionately are. And how much more philosophical it would be to take what we’re given and show uprightness, self-control, obedience to God, without making a production of it. There’s nothing more insufferable than people who boast about their own humility.

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations: A New Translation (12:27)

oldfilmsflicker

Many of the anxieties that harass you are superfluous: being but creatures of your own fancy, you can rid yourself of them and expand into an ampler region, letting your thought sweep over the entire universe, contemplating the illimitable tracts of eternity, marking the swiftness of change in each created thing, and contrasting the brief span between birth and dissolution with the endless aeons that precede the one and the infinity that follows the other.

Marcus Aurelius (via oldfilmsflicker)

senecasredoubt

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-centered, irritable.

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations: A New Translation (2:5)

wordsnquotes

You should banish any thoughts of how you may appear to others.

Marcus Aurelius (via wordsnquotes)

senecasredoubt

Yes, keep on degrading yourself, soul. But soon your chance at dignity will be gone. Everyone gets one life. Yours is almost used up, and instead of treating yourself with respect, you have entrusted your own happiness to the souls of others.

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations: A New Translation (2:6)

thebuddhistmind

If someone can prove me wrong and show me my mistake in any thought or action, I shall gladly change. The harm is to persist in one’s own self-deception and ignorance.

Marcus Aurelius (via thebuddhistmind)

xshayarsha

Begin each day by telling youself: Today I shall be meeting with interference, ingratitude, insolence, disloyalty, ill-will, and selfishness […] none of those things can injure me.

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations: Book II. [trans. Maxwell Staniforth] (via xshayarsha)