"Doctors keep their scalpels and other instruments..." - Quote by Marcus Aurelius
Doctors keep their scalpels and other instruments handy, for emergencies. Keep your philosophy ready too - ready to understand heaven and earth. In everything you do, even the smallest thing, remember the chain that links them. Nothing earthly succeeds by ignoring heaven, nothing heavenly by ignoring earth.
More by Marcus Aurelius
“Thou sufferest justly: for thou choosest rather to become good to-morrow than to be good to-day.”
“You need to be prepared for firm decisions and action, without losing gentleness towards those who obstruct or abuse you. It's as great a weakness to be angry with them as it is to abandon your plan of action and give up through fear.”
“This is enough. Do not add, And why were such things made in the world?”
More on Philosophy
“A sense is what has the power of receiving into itself the sensible forms of things without the matter, in the way in which a piece of wax takes on the impress of a signet-ring without the iron or gold.”
“If love or non-violence be not the law of our being, the whole of my argument falls to pieces.”
“I hope martial artists are more interested in the root of martial arts and not the different decorative branches, flowers or leaves. It is futile to argue as to which leaf, which design of branches, or which attractive flower you like; when you understand the root, you understand all its blossoming.”
More on Understanding
“The difficulty is to try and teach the multitude that something can be true and untrue at the same time.”
“Listening is an important key to HEARING.”
“When the most important things in our life happen we quite often do not know, at the moment, what is going on. A man does not always say to himself, "hullo! i'm growing up." It is only when he looks back that he realises what has happened and recognises it as what people call "growing up.”