I believe that Meditations by MA should be required reading for anyone that wants to immerse themselves in the RedPill doctrine. Like I did with The Rational Male, I have created a summary of the pearls that I found most useful and related to TRP philosophy. I urge you to save this post and refer back as needed.

I personally aspire to bridge the dichotomy between Epicurean pleasure and stoic virtue while maintaining balance between chaos and order.

The traits that I believe every man should strive towards: Stoicism, indifference, equanimity, conscientiousness, rationality, assiduousness, and industriousness.

Welcome to the desert of the real gentlemen.

“Never allow yourself to be swept off your feet: when an impulse stirs, see first that it will meet the claims of justice; when an impression forms, assure yourself first of its certainty”

“Live not as though there were a thousand years ahead of you. Fate is at your elbow; make yourself good while life and power are still yours.”

“Anything in any way beautiful derives it’s beauty from itself, and asks nothing beyond itself. Praise is no part of it, for nothing is made worse or better by praise.”

“A good man does not spy around for the black spots in others, but pressed unswervingly on towards his mark”

“Many grains of incense fall on the same altar: one sooner, another later — it makes no difference.”

“Do not waste what remains of your life in speculating about your neighbors — all this means is a loss of opportunity for some other task.”

“The sole life which a man can lose is that which he is living at the moment; and furthermore, that he can have no other life except the one he loses. The passing minute is every mans equal possession, but what has once gone by is not ours. Our loss therefore is that one fleeting instant, since no one can lose what is already past, nor yet what still to come - for how can he deprived of what he does not possess?”

“Are you distracted by outward cares? Then allow yourself a space of quiet, wherein you can add to your knowledge of the good and learn to curb your restlessness.”

“Do a few things and do them well. Most of what we say and do is not necessary, and it’s omission would save both time and trouble.”

“Has something befallen you? Good; then it was your portion of the universal lot, assigned to you when time began.”

“ Give your heart to the trade you have learnt, and draw refreshment from it.”

“Time is a river, the resistless flow of all created things. One thing no sooner comes in sight than it is hurried past and another is borne along, only to be swept away in its turn.”

“What follows is ever closely linked to what precedes.”

“Be like the Headland against which the waves break and break, it stands firm, until present leave the watery tumult around it subsides once more to rest. ‘How lucky I am, that this should have happened to me!’ By no means; say rather, how lucky I am, that it has left me with no bitterness; unshaken by the present, and undismayed by the future.’”

“Nothing can happen to us that is not in accordance with nature.”

“The more a man deprives himself, or submits to be deprived, of such things and their like, the more he grows in goodness.”

“Nothing can happen to any man that nature has not fitted him to endure.”

“The mind can circumvent all obstacles to action, and turn them to the furtherance of its main purpose, so that any impediment to its work becomes instead an auxiliary, and the barriers in its path become aids to progress.”

“Press on steadily, keep to the straight road in your thinking and doing, and your days will ever flow on smoothly.”

“To refrain from imitation is the best revenge.”

“If anyone can show me, and prove to me, that I am wrong in thought or deed, I will gladly change. I seek the truth, which never yet hurt anybody. It is only persistence in self delusion and ignorance which does harm.”

“The man of ambition thinks to find his good in the operations of others; the man of pleasure in his own sensations; but the man of understanding in his own actions.”

“Accustom yourself to give careful attention to what others are saying, and try your best to enter into the mind of the speaker.”

“ We shrink from change; yet is there anything that can come into being without it? Could you have a hot bath unless the firewood underwent some change? Could you be nourished if the food suffered no change? Is it possible for any useful thing to be achieved without change? Do you not see, then, that changing yourself is of the same order, and no less necessary to nature?”

“Withdrawl into yourself. Our master reason asks no more than to act justly, and thereby to achieve calm.”

“Anger is as much a mark of weakness as is grief; and both of them men receive a wound, and submit to a defeat.”

“Do away with all fancy’s. Cease to be passions puppet. Limit time to the present. Learn to recognize every experience for what it is, whether it be your own or another’s. Divide and classify the objects of sense into cause and matter. Meditate upon your last hour. Leave your neighbors wrongdoing to rest with him who initiated it.”

“Put on the shining face of simplicity and self respect, and of indifference to everything outside the realms of virtue or vice.”

“Reflect how speedily in this life the things of today are buried under those up tomorrow, and even as one layer of drifting sand is quickly covered by the next.”

“No man can escape his destiny.”

“Take it that you have died today, and your life’s story ended; and henceforward regard what further time may be given you as an uncovenanted surplus, and live it out in harmony with nature.”

“In every action let your own self approval be the sole aim both of your effort end of your intention; bearing in mind that the event itself which prompted your action is a thing of no consequence to either of them.”

“Dig within. There lies the wellspring of good: ever dig, and it will ever flow.”

“Universal natures impulse was to create an orderly world. It follows, then, that everything now happening must follow a logical sequence. Remembrance of this will help you to face many things more calmly”

“Once all this is seen in its true light, you should banish any thoughts of how you may appear to others, and rest content if you can make the remainder of your life what nature would have it to be. Learn to understand her will, and let nothing else distract you.”

“Nothing can be good for a man unless it helps to make him just, self disciplined, courageous, and independent; and nothing bad unless it has the contrary effect.”

“Every nature finds it satisfaction in the smooth pursuance of its own road”

“Rise above pleasures and pains; you can be superior to the lure of popularity; you can keep your temper with the foolish and ungrateful, yes, and even care for them”

“Pleasure is neither good nor helpful.”

“Nothing is worth doing pointlessly.”

“If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself but to your own estimate of it.”

“Be your own master every hour of the day.”

“As you’re breathing partakes of the circumfluent air, so let your thinking partake of the circumfluent mind.”

Men exist for each other. Then either improve them, or put up with them.”

“Erase fancy; curb impulse; quench desire; let sovereign reason have the mastery.”

“All things that share the same element tend to seek their own kind.”

“A rational and social being is not affected in himself for either better or worse by his feelings but by his will.”

“Many of the anxieties that harassed you are superflous; being but creatures of your own fancy.”

“Loss is nothing else but change, and change is natures delight”

“Enough of this miserable way of life, these everlasting grumbles. Why must you agitate yourself so? Nothing unprecedented is happening; so what is it that disturbs you? Set yourself to become a simpler and better man.”

“But if you feel yourself drifting and unable to hold your course, pluck up heart and make for some quiet haven where you will be able to hold your own.”

“A man must realize that at any moment he may have to leave everything behind him and apart from the company of his fellows, he casts off the body and thenceforward dedicates himself wholly to the service of justice and his personal actions and compliance with nature.”

“No thought is wasted on what others may say or think of him; two things alone suffice him, justice In his daily doings and contentment with all fate’s apportioning’s.”

“If the road be clear to see, go forward with a goodwill and no turning back.”

“Grief, anger, and fear are all direct rejections of universal law and Nature.”

“The performance is always the same; it is only the actors who change.”

“When another’s fault offends you, turn to yourself and consider what similar shortcomings are found in you.”

“In the case of a man we may even say that he becomes better and more praiseworthy by the right uses which he makes of adversity.”

“A man is always justified in seeking his own good.”

“Our anger and annoyance are more detrimental to us than the things themselves which anger or annoy us.”

“If it is not the right thing to do, never do it; if it is not the truth, never see it. Keep your impulses in hand.”