By Marcus Aurelius
This book is best enjoyed like a buffet where you only take what you want or need out of it, and leave the rest for someone else. There are a lot of interesting ideas and quotable sentences.
Trying to stop and ponder every sentence will not only take years but also be a disordered mess as the book provides no real coherent structure (not for lack of trying though). I decided early on to mostly cruise through the book and only occasionally stoping to think about a sentence that really stuck out to me as important.
My favourite Marco quotes I got from the book are:
"It being right that even the smallest things be done with reference to an end."
"Do not disturb thyself by thinking of the whole of thy life. Let not thy thoughts at once embrace all the various troubles which thou mayest expect to befall thee: but on every occasion ask thyself, What is there in this which is intolerable and past bearing? For thou wilt be ashamed to confess.
In the next place remember that neither the future nor the past pains thee, but only the present.
But this is reduced to a very little, if thou only circumscribest it, and chidest thy mind, if it is unable to hold out against even this."
Originally posted on Facebook April 23, 2017.