Plain
Marcus Aurelius — The Emperor

Use your power to form opinions with care and respect. This power is everything. Make sure your opinions don't create thoughts that go against nature or against what it means to be a thinking person. The goal of being rational is simple: don't act rashly, be kind to people, and accept whatever the gods send your way. Put aside everything else and focus on these few things. Remember that no one truly lives longer than this present moment, which is just a brief instant.

Meditations, Book 3, Section 10 Book 3 · 19 of 28
Knowing Yourself What Matters Most Calm Your Mind
Marcus Aurelius — The Emperor Original

Use thine opinative faculty with all honour and respect, for in her indeed is all: that thy opinion do not beget in thy understanding anything contrary to either nature, or the proper constitution of a rational creature. The end and object of a rational constitution is, to do nothing rashly, to be kindly affected towards men, and in all things willingly to submit unto the gods. Casting therefore all other things aside, keep thyself to these few, and remember withal that no man properly can be said to live more than that which is now present, which is but a moment of time.

Meditations, Book 3, Section 10 Book 3 · 19 of 28
Marcus Aurelius — The Emperor

In a mind that is truly disciplined and cleansed, you cannot find anything foul or impure, or anything festering. Nothing that is slavish or fake. No unfair attachments. No spiteful hatred. Nothing harmful. Nothing hidden. Death can never catch such a person unprepared. It would be like an actor who dies before finishing the play — you might say the performance was incomplete, but the actor was ready.

Meditations, Book 3, Section 9 Book 3 · 18 of 28
Knowing Yourself Death & Mortality
Marcus Aurelius — The Emperor Original

In the mind that is once truly disciplined and purged, thou canst not find anything, either foul or impure, or as it were festered: nothing that is either servile, or affected: no partial tie; no malicious averseness; nothing obnoxious; nothing concealed. The life of such an one, death can never surprise as imperfect; as of an actor, that should die before he had ended, or the play itself were at an end, a man might speak.

Meditations, Book 3, Section 9 Book 3 · 18 of 28
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Ancient philosophy, in plain English.

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