Book 6

The substance of the universe is yielding and easy to work with. The reason that guides it has no cause in itself for doing evil. It has no evil. It does nothing wrong. Nothing is harmed by it. Everything happens and is completed according to it.

Don’t worry whether you’re doing what’s right while shivering or warm, sleepy or well-rested, being criticized or praised, dying or doing something else. Dying is just one of life’s actions. So even for that, it’s enough to handle the present moment well.

Look inside. Don’t let the special quality or value of anything escape you.

All existing things will soon change. If substance is unified, they’ll evaporate. If not, they’ll scatter[1].

The guiding reason knows its own state, what it’s doing, and what material it’s working with.

The best revenge is not to become like them.

Find joy and rest in one thing: moving from one social act to another, remembering god[2].

The ruling principle is what wakes itself up, turns itself, makes itself whatever it wants to be, and makes everything that happens appear to it the way it wants.

Everything is completed according to the nature of the whole. It can’t be according to any other nature—either one surrounding it from outside, or contained within, or separate and detached.

The universe is either a jumble—tangling and untangling and scattering—or it’s unity, order, and providence. If it’s the first, why do I even want to hang around in this random mess and chaos? Why should I care about anything except eventually “becoming earth”? Why get upset? The scattering will get me no matter what I do. But if it’s the other option, I worship, I stand firm, I trust the one who governs[3].

When you’re forced by circumstances to be disturbed, quickly return to yourself. Don’t stay out of rhythm longer than necessary. You’ll master the harmony better by constantly returning to it.

If you had a stepmother and a mother at the same time, you’d take care of your stepmother but constantly return to your mother. That’s what the court and philosophy are to you now. Return to philosophy often and rest in her. She makes court life bearable for you, and you bearable there[4].

When we see food and fancy dishes, we can form an idea: this is a dead fish, this is a dead bird or pig. Or: this Falernian wine is just grape juice. This purple robe is sheep’s wool dyed with shellfish blood. Sex is friction of intestines and a spasm that shoots out slime. These ideas grasp the things themselves and pierce through them so we see what they really are. We need to do this our whole life. When things seem most worthy of approval, strip them naked. See their cheapness. Take away the story they tell about themselves. Pride is a terrible deceiver. When you think you’re doing the most serious work, that’s when it tricks you most. Look at what Crates said about Xenocrates himself[5].

Most things the masses admire come down to the most general categories—things held together by structure or nature: stones, wood, fig trees, vines, olives. Slightly more reasonable people admire things held together by life: flocks and herds. More sophisticated people admire things with rational souls—not universal reason, but reason skilled in craft or clever in other ways. Or just owning lots of slaves. But someone who honors the rational, universal, political soul no longer turns to anything else. Above all, he keeps his own soul rational and social in its state and movements, and cooperates with others like him to do the same.

Some things rush to exist, others rush to stop existing, and part of what’s coming to be is already extinguished. Flows and changes constantly renew the universe, just as time’s unbroken passage makes eternity always fresh. In this river, what could anyone value among all the things rushing past that you can’t even stand on? Like starting to love some sparrow flying by—but it’s already gone from sight. Each person’s life itself is like evaporation from blood or breathing in air. Just as we draw in air once and give it back, which we do every moment, so too we give back the whole power of breathing that you got yesterday or the day before at birth, returning it to where you first drew it from[6].

Transpiring like plants isn’t valuable. Neither is breathing like cattle and wild animals. Neither is being stamped by impressions, jerked around by impulses, herding together, or feeding—that’s no different from expelling food waste. So what is valuable? Being applauded? No. So not being applauded by tongues either—praise from the masses is just tongue-clapping. So you’ve given up that bit of glory too. What’s left that’s valuable? I think it’s moving and holding still according to your own make-up—what all training and arts aim at. Every art aims to make what it creates suited for the work it was made for. The gardener with the vine, the horse trainer, the dog trainer—they all seek this. What do education and teaching rush toward? This is what’s valuable. If this goes well, you won’t seek anything else. Won’t you stop valuing many other things too? Otherwise you won’t be free, self-sufficient, or without passion. You’ll have to envy, be jealous, suspect those who can take those things away, plot against those who have what you value. Someone who needs any of those things is necessarily thrown into confusion and often blames the gods too. But respecting and valuing your own mind will make you pleasing to yourself, in harmony with others, and in tune with the gods—praising what they distribute and arrange.

The elements move up, down, in circles. But virtue’s movement is in none of these. It’s something more divine, and it goes forward on a hard-to-understand path, doing well.

What people do! They won’t praise their contemporaries who live with them, but they care deeply about being praised by future generations—people they’ve never seen and never will. This is almost like being upset that past generations didn’t praise you.

Don’t assume something’s impossible for you just because you find it hard. But if something is possible and natural for humans, consider it achievable for you too.

In the gym, someone might scratch us with their nails or ram us with their head and hurt us. But we don’t mark them as bad, we don’t get offended, we don’t suspect them as an enemy later. Though we do watch out for them—not as an enemy or with suspicion, but we calmly avoid them. Let this be how we act in other parts of life too. Let’s overlook many things from those who are like training partners. As I said, it’s possible to avoid them without suspicion or hatred.

If anyone can prove me wrong and show I’m not thinking or acting right, I’ll gladly change. I’m seeking truth, which never harmed anyone. The person harmed is the one who stays in their deception and ignorance.

I do my duty. Other things don’t distract me—they’re either lifeless, irrational, lost, or ignorant of the way.

Use irrational animals and things and objects generously and freely, since you have reason and they don’t. Use human beings socially, since they have reason. Call on the gods in everything. Don’t worry about how long you’ll do these things. Even three hours like this is enough.

Alexander the Great and his mule driver ended up in the same place when they died. Either they were taken back into the universe’s generative principles, or they were equally scattered into atoms[7].

Think about how many things happen in each of us at the same instant—bodily and mental. Then you won’t be surprised that many more things—actually everything that comes to be—exist simultaneously in the one and the whole we call the universe.

If someone asked you how to spell “Antoninus,” wouldn’t you carefully pronounce each letter? If they get angry, would you get angry back? Wouldn’t you calmly continue listing each letter? Similarly, remember here that every duty is completed by certain numbers. You need to watch these and not be disturbed. Don’t get irritated back at those who are irritated. Just complete the task methodically[8].

How cruel it is not to let people pursue what seems beneficial and suitable to them. Yet in a way, you’re not letting them do this when you’re angry that they’re doing wrong—they’re certainly drawn to what seems beneficial and suitable to them. “But they’re mistaken.” So teach them and show them without being angry.

Death is rest from sensory responses, from being jerked by impulses, from the movements of thought, and from serving the flesh.

It’s shameful if your soul gives up while your body keeps going in this life.

Watch out that you don’t become Caesar-ified, that you don’t get dyed with that stain. It happens. So keep yourself simple, good, pure, serious, unpretentious, a friend of justice, god-fearing, kind, affectionate, firm in doing what’s right. Struggle to remain the person philosophy wanted to make you. Revere the gods, help human beings. Life is short. The one harvest of earthly life is a holy disposition and social acts. Everything like Antoninus did. His energy for what reason demanded, his evenness everywhere, his holiness, his cheerful expression, his gentleness, his lack of empty pride, his ambition to grasp things—how he’d never pass over anything without first understanding it clearly. How he bore those who blamed him unfairly without blaming back. How he never rushed. How he didn’t accept slander. How precisely he examined character and actions. Not abusive, not jumpy at noises, not suspicious, not playing the sophist. How little satisfied him—housing, bedding, clothes, food, servants. How hardworking and patient. How he could stay at the same task until evening because of his simple diet, not even needing to relieve himself except at the usual time. His firmness and consistency in friendships. How he tolerated those who openly opposed his views and was glad if someone showed him something better. How god-fearing without being superstitious. So that when your last hour comes, your conscience can be as clear as his was[9].

Wake up and call yourself back. Once you’re awake again and realize dreams were troubling you, look at these things the way you looked at those.

I’m made of a little body and soul. To the body, everything is indifferent—it can’t even tell the difference. To the mind, everything is indifferent that isn’t its own activity. And even among its activities, it only concerns itself with the present. Its future and past activities are also indifferent now.

Pain for the hand or foot isn’t against nature as long as the foot does foot things and the hand does hand things. So pain for a human as human isn’t against nature as long as he does human things. And if it’s not against nature for him, it’s not bad for him either.

What pleasures thieves, perverts, parent-killers, and tyrants have enjoyed[10].

Don’t you see how craftsmen accommodate amateurs up to a point, but still stick to the principles of their craft and won’t abandon them? Isn’t it terrible if the architect and doctor respect the principles of their arts more than a human respects his own principle, which he shares with the gods?

Asia, Europe—corners of the universe. Every sea—a drop in the universe. Mount Athos—a clod in the universe. Every present instant—a point in eternity. Everything is small, changeable, vanishing. Everything comes from that common ruling principle, either starting directly from it or following from it. So the lion’s gaping mouth, poison, every evil thing like thorns or mud—these are by-products of those grand and beautiful things. Don’t think they’re alien to what you revere. Think about the source of all things[11].

Whoever sees the present has seen everything—everything that’s happened from eternity and everything that will happen in infinite time. It’s all the same kind and form.

Keep thinking about how all things are connected and related to each other. In a way, all things are interwoven and therefore friendly to each other. One follows another in order because of the tension movement, the shared breath, and the unity of substance[12].

Adapt yourself to the life you’ve been given and to the people you’ve been given to live with. Love them—really love them.

Every tool, instrument, or vessel is good if it does what it was made for. Though there, the maker is separate from the thing. But with things nature holds together, the making power remains inside and stays there. So you should revere it even more and believe that if you conduct yourself according to its will, everything is going your way. That’s how everything goes the universe’s way too.

If you assume something outside your control is good or bad for you, then when that bad thing happens or that good thing fails to happen, you inevitably blame the gods and hate the people you think are responsible or suspect might be responsible. We do a lot of injustice because we care about these things. But if we judge only what’s in our control as good or bad, there’s no reason left to accuse god or take a hostile stance toward anyone.

We’re all working together toward one result, some knowingly and purposefully, others without realizing it—like Heraclitus says, I think, that even sleepers are workers contributing to what happens in the universe. Different people contribute differently. Even the complainer who tries to resist and eliminate what happens contributes abundantly—the universe needed people like that too. So understand which group you’re placing yourself with. The one who governs everything will certainly use you well and accept you as one part among the cooperating parts. But don’t be the kind of part that’s like the cheap, ridiculous line in the play that Chrysippus mentions[13].

Does the sun try to do the rain’s job? Does Asclepius try to do the Harvest-Goddess’s job? What about each of the stars? Aren’t they different but working together toward the same thing?[14]

If the gods deliberated about me and what should happen to me, they deliberated well. It’s hard even to imagine a god without wisdom. And what reason would they have to harm me? What would they or the common whole, which they especially care for, gain from that? If they didn’t deliberate about me individually, they certainly deliberated about the common good, and since these things happen to me as consequences of that, I should welcome and love them. But if they don’t deliberate about anything (which is impious to believe—if so, let’s stop sacrificing, praying, swearing oaths, and all the other things we do as if the gods are present and living with us)—if they don’t deliberate about anything concerning us, then I can deliberate about myself. I can consider what’s beneficial for me. What benefits each thing is what fits its constitution and nature. My nature is rational and political. My city and country, as Antoninus, is Rome. As a human, it’s the universe. What benefits these cities is my only good[15].

Whatever happens to each person benefits the whole. That should be enough. But you’ll also generally observe this: what happens to one person also benefits other people. Here “benefit” should be taken in the ordinary sense, as applied to things that are morally neutral.

Just as the games and such places disgust you—always seeing the same things makes the spectacle boring—you should feel the same about life as a whole. Everything, up and down, is the same and from the same. How much longer?

Keep thinking about all kinds of people who have died—all professions, all nationalities. Come down to Philistion, Phoebus, and Origanion. Now move to other categories. We must go where so many clever orators have gone, so many serious philosophers—Heraclitus, Pythagoras, Socrates. So many heroes of earlier times, so many generals and tyrants after them. Besides these: Eudoxus, Hipparchus, Archimedes—other sharp minds, great-hearted, hardworking, versatile, daring, even mockers of human life’s mortality and transience, like Menippus and others like him. Think about all of them: they’re long gone. What’s so terrible for them? What about those whose names aren’t even remembered? One thing here is worth much: to live with truth and justice, kindly disposed even to liars and the unjust[16].

When you want to cheer yourself up, think about the good qualities of your companions—one’s energy, another’s modesty, another’s generosity, and so on. Nothing cheers us up like examples of the virtues displayed in the character of those who live with us, presented as abundantly as possible. So keep them ready.

You’re not upset that you weigh only so many pounds and not three hundred. So why be upset that you’ll only live so many years and not more? Just as you’re satisfied with the amount of substance assigned to you, be satisfied with the time too.

Try to persuade them, but act even against their will when justice demands it. If someone uses force to stop you, shift to acceptance and no distress. Use the obstacle for another virtue. Remember you acted with reservation, you didn’t desire the impossible. What did you desire? Just this kind of effort. And you’re getting it, since what we set out to do is happening.

The ambitious person thinks someone else’s action is his own good. The pleasure-lover thinks his own sensation is. The person with understanding thinks his own action is.

About this matter, it’s possible to have no opinion and not be troubled in your soul. Things themselves don’t have the nature to create our judgments.

Train yourself to really listen to what others say, and as much as possible, enter into the speaker’s soul.

What doesn’t benefit the hive doesn’t benefit the bee either.

If sailors cursed the helmsman or patients cursed the doctor, would they listen to anyone else? How else could the helmsman secure the passengers’ safety or the doctor the patients’ health?

How many who entered the world with me have already left it.

Honey seems bitter to people with jaundice, water is terrifying to people with rabies, a ball is beautiful to children. Why get angry? Do you think false judgments have less power than bile in jaundice or poison in rabies?

No one can stop you from living according to your nature’s principle. Nothing will happen to you against the common nature’s principle.

Who are they—these people they want to please? And for what gains? Through what actions? How quickly time will cover everything. How much it has covered already.