Meditations

Look within; within is the fountain of all good.

If it be not fitting, do it not. If it be not true, speak it not.

The best kind of revenge is, not to become like unto them.

life is short; we must endeavour to gain the present time with best discretion and justice.

That which is not good for the bee-hive, cannot be good for the bee.

Remember, that to change thy mind upon occasion, and to follow him that is able to rectify thee, is equally ingenuous, as to find out at the first, what is right and just, without help.

Think thyself fit and worthy to speak, or to do anything that is according to nature,

Remember that all is but opinion and conceit,

Spend not the remnant of thy days in thoughts and fancies concerning other men, when it is not in relation to some common good,

A man cannot any whither retire better than to his own soul;

In the morning when thou findest thyself unwilling to rise, consider with thyself presently, it is to go about a man's work that I am stirred up.

Herein doth consist happiness of life, for a man to know thoroughly the true nature of everything; what is the matter, and what is the form of it: with all his heart and soul, ever to do that which is just, and to speak the truth.

The next, that all these things, which now thou seest, shall within a very little while be changed, and be no more: and ever call to mind, how many changes and alterations in the world thou thyself hast already been an eyewitness of in thy time.

The time of a man's life is as a point; the substance of it ever flowing, the sense obscure; and the whole composition of the body tending to corruption.

The age and time of the world is as it were a flood and swift current, consisting of the things that are brought to pass in the world.

Let thy reasonable faculty, work upon his reasonable faculty; show him his fault, admonish him.

Let this be thy only joy, and thy only comfort, from one sociable kind action without intermission to pass unto another, God being ever in thy mind.

To a reasonable creature, the same action is both according to nature, and according to reason.

The true joy of a man, is to do that which properly belongs unto a man.

Let not thy mind wander up and down, and heap together in her thoughts the many troubles and grievous calamities which thou art as subject unto as any other.

This also thou shalt find of very good use, upon every such occasion, presently to consider with thyself, what proper virtue nature hath furnished man with, against such a vice, or to encounter with a disposition vicious in this kind.

Let it not be in any man's power, to say truly of thee, that thou art not truly simple, or sincere and open, or not good.

To live happily is an inward power of the soul, when she is affected with indifferency, towards those things that are by their nature indifferent.

As for that which is truly good, what can it stand in need of more than either justice or truth; or more than either kindness and modesty?