1. What is supremely good is the inner reign of reason, which gives man strength and serenity. When your soul is master of itself, it lets nothing external disturb it. It is self-sufficient and depends solely upon itself. It looks upon the universe as a spectacle where everything unfolds according to the order of nature. It accepts what happens to it as a consequence of universal reason. It bears untoward events with patience, knowing that they are necessary and useful to the whole. It does not revolt against destiny, but submits to it with a free and enlightened will.

2. Whenever you wake up in the morning, tell yourself that you will meet troublesome, ungrateful, insolent, deceitful, envious, and unsociable men. It is because they are ignorant of what is good and what is evil. But I, who have penetrated the nature of good and evil, and who know what is truly noble and what is truly shameful, cannot be hurt by any of them, nor let myself be led astray by their error. Nor can I be angry with my neighbor or hate him. For we are born for cooperation, like feet, hands, eyelids, rows of upper and lower teeth. To help one another is therefore the law of our nature; and it is contrary to this law to harm one another or to abandon one another.

3. What is not useful to the hive is not useful to the bee either.

4. Sailors, pilots, physicians, philosophers, all those who exercise an art, have their determined goal. But the goal of the reasonable man is to do what is conformable to his nature. And what is this nature? To be gentle, benevolent, and not to let oneself be dominated by passions. Nor must one grow angry against events, for they are neither good nor bad in themselves; they only become so through our judgment.

5. If you are grieved by something, it is because you have forgotten that everything happens according to the nature of the universe, and that the fault belongs solely to you who judge wrongly. Furthermore, you have forgotten that everything that happens to you is an opportunity for you to act well; that you possess nothing of your own, and that you are merely a part of the whole. You have forgotten the kinship of all men with the entirety of the universe, and that the reason which governs the world is the same as that which is within you.

6. You must therefore constantly remind yourself of these principles, and meditate upon them on every occasion. Thus, you will be master of yourself, and you will be no slave to anything external.

7. Do not let yourself be carried away by the imagination of things, but examine them in themselves, strip them of everything that is not essential, and see what they truly are.

8. Everything that happens to you happens according to the reason of the universe. You must therefore bear it with joy and gratitude, for it is for your good.

9. When you are irritated with someone, remember that you are a man, and that man is made for gentleness. Make an effort to understand his error, and forgive him, for he acts only out of ignorance.

10. The happiness of life consists in doing each thing according to one's nature, and in accepting with joy what comes from universal nature. There is no greater satisfaction than to feel in harmony with oneself and with the world.

11. The time of human life is but a point, and eternity is infinite on either side. Our existence is a perpetual flux, our perception is obscure, the composition of our body is corruptible, our soul is a whirlwind, fortune is difficult to divine, and renown is uncertain. In a word, everything that belongs to the body is like a flowing river, everything that belongs to the soul is dream and smoke. Life is a battle and a sojourn in a foreign land. Glory after death is mere oblivion.

12. What then can serve as our guide? One thing only: philosophy. It consists in keeping one's inner genius (daimon) inviolate and intact, in rendering it superior to pleasures and pains, in doing nothing at random, in doing nothing with falsehood or hypocrisy, in needing only oneself to act or to refrain from acting, in accepting what happens as coming from the same source as oneself, and above all in awaiting death with a peaceful soul, considering it as a mere dissolution of the elements of which every being is composed. If the elements themselves suffer no harm by transforming themselves into one another, why should you fear the change and dissolution of your own body? That is a law of nature; and nature never does anything harmful.

13. These are the thoughts that Marcus Aurelius, emperor and philosopher, meditated upon for himself, so as not to let himself be led astray by the vanities of power and the illusions of the senses. He exhorted himself to simplicity, kindness, justice, and submission to the divine will. And these thoughts, though nearly two thousand years old, are still amazingly relevant today, for they touch upon the very essence of the human condition.