Plain
Marcus Aurelius — The Emperor

Don't spend your remaining days thinking about other people unless it serves some common good. When you focus on others, it pulls you away from better work. Stop thinking about what this person is doing and why. Stop wondering what they say, think, or plan. These curiosities make you drift away from watching over the rational, ruling part of yourself.

Meditations, Book 3, Section 4 Book 3 · 7 of 28
What Matters Most Knowing Yourself
Marcus Aurelius — The Emperor Original

Spend not the remnant of thy days in thoughts and fancies concerning other men, when it is not in relation to some common good, when by it thou art hindered from some other better work. That is, spend not thy time in thinking, what such a man doth, and to what end: what he saith, and what he thinks, and what he is about, and such other things or curiosities, which make a man to rove and wander from the care and observation of that part of himself, which is rational, and overruling.

Meditations, Book 3, Section 4 Book 3 · 7 of 28
Marcus Aurelius — The Emperor

So what's the situation? You have boarded the ship, you have sailed, you have reached land — now get off. If there's another life waiting, you'll find gods there too. They are everywhere. If all life and feeling just stops, then you'll also stop feeling pain or pleasure. You won't have to serve this worthless body anymore. And it really is worthless when you think about it — your soul is rational and spiritual, but your body is just dirt and blood.

Meditations, Book 3, Section 3 Book 3 · 6 of 28
Death & Mortality Knowing Yourself
Marcus Aurelius — The Emperor Original

How then stands the case? Thou hast taken ship, thou hast sailed, thou art come to land, go out, if to another life, there also shalt thou find gods, who are everywhere. If all life and sense shall cease, then shalt thou cease also to be subject to either pains or pleasures; and to serve and tend this vile cottage; so much the viler, by how much that which ministers unto it doth excel; the one being a rational substance, and a spirit, the other nothing but earth and blood.

Meditations, Book 3, Section 3 Book 3 · 6 of 28
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Ancient philosophy, in plain English.

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