Choose your beliefs. Marcus Aurelius 2.3

Life requires us to set our course from birth to death by landmarks we can see. Here Marcus lays out his own approach, the mental landmarks by which he steers the habits and attitudes that make up his character, and ultimately his destiny, as part of a world ruled by divine necessity. You can hear me read the Greek <here>.

Τὰ τῶν θεῶν προνοίας μεστά. τὰ τῆς τύχης οὐκ ἄνευ φύσεως ἢ συγκλώσεως καὶ ἐπιπλοκῆς τῶν προνοίᾳ διοικουμένων. πάντα ἐκεῖθεν ῥεῖ· πρόσεστι δὲ τὸ ἀναγκαῖον καὶ τὸ τῷ ὅλῳ κόσμῳ συμφέρον, οὗ μέρος εἶ. παντὶ δὲ φύσεως μέρει ἀγαθόν, ὃ φέρει ἡ τοῦ ὅλου φύσις καὶ ὃ ἐκείνης ἐστὶ σωστικόν. σῴζουσι δὲ κόσμον, ὥσπερ αἱ τῶν στοιχείων, οὕτως καὶ αἱ τῶν συγκριμάτων μεταβολαί. ταῦτά σοι ἀρκείτω καὶ δόγματα ἔστω. τὴν δὲ τῶν βιβλίων δίψαν ῥῖψον, ἵνα μὴ γογγύζων ἀποθάνῃς, ἀλλὰ ἵλεως ἀληθῶς καὶ ἀπὸ καρδίας εὐχάριστος τοῖς θεοῖς.

The gods' work is fraught with foreknowledge, and the work of fortune does not occur without nature, which spins and plaits together the threads foreknowledge provides (†). All things flow from here. Necessity and destiny belong to the entire world, of which you are a part. Goodness belongs to every part of nature that the nature of the whole provides, as long as it sustains that nature. Thus the change and interchange of elements and their compounds preserve the world. Let these observations satisfy your curiosity and become your beliefs. Cast away your thirst for books, lest death find you muttering (‡). Be truly gracious instead, giving thanks to the gods from the depths of your heart.

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(†) The mention of spinning and weaving here recalls the image of the three Fates—Μοῖραι in Greek, Parcae in Latin—who spin, weave, and cut the threads of destiny to make the tapestry that is the world. Plato describes them turning the spindle of their mother Necessity to render the world, singing as they work of the past, the present, and the future (Republic 10.616b-620e); and the Roman poet Catullus makes them a refrain in his little epic depicting the wedding of Peleus and Thetis (poem 64).

(‡) A recurring theme in Marcus' meditations is the need to limit book-learning (see the previous section, where he says, "Throw out the books!"). If you spend too much time in books, he suggests, you don't have any left to spend on action, which is where the real benefits of philosophy occur. Having a right idea is useless if you cannot embody it, if the process by which you acquire it commits you to a life of constant verbal argument with no practical resolution. Better to lose the argument and do what you can, as best you can, thanking the gods for your moment of opportunity.