The Meditations

(excerpted from Bartlett's - 16th Ed.)

From an Australian press conference: "He (Russell) says he found a Book of Meditations that was written by the Emperor Marcus Aurelius (played by Richard Harris). "He was a philosopher . . .so I was able to use the Meditations to drive Maximus internally, which gave us a whole spiritual plane that wasn't actually in the story to begin with, which grounds him in reality."

This Being of mine, whatever it really is, consists of a little flesh, a little breath, and the part which governs.

You will find rest from vain fancies if you perform every act in life as though it were your last.

Remember that no man loses other life than that which he lives, nor lives other than that which he loses.                                            

Each thing is of like form from everlasting and comes round again in its cycle.

The longest-lived and the shortest-lived man, when they come to die, lose one and the same thing.

As for life, it is a battle and a sojourning in a strange land; but the fame that comes after is oblivion.

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

By a tranquil mind I mean nothing else than a mind well ordered.

The universe is change; our life is what our thoughts make it.

How much time he gains who does not look to see what his neighbor says or does or thinks, but only at what he does himself, to make it just and holy.

Whatever is in any way beautiful hath its source of beauty in itself, and is complete in irself; praise forms no part of it. so it is none the worse nor the better for being praised.

The controlling intelligence understands its own nature, and what it does, and whereon it works.

What is not good for the swarm is not good for the bee.

One universe made up of all that is; and one God in it all, and one principle of being, and one law, the reason, shared by all thinking creatures, and one truth.

All that is harmony for, you, my Universe, is in harmony with me as well. Nothing that comes at the right time for you is too early or too late for me. Everything is fruit to me that your seasons bring, Nature. All things come of you, have their being in you, and return to you.

"Let your occupations be few," says the sage," "if you would lead a tranquil life."

Love the llittle trade which you have learned, and be content with it.

Search men's governing principles, and consider the wise, what they shun and what they cleave to.

Time is a sort of river of passing  events,  and strong is its current; no sooner is a thing brought to sight than it is swept by and another takes its place, and this too will be swept away.

All that happens is as usual and familiar as the rose in spring and the crop in summer.

Mark how fleeting and paltry is the estate of man --yesterday in embryo, tomorrow a mummy or ashes. So for the hairsbreadth of time assigned to thee, live rationally, and part with life cheerfully, as drops the ripe olive, extolling the season that bore it and the tree that matured it.

In the morning, when you are sluggish about getting up, let this thought be present: I am rising to a man's work.

A man  makes no noise over a good deed, but passes on to another as a vine to bear grapes again in season.

Nothing happens to anybody which he is not fitted by nature to bear.

Live with the gods.

It is man's peculiar duty to love even those who wrong him.

Very little is needed to make a happy life.

To change your mind and to follow him who sets you right is to be nonetheless the free agent that you were before.

Look to the essence of a thing, whether it be a point of doctrine, of practice, or of interpretation.

Be not careless in deeds, nor confused in words, rambling in thought.

Think not disdainfully of death, but look on it with favor; for even death is one of the things that Nature wills.

A wrongdoer is often a man who has left something undone, not always one who has done something.

Blot out vain pomp; check impulse; quench appetite; keep reason under its own control.

Whatever may befall you, it was preordained for you from everlasting.