The Good Book (5 page)

  8. If you are averse to sickness, or death, or poverty, you will be wretched: for death must come, and sickness and poverty may come too.

  9. Remove aversion, then, from all things that are not in our control, and transfer it to things contrary to the nature of what is in our control.

10. Have regard to desire: for, if you desire any of the things which are not under your control, you must necessarily be disappointed;

11. And of those which are, and which it would be laudable to desire, do not desire them only, but pursue them.

12. Use only the appropriate actions of pursuit and avoidance; and even these lightly, and with gentleness and reservation.

13. The question to be asked at the end of each day is, ‘How long will you delay to be wise?’

Chapter 9

  1. With regard to the things that give you delight, are useful, or which you deeply love,

  2. Remember to tell yourself of what general nature they are, beginning from the most insignificant things.

  3. If, for example, you are fond of a specific cup, remind yourself that it is only a cup. Then, if it breaks, you will not be disturbed.

  4. If you kiss your child, or your wife, say that you kiss what is human, and prepare to bear the grief that is the cost of loving, should you lose them.

  5. When you are going about any action, remind yourself what nature the action is:

  6. People are disturbed, not by things, but by the principles and notions which they form concerning things.

  7. Death, for instance, is not terrible, otherwise it would have appeared so to Socrates. Rather, the terror consists in our belief that death is terrible.

  8. When therefore we are hindered, or disturbed, or grieved, let us never attribute the cause to others, but to ourselves; that is, to our own principles.

  9. An uninstructed person will lay the fault of his own bad condition upon others.

10. Someone just starting instruction will lay the fault on himself.

11. Someone who is perfectly instructed will place blame neither on others nor on himself if it is something from outside his control,

12. But he will say: this is in the nature of things.

13. The question to be asked at the end of each day is, ‘How long will you delay to be wise?’

Chapter 10

  1. Do not be proud of any excellence that is not your own. If a horse should be proud and say, ‘I am handsome’, it would be supportable.

  2. But when you are proud and say, ‘I have a handsome horse’, know that you are proud of something that belongs not to you but to the horse.

  3. What, then, is your own? Only your reaction to the appearances of things.

  4. Thus, when you react to how things appear in true accordance with their nature, you will be proud with reason; for you will take pride in some good of your own.

  5. Consider when, on a voyage, your ship is anchored; if you go on shore to get water you may amuse yourself along the way with picking up a shellfish.

  6. However, your attention must also be towards the ship, waiting for the captain to call you on board;

  7. For when he does so, you must immediately leave all these things, otherwise you will miss the ship as it sails.

  8. So it is with life. Whatever you find while, so to say, wandering on the beach, is fine.

  9. But if necessity calls, you must run to the ship, leaving these things, and regarding none of them.

10. For there is a proper time for all things, including a proper time to grieve, and to prepare to die.

11. The question to be asked at the end of each day is, ‘How long will you delay to be wise?’

Chapter 11

  1. Do not demand that things should happen as you wish, but wish that they happen as they do happen, and you will go on well.

  2. Sickness is a hindrance to the body, but not to your ability to choose, unless that is your choice. Lameness is a hindrance to the leg, but not to your ability to choose.

  3. Say this to yourself with regard to everything that happens, then you will see such obstacles as hindrances to something else, but not to yourself.

  4. With every accident, ask yourself what abilities you have for making a proper use of it.

  5. If you see an attractive person, you will find that self-restraint is the ability you have against your desire.

  6. If you are in pain, you will find fortitude. If you hear unpleasant language, you will find patience. And thus habituated, the appearances of things will not hurry you away along with them.

  7. Never say of anything, ‘I have lost it’; but, ‘I have returned it’. For things come, even when we labour for them, as if it were a gift; and in the end all things are returned.

  8. Be content to be thought unconventional with regard to external things.

  9. Do not wish to be thought to know anything; and even if you appear to be somebody important to others, distrust yourself.

10. If you do not wish your desires to be frustrated, this is in your own control. Exercise, therefore, what is in your control.

11. He is the master of every other person who is able to confer or remove whatever that person wishes either to have or to avoid.

12. Whoever, then, would be free, let him not wish too earnestly for anything that depends on others.

13. Behave in life as at a dinner party. Is anything brought around to you? Put out your hand and take your share with moderation.

14. Does it pass by you? Do not stop it.

15. Is it not yet come? Do not stretch your desire towards it, but wait till it reaches you.

16. Do this with regard to children, to a spouse, to public posts, to riches, and you will eventually be a worthy guest at the feast of life.

17. And if you do not even take all the things that are set before you, but are able willingly to reject them, then you will not only be a partner at the feasts of life, but one of its princes.

18. The question to be asked at the end of each day is, ‘How long will you delay to be wise?’

Chapter 12

  1. When you see anyone weeping in grief because his loved one has gone abroad, or is dead, or because he has suffered in his affairs, be careful that the appearance may not misdirect you.

  2. Instead, distinguish within your own mind, and be prepared to say, ‘It’s not the accident that distresses this person, because it does not distress another person; it is the judgement he makes about it.’

  3. It is our attitudes to things that give them their value, whether good or bad, or indifferent. Strengthen your mind to right attitudes, and you will live with fortitude and just measure.

  4. You are an actor in a drama, of which the author is jointly you and matters beyond your control.

  5. Thus say to yourself, ‘Whatever happens, it is in my control to derive advantage from it, even if only to learn how to bear misfortune.’

  6. You will be unconquerable, if you enter only into combat you can win.

  7. When, therefore, you see anyone eminent in honours, or power, or in high esteem on any other account, take heed not to be hurried away with the appearance, and to pronounce him happy;

  8. For, if the essence of good consists in our own choices, there will be no room for envy or emulation.

  9. But, for your part, do not wish to be a general, or a senator, or a consul, but rather: wish to be free;

10. And the only way to be completely free is the right attitude to things not in your own control.

11. Remember that insult does not come from the one who gives ill language or a blow, but from the principle which represents these things as insulting.

12. When, therefore, anyone provokes you, be assured that it is your own opinion which provokes you.

13. Try, therefore, in the first place, not to be hurried away with the appearance. For if you once gain time and respite, you will more easily command yourself.

14. The question to be asked at the end of each day is, ‘How long will you delay to be wise?’

Chapter 13

  1. Let death, illness, failure and loss, and any other thing which appears terrible, be frankly gazed upon, to be seen for what it is;

  2. And chiefly death, which is no more than dreamless sleep, and rest from strife;

  3. And you will cease to entertain abject thoughts; nor will you too eagerly covet anything, since all must be left behind one day.

  4. If you have an earnest desire of attaining wisdom, prepare yourself from the first to be laughed at by the multitude,

  5. To hear them say, ‘He does not covet what we covet, or seek what we hasten after and pursue, but he stands apart.’

  6. Do not mind such rejection, but keep steadily to those things which appear best to you.

  7. For if you adhere to your prin­ciples, those very persons who at first ridiculed will afterwards admire you.

  8. But if you are conquered by them, you will incur a double ridicule.

  9. If you turn your attention to externals, so as to wish to please anyone, be assured that you will hinder your scheme of life.

10. Be contented, then, in everything devoted to living wisely, and it will suffice you.

11. The question to be asked at the end of each day is, ‘How long will you delay to be wise?’

Chapter 14

  1. Do not allow such a consideration as this to distress you: ‘I will be nobody anywhere.’ Is it the meaning of life to get power, or to be admitted to the first rank?

  2. And how is it true that you will be nobody anywhere, when you will be somebody in those things which lie under your own control, where you yourself matter most?

  3. ‘But my friends will be unassisted.’ What do you mean by unassisted? Who told you that these are among the things in your own control, and not the affair of others? Who can give to another things that he himself does not have?

  4. ‘Well, but if I get them, then my friends too may have a share.’ If I can get them with the preservation of my own honour and fidelity of mind, show me the way and I will get them, and willingly share them;

  5. But if you require me to lose the proper good so that another may gain what is not good, let me decline.

  6.   Besides, which would you rather have, a sum of money, or a faithful friend? Rather assist me, then, to gain this character than require me to do those things by which I may lose it.

  7. ‘Well, but my country, as far as it depends on me, will be unassisted.’ Here again, what assistance do you mean?

  8. If I may serve my country with honour and fidelity of mind, let me serve it to the uttermost;

  9. And most by supplying it with another citizen of honour and fidelity, which is of greater use to it.

10. ‘What place, then, say you, will I hold in the state?’ Whatever you can hold with the preservation of your fidelity and honour.

11. But if, by desiring to be useful to that, you lose these, of what use can you be to your country should you become faithless and void of shame?

12. The question to be asked at the end of each day is, ‘How long will you delay to be wise?’

Chapter 15

  1. Is anyone raised above you at a meeting, or given a greater compliment, or admitted to the counsels of the rulers where you are not invited?

  2. If such things are good, you ought to be glad that the other has them; and if they are evil, do not be grieved that you do not have them.

  3. Remember that you cannot, without using the same means as others do, acquire things not in your own control, or expect to be thought worthy of an equal share of them.

  4. For how can he who does not frequent the door of some influential person, and serve him with flattery, have an equal share with him who does?

  5. You are unjust, then, and insatiable, if you are unwilling to pay the price for which these things are sold, and wish to get them for nothing.

  6. For how much is lettuce sold? Fifty pence, for instance. If another pays fifty pence and takes the lettuce, and you, not paying it, go without a lettuce, do not imagine that he has gained any advantage over you.

  7. For as he has the lettuce, so you have the fifty pence which you did not spend. Likewise in the present case, you have not been invited to such a person’s entertainment, because you have not paid him the price for which a supper is sold.

  8. It is sold for praise; it is sold for attendance. Give him then the value, if it is for your advantage.

  9. But if you would, at the same time, not pay the one and yet receive the other, you are insatiable, and a blockhead.

10. Have you nothing, then, instead of the supper? Yes, indeed, you have: your honour, and self-sufficiency.

11. The right attitude may be learned from small things. For example, when our neighbour’s boy breaks a cup, or the like, we say, ‘These things will happen.’