Give it the whole of your attention, whether it be a material object, an action, a principle, or the meaning of what is being said.

This disappointment serves you right. You would rather hope for goodness tomorrow than practise it today.

Marcus Aurelius (AD 120 – 180), Meditations (8.22)

The first rule is, to keep an untroubled spirit; for all things must bow to Nature’s law, and soon enough you must vanish into nothingness, like Hadrian and Augustus.

The second is to look things in the face and know them for what they are, remembering that it is your duty to be a good man. Do without flinching what man’s nature demands; say what seems to you most just – though with courtesy, modesty and sincerity.

Marcus Aurelius (AD 120 – 180), Meditations (8.5)

Image: Andrew Munro: young Marcus Aurelius, bust from Temple of Flora, Stourhead Gardens, Wiltshire

Perfection of character: to live your last day, every day, without frenzy, or sloth, or pretence.

Marcus Aurelius (AD 120 – 180), Meditations (7.59)

Note, unusually, I’ve taken the above from the Gregory Hays translation. My more usual Maxwell Staniforth translation has…

To live each day as though one’s last, never flustered, never apathetic, never attitudinising – here is the perfection of character.