Marcus Aurelius' Meditations provides guidance on living virtuously and maintaining inner peace. [1] It advises focusing inward on one's own thoughts and actions rather than observing others. [2] Everything changes rapidly with time, so one must accept external events calmly without distress. [3] By maintaining justice and understanding in all situations, one can remain steady against troubles like a promontory withstanding waves.

1. Marcus Aurelius
The Meditations

2. Book Two
• Through not observing what is in the
mind of another a man has seldom been
seen to be unhappy; but those who do
not observe the movements of their
own minds must of necessity be
unhappy.

3. Book Four
• Do not be whirled about, but in every
movement have respect to justice, and
on the occasion of every impression
maintain the faculty of comprehension
or understanding.

4. Book Four
• Everything is only for a day, both
that which remembers and that
which is remembered.

5. Book Four
• Examine men's ruling principles, even those
of the wise, what kind of things they avoid,
and what kind they pursue.

6. Book Four
• Be like the promontory against
which the waves continually break,
but it stands firm and tames the
fury of the water around it.

7. Book Five
• How easy it is to repel and to wipe
away every impression which is
troublesome or unsuitable, and
immediately to be in all tranquility.

8. Book Five
• To seek what is impossible is
madness: and it is impossible that
the bad should not do something of
this kind.

9. Book Five
• If this is neither my own badness, nor an
effect of my own badness, and the common
weal is not injured, why am I troubled
about it? And what is the harm to the
common weal?

10. Book Six
• Look within. Let neither the peculiar
quality of anything nor its value
escape you.

11. Book Six
• The best way of avenging yourself
is not to become like the wrong
doer.

12. Book Six
• If a thing is difficult to be accomplished by
thyself, do not think that it is impossible
for man: but if anything is possible for
man and conformable to his nature, think
that this can be attained by thyself too.

13. Book Six
• If any man is able to convince me and show me
that I do not think or act right, I will gladly
change; for I seek the truth by which no man
was ever injured. But he is injured who abides
in his error and ignorance.

14. Book Six
• It is a shame for the soul to be first to
give way in this life, when thy body
does not give way.

15. Book Seven
• Whatever any one does or says, I must be
good, just as if the gold, or the emerald, or
the purple were always saying this,
Whatever any one does or says, I must be
emerald and keep my color.

16. Book Seven
• About fame: Look at the minds of those who seek
fame, observe what they are, and what kind of things
they avoid, and what kind of things they pursue. And
consider that as the heaps of sand piled on one
another hide the former sands, so in life the events
which go before are soon covered by those which come
after.

17. Book Eight
• Attend to the matter which is before
thee, whether it is an opinion or an act
or a word.

18. Book Eight
• Remember that as it is a shame to be surprised
if the fig-tree produces figs, so it is to be
surprised if the world produces such and such
things of which it is productive; and for the
physician and the helmsman it is a shame to be
surprised, if a man has a fever, or if the wind is
unfavorable.

19. Book Eight
• Receive wealth or prosperity without
arrogance; and be ready to let it go.

20. Book Eight
• If you can see sharp, look and judge wisely,
says the philosopher.

21. Book Eight
• It is not fit that I should give myself pain,
for I have never intentionally given pain
even to another.

22. Book Eight
• Men exist for the sake of one another.
Teach them then or bear with them.

23. Book Nine
• He who does wrong does wrong against
himself. He who acts unjustly acts unjustly
to himself, because he makes himself bad.

24. Book Nine
• All things are the same, familiar in
experience, and ephemeral in time, and
worthless in the matter. Everything now is
just as it was in the time of those whom we
have buried.

25. Book Nine
• It is thy duty to leave another man's
wrongful act there where it is.

26. Book Twelve
• Does the light of the lamp shine without
losing its splendor until it is extinguished; and
shall the truth which is in thee and justice
and temperance be extinguished before thy
death?

27. That’s All
Aytekin Aliyeva