i don't agree with the extremities of stoicism, but a great deal of it encourages distress tolerance and the acceptance of death, which are skills i must learn to use effectively if i'm to participate in society ever again, which i inevitably will have to do when my spouse's various worsening conditions eventually fully overcome their ability to work, should both of us live that long

• even if you were to live for three thousand years or ten times as long, you should remember this, that no one loses any life other than the one that he is living, nor does he live any life other than the one that he loses, so the shortest life and the longest amount to the same. for the present is equal for all, and what is passing must be equal also, so what can be lost is shown to be nothing more than a moment; and no one could lose either the past or the future, for how could he be deprived of what he does not possess? so always bear in mind these two points: firstly that all things are alike in nature from all eternity and recur in cycles, and it therefore makes no difference whether one sees the same spectacle for a hundred years or two hundred or for time everlasting; and secondly that the longest-lived and the earliest to die suffer an equal loss; for it it solely of the present moment that each will be deprived, if it is really the case that this is all he has and a person cannot lose what he does not have
• you entered the world as a part, and you will vanish back into that which brought you to birth; or rather, you will be received back into its generative reason through a process of change
• do not act as if you had ten thousand years to live. the inescapable is hanging over your head, while you have life in you, while you still can, make yourself good
• all is ephemeral, both that which remembers and that which is remembered
• constantly observe everything coming into being through change, and accustom yourself to the thought that universal nature loves nothing so much as to change the things that are and to create new things in their likeness. for everything that exists is, in a sense, the seed of what will arise from it
• you are a little soul carrying a corpse around
• change is nothing bad for things, any more than surviving change is good for them
• for look at the abyss of time behind you, and the other infinity which stretches in front of you; in view of that, what difference is there between a baby who lives for three days and a nestor who lives for three generations?
• i am composed of the formal and the material; and neither of these will perish into nothingness, just as neither arose from nothingness. thus every part of me will be appointed by change to a new position as some part of the universe, and that again will be changed to form another part of the universe, and so on to infinity. it was through a similar process of change that i too came to exist, and my parents before me, and so again to infinity in the other direction
• constantly reflect on how swiftly all that exists and is coming to be is swept past us and disappears from sight. for substance is like a river in perpetual flow, and its activities are ever changing, and its causes infinite in their variations, and hardly anything at all stands still; and ever at our side is the immeasurable span of the past and the yawning gulf of the future, into which all things vanish away. then how is he not a fool who in the midst of all this is puffed up with pride, or tormented, or bewails his lot as though his troubles will endure for any great while?
• think of substance in its entirety, of which you have the smallest of shares; and of time in its entirety, of which a brief and momentary span has been assigned to you; and the works of destiny, and how very small is your part in them
• for even the act of dying is one of the acts of our life; and so in that, too, it is enough to make good use of what the moment brings
• look to the inner nature of things; and in each instance, let neither its specific quality nor its worth escape you
• the best way to avenge yourself is not to become as they are
• if anyone can give me good reason to think that i am going astray in my thoughts or my actions, i will gladly change my ways. for i seek the truth, which has never caused harm to anyone; no, the person who is harmed is one who persists in his self-deception and ignorance
• alexander the great and his stable boy were brought to the same level in death; for they were either taken back into the same generative principle of the universe or were scattered one and both into atoms
• consider how many things, in body and soul alike, are coming to pass in each of us in the same brief moment of time; and then you will not be surprised that many more things-- indeed all that comes to be in the one and all that we call the universe-- should exist there at the same time
• death is a rest from the recalcitrance of sense, and from the impulses that pull us around like a puppet, and from the vagaries of discursive thought, and from our service to the flesh
• one who has seen the present world has seen all that has ever been from time everlasting and all that ever will be into eternity; for all things are ever alike in their kind and their form
• when you want to gladden your heart, think of the good qualities of those around you; the energy of one, for instance, the modesty of another, the generosity of a third, and some other quality in another. for there is nothing more heartening that the images of the virtues shining forth in the characters of those around us, and assembled together, so far as possible, in close array. so be sure to keep them ever at hand
• you are not aggrieved, surely, because you weigh only so many pounds and not three hundred? then why be aggrieved that you will live only a certain number of years and no longer? for as you are content with the portion of matter assigned to you, so be contented also with the time
• acquire the habit of attending carefully to what is being said by another, and of entering, so far as possible, into the mind of the speaker
• how many who entered the world with me have already taken their leave!
• do not allow the future to trouble your mind; for you will come to it, if come you must, bringing with you the same reason that you now apply to the affairs of the present
• everything material disappears very swiftly into the universal substance, and swiftly too ever cause is re-absorbed into the universal reason, and very swiftly the memory of everything is buried in eternity
• whatever another may do or say, i for my part must be good
• is one afraid of change? why, what can come about without change? and what is nearer and dearer to universal nature? can you yourself take a hot bath unless the firewood suffers change? can you be nourished unless your food suffers change? can anything else of value be accomplished without change? and do you not see, then, that change in yourself is of a similar nature, ad similarly necessary to universal nature?
• close is the time when you will forget all things; and close, too, the time when all will forget you
• it is a special characteristic of human beings to love even those who stumble. and that sentiment arises as soon as the thought strikes you that these are your relations and do wrong through ignorance and against their will; and that in no time at all both you and the wrongdoer will be dead, and above all, that he has caused you no harm, for he has not caused your ruling centre to become worse than it was before
• from the substance of the whole, as if from wax, universal nature molds first a little horse, and then, melting it down again, uses its material to make a little tree, and then a human being, and then something else again; and each of these has existed for only a very short time. but it is nothing terrible for a casket to be broken up, any more than it was for it to be put together
• it is a king's part to do good and be ill spoken of
• perhaps a man who is worthy of the name should put aside this question of how long he will live, and not cling to life, but turn his attention to this instead, to how he can live the best life possible in the time that is granted to him
• watch the stars in their courses as though you were accompanying them on their way, and reflect perpetually on how the elements are constantly changing from one to another; for the thought of these things purifies us from the defilement of our earthly existence
• cast your eye on the past, such great shifts in the pattern of things, and it is also possible to foresee the future; for its nature will be just the same, and there is no possibility of its deviating from the present rhythm of events. so it is all the same whether you study human life for forty years or ten thousand; for what more can you expect to see?
• perfection of character requires this, that you should live each day as though it were your last, and be neither agitated, nor lethargic, nor act a part
• it is absurd not to try to escape from one's own wickedness, which is possible, but equally absurd to try to escape from that of others, which is impossible
• even if you burst with rage, they will do the same things none the less for that
• the work of universal nature is this, to remove what is here to there, to transform it, and to take it from there and convey it elsewhere. all is change, yet not in such a way that we need fear anything new; all things are familiar, but their allotment is also equitable
• what has died does not fall out of the universe; and if it remains here, it is also transformed here and resolved into its own constituents, which are the elements of the universe and of yourself. and these elements themselves are transformed and utter no complaint
• no longer, through your breathing, merely share in the air that surrounds you, but also henceforth, through your thinking, share in the mind that embraces all things. for the power of the mind is diffused throughout and makes itself available everywhere to one who is able to take it in to no less an extent than the air to the one who is able to breathe it in
• one who is afraid of death fears either an absence of consciousness or its alteration. but if consciousness is no longer present, you will no longer be conscious of any evil; and if you come to have a somewhat altered consciousness, you will merely be a living creature of another kind, and you will not have ceased to live
• do not despair death, but welcome it gladly, for this too is among the things that nature wishes. for as are youth and old age, growth and maturity, the appearance of teeth and whiskers and white hairs, and conception, pregnancy, and childbirth, and all the other natural functions which the seasons of life bring around, so too is our very dissolution. it is the part, then, of one who is trained to reason, not to be casual in his approach to death, and neither to reject it violently nor treat it with disdain, but to await its coming as one of life's natural functions; and as you now await the time when your unborn child will be delivered from the womb of your wife, so await the hour when your soul will break free of its bodily shell
  • but if, in addition, you would like an unphilosophical rule which appeals to the heart, nothing will make you more cheerful in the face of death than to consider the things from which you are about to be parted, and the sort of characters with whom your soul will no longer be entangled
• all things are ever the same, familiar in experience, ephemeral in time, foul in their material; all is just the same now as it was in the days of those whom we have consigned to the dust
• all is in the course of change; and you yourself are constantly changing and, in a sense, passing away; and so too is the entire universe
• all that you see now will very swiftly pass away, and those who have watched it passing will swiftly pass away in their turn, and he who dies in extreme old age will be brought to a level with one who has died before his time
• continually picture to yourself the whole of time and the whole of substance, and reflect that every particular part of them, when measured against substance overall, is but a fig-seed, and when measured against time, but the single turn of a drill
• look carefully at every existing thing and reflect that its dissolution is already under way and it is in the course of change and, as it were, of decay or dispersal, or is dying in whatever way its nature appoints
• as you engage in each particular action, stop and ask yourself this question: is death something terrible because i would be deprived of this?
• consider each thing's origin, and from what materials it is formed, and what it is changing into, and what it will be like after it has changed, and that it will come to no harm as a result
• when you are annoyed beyond measure and losing all patience, remember that human life lasts but a moment, and that in a short while we all shall have been laid to rest
• the green grape, the ripe cluster, the dried raisin; at every point a change, not into non-existence, but into what is yet to be
• practice even at the things that you have lost all hope of achieving
• consider what you should be like in both body and soul when death overtakes you, and the brevity of life, and the abyss of time that yawns behind it and in front of it, and the fragility of everything material
• in no great while you will be no one and nowhere, and nothing that you now behold will be in existence, nor will anyone now alive. for it is the nature of all things to change and alter and perish, so that others may arise in their turn
• how small a fraction of infinite and unfathomable time has been assigned to each one of us. for all too swiftly it is swallowed up in eternity. and how small a part of universal substance, how small a part of universal soul. and how small is this clod of earth that you are creeping over when set against the earth as a whole. bearing all of this in mind, imagine nothing to be of any great moment apart from this, that you should act as your own nature directs, and endure whatever universal nature brings
• my friend, you have been a citizen of this great city [of the universe]. what difference if you live in it for five years or a hundred? for what is laid down in its laws is equitable for all. where is the hardship, then, if it is no tyrant or unjust judge who sends you out of the city, but nature who brought you into it? it is just as if the director of a show, after first engaging an actor, were dismissing him from the stage. "but i haven't played all five acts, only three!" very well; but in life three can make up a full play. for the one who determines when it is complete is he who once arranged for your composition and now arranges for your dissolution, while you for your part are responsible for neither. so make your departure with good grace, as he who is releasing you shows a good grace