How do we read Meditations?

Meditations by Marcus Aurelius.

If you want to be quiet, then do the few things that are necessary.

The way you often think, the way your heart looks, is because your heart is saturated with thoughts.

As long as you are alive, while you are still capable, do as good as you can.

Happiness can only be found within. It is difficult to have a free heart if our brains are filled with unfortunate fears and desires.

If you want others to recognize your worth, let others see your worth.

Time is like a fishing net, where you cast it, there will be your catch.

Never guess what other people are thinking. People who think about other people's thoughts are not happy. Everyone should pay attention to their own thoughts. If they can't even do this, it is very sad and lamentable. .

The more you ask of others, the more tiring your life becomes; the more you ask of yourself, the easier your life is

Don't waste the rest of your life fantasizing about other people.

As long as you don't make a decision immediately and withdraw from the impulsive scene, you will have a wider horizon and calm yourself.

We should suppress all aimless and worthless thoughts, as well as a great deal of curiosity and malicious emotion, in the course of our minds.

Nothing can hurt you other than physical damage. All negativity will be instantly cleared by you if you will.

Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact, and everything we see is a perspective, not truth.

Say to yourself at the beginning of the day: I will meet the nosy, the ungrateful, the arrogant, the deceitful, the jealous, the withdrawn

Everything is just a torrent, what belongs to the soul is just a dream, life is a war, a sojourn for passers-by, and the fame behind him quickly falls into the Forgotten River. So what does one rely on for guidance? only philosophy

Don't waste the rest of your life thinking about others when you don't direct your mind to some goal of the public good. Because when you think like this, you lose the opportunity to do something else. What the man is doing, why he is doing it, what he is saying, thinking, arguing, paying attention to all of these things will make us lose sight of our own governing forces. So we should suppress all aimless and worthless thoughts, as well as a great deal of curious and malicious emotions, in the progress of our minds.

Body, Soul, Reason, Feelings belong to the Body, Love belongs to the Soul, Principles belong to the Reason

Let no action be done without purpose, nor according to sound principles of art

Don't work reluctantly, don't disrespect the public good, don't take due consideration, don't be distracted, don't lose your mind by pretending to be learned, and don't be a chatter or a busy man

Respect that ability to generate opinions. Whether there is any incompatibility with the nature and temperament of rational animals in your dominant part depends entirely on this ability, which will keep you from judgment and make you friendly to people.

People seek to retire to themselves, they live in huts in mountain villages, on the coast of mountains; you tend to yearn for these things too. But this is entirely a mark of the mortal, because you can do so whenever you want to retreat into yourself. For it is more peaceful and less distressing for a man to retreat into his own mind than to retreat to any place, especially when he has such thoughts in his mind, and by considering them he immediately enters into complete silence.

Love the art you learn, however poor it may be, and be content with it.

Constantly observing all things that are replaced in change accustoms you to consider that the nature of the universe likes to change that which exists and to create new and similar things.

You are not long in this world, but you have not yet been simple and pure, free from troubles, doubts about being damaged by external things, have not developed the disposition to treat everyone kindly, and have not yet achieved the ability to make your wisdom only use to act with integrity.

Time is like a river of events that take place, and it is a fast-flowing river, because as soon as one thing is seen, it is taken away, and another thing takes its place, and this one will be taken away.

How easy it is to resist and clear away all distressing and inappropriate impressions and quickly enter complete silence.

What am I going to use my own soul for now? On any occasion I have to ask myself this question, what do I have in this part of me called the Governing Principle? Whose soul do I have now?

Think of the universal entity, of which you occupy only a small part; of the universal time, of which you are divided into only a brief and indivisible interval; of the fate-determined thing, how small a part of it you are.

Soon you will turn to dust and live with a skeleton and a name. Not even a name, which is just sound and echo.

The best way to take revenge yourself is not to be a perpetrator

Go back to your waking senses, call yourself back, when you wake up from sleep, you will understand that what troubles you is just a dream, now look at these things about you in your waking hours as you did Which dreams are the same.

Dispel fantasies, don't get pulled by them, limit yourself to the present.

About pain: unbearable pain takes our life, and that long-term pain is something we can endure.

Thinking that you are going to die, that you are going to end your life at some point in the present, then spend the time left to you according to your nature.

Love the things that just happen to you, the threads of destiny that are spun only for you, because, what could be better for you?

Look into the heart, the source of goodness is in the heart.

In the temperance of rational animals I do not see any virtue which is contrary to justice, but a virtue which is contrary to the love of pleasure, and this is temperance.

If you are distressed by an external thing, it is not the thing that disturbs you, but your judgment of it.

People despise each other and flatter each other. People want to be higher than others, and they each crawl in front of others.

When you are very upset or sad, think that we will die soon.

When you are troubled by something, you forget this: all things happen according to the nature of the universe; and you also forget that everything that happens is so, and will be so, and is so everywhere now ; you have also forgotten: how closely related a man is to the whole of mankind, for it is a common, not of a little blood or a seed, but of the intellect; and you have forgotten: nothing is man my own. Everything is an opinion. Everyone lives only in the present, and what is lost is only the present.