On the Way Home

 You cannot hope to be a scholar. But what you can do is to curb arrogance; what you can do is to rise above pleasures and plains; you can b...

 The daily wearing away of life, with its ever-shrinking reminder, is not the only thing we have to consider. For even if a man's years ...

 "As surgeons keep their lancets and scalpels always at hand for the sudden demands of their craft, so keep your principles constantly ...

 A branch severed from an adjoining branch necessarily becomes severed from the whole tree. A man, likewise, who has been divided from any o...

 Are you distracted by outward cares? Then allow yourself a space of quiet, wherein you can add to your knowledge of the Good and learn to c...

 To refrain from imitation is the best revenge. Marcus Aurelius, Meditations , Book Six I guess this seemed like the appropriate MA passage ...

 Waste no more time arguing what a good man should be. Be one. Marcus Aurelius, Meditations , Book Ten I mean, well duh, but at the same tim...

 Without an understanding of the nature of the universe, a man cannot know where he is; without an understanding of its purpose, he cannot k...

 In your action let there be a willing promptitude, yet a regard for the common interest; due deliberation, yet no irresolution; and in your...

 Always think of the universe as one living organism, with a single substance and a single soul; and observe how all things are submitted to...

 "A poor soul burdened with a corpse," Epictetus calls you. Marcus Aurelius, Meditations , Book Four I really do need to design a ...

 Injustice is a sin. Nature has constituted rational beings for their own mutual benefit, each to help his fellows according to their worth,...

 Press on steadily, keep to the straight road in your thinking and doing, and your days will flow on smoothly. The soul of man, like the sou...

 All of us are creatures of a day; the remember and the remembered alike. Marcus Aurelius, Meditations , Book Four I think it's time for...

 Childish squabbles, childish games, 'petty breaths supporting corpses' - why, the ghosts in Homer have more evident reality! Marcus...

 Your own mind, the Mind of the universe, your neighbour's mind - be prompt to explore them all. Your own, so that you may shape it to j...

 In death, Alexander of Macedon's end differed no whit from his stable boy's. Either both were received into the same generative pri...

 Anything in any way beautiful derives its beauty from itself, and asks nothing beyond itself. Marcus Aurelius, Meditations , Book Four This...

 Life is short, and this earthly existence has but a single fruit to yield - holiness within, and selfless action without. Marcus Aurelius, ...

 I travel the roads of nature until the hour when I shall lie down and be at rest; yielding back my last breath into the air from which I ha...