Meditations: A New Translation (Modern Library)

Forget everything else. Keep hold of this alone and remember it: Each of us lives only now, this brief instant. The rest has been lived already, or is impossible to see.

To do harm is to do yourself harm. To do an injustice is to do yourself an injustice—it degrades you.

Stop allowing your mind to be a slave, to be jerked about by selfish impulses, to kick against fate and the present, and to mistrust the future.

It’s a natural thing. And nothing natural is evil.

If it’s not right, don’t do it. If it’s not true, don’t say it. Let your intention be <…>

Now they see you as a beast, a monkey. But in a week they’ll think you’re a god—if you rediscover your beliefs and honor the logos.

[On Ambition:] How their minds work, the things they long for and fear. Events like piles of sand, drift upon drift—each one soon hidden by the next.

you don’t need much to live happily. And just because you’ve abandoned your hopes of becoming a great thinker or scientist, don’t give up on attaining freedom, achieving humility, serving others, obeying God.

Leave other people’s mistakes where they lie.