God forbade...must reading!

Aurelius



   Every moment think steadily as a Roman and do the job at hand with a simple dignity, with a feeling of affection, freedom and justice; and relieve yourself of all other thoughts. You’ll do so if you do every act of your life as if it were the last, giving up all carelessness and passionate aversions, all hypocracy, self-love and discontent with your lot in life; all dismissed from your command of reason. You can tell how few things are, if a man understands these things, he’s able to live a life that flows in quiet, like the gods who require nothing more of him who observes these things.



   Nothing is as wretched as a man who ‘once over’ everything and pries into subtleties and reads his neighbor’s minds not knowing to mind his own business and mean it. This means keeping your mind pure from passion and thoughtlessness satisfied with what men and the gods have given you. The things from the gods warrant deep respect for their excellence. The things from men should be dear to us by reason of kinship and, in a way, pitifully move us by reason their ignorance keeps them from knowing right from wrong, this defect no less the difference between black and white.



  Don’t waste the rest of your life thinking about others when you don’t refer your own thoughts to some common purpose. In so doing you’ve lost your chance to do something else. What is so-and-so doing, why, what’s he saying, thinking and contriving and whatever else we think of that keeps our mind away from its own ruling power.



  Don’t be disgusted, dissatisfied or discouraged if you don’t succeed doing everything by right principles. When you have failed, return and be content knowing the greater part of what you do is consistent with man’s nature. Love what you come back to; don’t come back to philosophy like a master, but like those with sore eyes applying a splash of water.