Marcus Aurelius · Meditations
Meditations, Book XI
9 passages of this book in Stoïque, each with its reference.
Book XI begins with the properties of the rational soul, which sees itself, analyzes itself and makes itself such as it chooses (XI, 1), and with the original purpose of tragedy, then of the old comedy (XI, 6). Chapter 18 is the set piece of the book: nine considerations to hold ready when someone has offended, from ‘we are made for one another’ to the ninth, that a good disposition is invincible if it be genuine, followed by a tenth present ‘from the leader of the Muses Apollo’, that to expect bad men not to do wrong is madness (Meditations, XI, 18).
The branch cut off from the adjacent branch is cut off from the whole tree (XI, 8); the man who has not one and always the same object in life cannot be one and the same all through his life (XI, 21). From chapter 22 the book turns into a commonplace book: the country mouse and the town mouse, Socrates and the Lamiae, the Lacedaemonians’ seats in the shade for strangers, Socrates dressed in a skin after Xanthippe had taken his cloak, a line of the Odyssey, one of Hesiod, and sayings of Epictetus on kissing one’s child, on the unripe grape and on free will (XI, 22–39).
Passages of this book in the app
Have I done something for the common good? Then I have had my reward. Keep this always before your mind, and never stop.
— MARCUS AURELIUS · MEDITATIONS, XI, 4
after Long, 1862
Suppose someone despises me. That is his affair. Mine is this: never to be found doing or saying anything that deserves contempt. Suppose someone hates me. That is his affair. Mine is to be mild and kind toward everyone.
— MARCUS AURELIUS · MEDITATIONS, XI, 13
after Long, 1862
Consider how much more pain comes to us from the anger and vexation such acts cause than from the acts themselves.
— MARCUS AURELIUS · MEDITATIONS, XI, 18
after Long, 1862
As those who try to stand in thy way when thou art proceeding according to right reason will not be able to turn thee aside from thy proper action, so neither let them drive thee from thy benevolent feelings toward them.
— MARCUS AURELIUS · MEDITATIONS, XI, 9
after Long, 1862
As to living in the best way, this power is in the soul, if it be indifferent to things which are indifferent.
— MARCUS AURELIUS · MEDITATIONS, XI, 16
after Long, 1862
The movement towards injustice and intemperance and to anger and grief and fear is nothing else than the act of one who deviates from nature.
— MARCUS AURELIUS · MEDITATIONS, XI, 20
after Long, 1862
He who has not one and always the same object in life, cannot be one and the same all through his life.
— MARCUS AURELIUS · MEDITATIONS, XI, 21
after Long, 1862
The book in numbers
- Chapters in Long’s 1862 edition
- 39
- Passages of this book in the app
- 9
- Passages of Marcus Aurelius in the app
- 166
- Editions cited on this page
- George Long, 1862
Chapters of this book in the app
Each reference names the book and the chapter, the same way the app prints it under the passage.
The 9 passages of Book XI and the 157 other passages by Marcus Aurelius are free in Stoïque, each with its reference, on the Home Screen and the Lock Screen.