The gods did all they could———through their gifts, their help,

their inspiration———to ensure that I could live as nature demands.?

And if I’ve failed, ★it’s no one’s fault but mine. Because I didn’t?

pay attention to what they told me———to what they taught me,?

practically, step by step.

That when I became interested in philosophy I didn’t fall into the hands

of charlatans江湖騙子, and didn’t get bogged陷入 down in writing?

treatises文章, or become absorbed by logic-chopping詭辯, or?

preoccupied專注于 with physics.

---Book 2 ON THE RIVER GRAN, AMONG THE QUADI---

1. When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: The people I deal

with today will be meddling干預的, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous,?

and surly陰沉的.?

-

They are like this because they can’t tell good from evil. But I have

seen the beauty of good, and the ugliness of evil, and have recognized that

the wrongdoer作惡者 has a nature related to my own———not of the same blood or

birth, but the same mind, and possessing a share of the divine.?

-

And so none of them can hurt me. No one can implicate me in ugliness. Nor can?

I feel angry at my relative, or hate him. We were born to work together like?

feet,hands, and eyes, like the two rows of teeth, upper and lower. To?

obstruct阻礙 each other is unnatural. To feel anger at someone, to turn your?

back on him: these are obstructions.

★★★

3. What is divine is full of Providence★天意/天道. Even chance is not divorced

from nature, from the inweaving and enfolding包裹 of things governed by

Providence. Everything proceeds from it. And then there is necessity and

the needs of the whole world, of which you are a part.?

-

Whatever the nature of the whole does, and?

whatever serves to maintain it, is good for every part of nature. The?

world is maintained by change—in the elements and in the things they?

compose構成. That should be enough for you; treat it as an axiom公理.

-

？？？

Discard丟棄 your thirst for books, so that you won’t die in?

bitterness, but in cheerfulness and truth, grateful?

to the gods from the bottom of your heart.

5. Concentrate every minute like a Roman———like a man———on doing

what’s in front of you with precise and genuine seriousness, tenderly溫和地,

willingly, with justice.?

-

And on freeing yourself from all other distractions.

Yes, you can———if you do everything as if it were the last thing you were

doing in your life, and stop being aimless, stop letting your emotions

override what your mind tells you, stop being hypocritical偽善的,?

self-centered,irritable急躁的.?

-

You see how few things you have to do to?

live a satisfying and reverent life? If you can manage this, that’s all?

even the gods can ask of you.