How we cite our quotes: (Book.Chapter)
Quote #1
'All is as thinking makes it so.' The retort made to Monimus the Cynic is clear enough: but clear too is the value of his saying, if one takes the kernel of it, as far as it is true. (2.15)
This is a foundational concept for Marcus. It helps him to define his understanding of the more problematic things in life: pain, wrongdoing, and hindrances. He sees that these problems exist in the world, but that each man can take away the sting by getting his mind in the right place. Instead of passing judgments on the things that happen—thereby assigning them negative values—he can remain disinterested and analytical, seeing the wrong for what it really is. This allows him to turn each hindrance to good use, since his reason is not muddled with emotion.
Quote #2
Everything in any way beautiful has its beauty of itself, inherent and self-sufficient: praise is no part of it. At any rate, praise does not make anything better or worse...Does an emerald lose its quality if not praised? And what of gold, ivory, purple, a lyre, a dagger, a flower, a bush? (4.20)
Marcus remarks on the supreme indifference of the empirical world. You can't make a beautiful gem anything but what it is by talking smack about it. The same is true of people. This is a part of reality that isn't negotiable: virtues are what they are—no further judgments necessary.
Quote #3
Harm to you cannot subsist in another's directing mind, nor indeed in any turn or change of circumstance. Where, then? In that part of you which judges harm. So no such judgement, and all is well. (4.39)
This is part of Marcus's "thinking makes it so" campaign. Wrongdoing is entirely subjective: it can only work on a person if that person feels wronged. Think of it this way: if the ax of the wrongdoer cuts down a tree in the forest and nobody is there to hear it fall, nothing bad has ever happened to that tree. Right? But seriously, Marcus reminds himself time and again that it is up to him to retreat into the "fortress" of his mind rather than respond emotionally to unpleasant things that may be happening.
Quote #4
Realities are wrapped in such a veil (as it were) that several philosophers of distinction have thought them altogether beyond comprehension, while even the Stoics think them hard to comprehend. And every assent we may give to our perceptions is fallible: the infallible man does not exist. (5.10)
Marcus is totally echoing Plato's concept of ideal forms. Plato talks about the difficulty of knowing what is real. Is what we are perceiving at any given time real? Or is what we are perceiving just a shadow or echo of the real, which is reserved only for the sight of the gods? One thing is for sure: our interpretation of what we see and experience is certainly imperfect enough to have us second-guessing ourselves at every turn. Marcus understands this and easily concedes that there is no man alive who can escape his faulty interpretations of the world around him.
Quote #5
Whenever you imagine you have been harmed, apply this criterion: if the city is not harmed by this, then I have not been harmed either. (5.22)
Marcus often talks about "the city"—which is the world—and its citizens when he thinks about the purpose of the universe. His theory of personal harm is governed by his understanding of the structure and purpose of the universe. While bad things may be allowed to happen to individual people, everything that happens is for the good of the Whole. And if it's good for the Whole—whether it's the universe or the city—it has to be good for the individual in the long run. We don't run into major problems unless the Whole or the city is damaged, since those are the structures that sustain all life.
Quote #6
How good it is, when you have roast meat or suchlike foods before you, to impress on your mind that this is the dead body of a fish, this the dead body of a bird or pig; and again, that the Falernian wine is the mere juice of grapes, and your purple-edged robe simply the hair of sheep soaked in shellfish blood! (6.13)
Although he's emperor, Marcus likes to keep himself humble. The best way to do that is to regard the luxuries around him with an X-ray eye: what are these luxuries really, without the fancy names? Once he takes each thing down to its component parts, Marcus realizes that they are kind of gross—and certainly not eternal. This is a true reality check, helping Marcus to realize that these trappings are not valuable or important.
Quote #7
Appearances: to the jaundiced honey seems bitter, to those bitten by rabid dogs water is a terror, to little boys a ball is a joy. Why then am I angry? Or do you think that false representation has less effect than bile in the jaundiced or poison in the hydrophobic? (6.57)
Marcus realizes that the state of the mind can affect the way it experiences reality, which reinforces the concept that reality itself is subjective or negotiable. He's also working on his anger response here, presumably because he has been lied to or duped by someone or something false. He addresses his own response—because that's what he can actually control—to get himself right again, calling "false representation" a poison no less potent than a biological agent.
Quote #8
Let any external thing that so wishes happen to those parts of me which can be affected by its happening—and they, if they wish, can complain. I myself am not yet harmed, unless I judge this occurrence something bad: and I can refuse to do so. (7.14)
Marcus is speaking here of partitioning his mind off from externals so that it isn't harmed by the things happening to the body. This dude's not very loyal to his poor body, which he considers inferior, like a millstone around his figurative neck. Here, he basically says that the body will have to fend for itself. If it's irritated or in pain, it can protest all it wants—if it can. (Which it can't, without the mind to help it.)
Quote #9
Remember, though, that you are by nature born to bear all that your own judgement can decide bearable, or tolerate in action, if you represent it to yourself as benefit or duty. (10.3)
Marcus tells himself that people are never given more than they can bear (you've heard that one before, right?). He means it in the most literal of senses: if he's given more than he can handle, he'll simply drop dead. That's comfort, Stoic style. But there's another side to that truism: you can bear anything you decide to bear. Marcus talks about refraining from judgment—from deciding whether or not you've been injured or wronged—so that the mind can think clearly and not have an emotional response. If the rational mind gets a chance to take over, it will be able to turn the wrong into something usable, thereby changing its evaluation of what has happened.
Quote #10
... if you were suddenly lifted up to a great height and could look down on human activity and see all its variety, you would despise it, because your view would take in also the great surrounding host of spirits who populate the air and sky; and that, however many times you were lifted up, you would see the same things—monotony and transience. (12.24)
Marcus does this exercise to challenge his perception of reality by literally lifting himself up out of the craziness of daily life. The emperor is neither the first nor the last person to suggest doing this. To be lifted out of normal mortal existence means not just gaining perspective on the littleness and chaos of human existence; it also allows a view of the ethereal, a higher level on the ladder of existence.