Marcus Aurelius · Meditations
Meditations, Book III
10 passages of this book in Stoïque, each with its reference.
Book III begins with the reckoning of time: life is daily wasting away, and even a man who lives longer cannot be sure that his understanding will hold (Meditations, III, 1). Chapter 2 is a rarity in the work, a passage on the things that follow from what nature produces and please the eye all the same: the parts of the loaf split at the surface when bread is baked, figs that gape open when quite ripe, the ears of corn bending down, the lion’s eyebrows. Chapter 3 lists the dead, Hippocrates, the Chaldaei, Alexander, Pompeius, Caius Caesar, Heraclitus, Democritus, Socrates, and draws the conclusion for the writer himself (Meditations, III, 3).
The middle chapters are instructions in the second person: not to waste the remainder of life in thoughts about others (Meditations, III, 4); to labor ‘not unwillingly, nor without regard to the common interest’ (III, 5); to value nothing that compels a man to break his promise (III, 7); to make for oneself ‘a definition or description of the thing which is presented’ (III, 11). The book ends with the division of body, soul, intelligence, and the portrait of the man who comes to the end of life ‘without any compulsion perfectly reconciled to his lot’ (III, 16).
Passages of this book in the app
We must hurry, then, not only because we are each day nearer to death, but because the understanding of things ceases first.
— MARCUS AURELIUS · MEDITATIONS, III, 1
after Long, 1862
You have embarked, you have made the voyage, you have come to shore: get out.
— MARCUS AURELIUS · MEDITATIONS, III, 3
after Long, 1862
Do not waste what is left of your life in thoughts about other people, unless you refer those thoughts to some common good.
— MARCUS AURELIUS · MEDITATIONS, III, 4
after Long, 1862
A man must stand upright, not be held upright by others.
— MARCUS AURELIUS · MEDITATIONS, III, 5
after Long, 1862
Never value anything as profitable to you that will force you to break your word, to lose your self-respect, to hate anyone, to suspect, to curse, to play the hypocrite, or to want what needs walls and curtains.
— MARCUS AURELIUS · MEDITATIONS, III, 7
after Long, 1862
Throw everything else away, then, and hold to these few things; and remember besides that each man lives only this present time, an indivisible point, and that the rest of his life is either past or uncertain.
— MARCUS AURELIUS · MEDITATIONS, III, 10
after Long, 1862
If you work at what is before you, following right reason seriously, vigorously, calmly, letting nothing else distract you, but keeping your divine part pure, as if you must give it back at once; if you hold to it, expecting nothing, fearing nothing, content with your present activity according to nature, and with heroic truth in every word you speak, you will live happy. No one can prevent this.
— MARCUS AURELIUS · MEDITATIONS, III, 12
after Long, 1862
Simply and freely choose the better, and hold to it.
— MARCUS AURELIUS · MEDITATIONS, III, 6
after Long, 1862
The book in numbers
- Chapters in Long’s 1862 edition
- 16
- Passages of this book in the app
- 10
- 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 10 passages of Book III and the 156 other passages by Marcus Aurelius are free in Stoïque, each with its reference, on the Home Screen and the Lock Screen.