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Only to the rational animal is it given to follow voluntarily what happens but simply to follow is a necessity imposed on all.

Marcus Aurelius

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Marcus Aurelius
Philosopher
Politician
Roman Emperor
Writer
The Eternal City
Emperor of Rome Marcus Aurelius
Caesar Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus
Emperor of Rome Marcus Aurelius Antoninus
Marcus Annius Verus
Marcus Aurelius Antoninus
Rational
Follow
Simply
Animal
Given
Happens
Voluntarily
Imposed
Necessity

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By a tranquil mind I mean nothing else than a mind well ordered.
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We ought to do good to others as simply as a horse runs, or a bee makes honey, or a vine bears grapes season after season without thinking of the grapes it has borne.
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The whole universe is change and life itself is but what you deem it - either gratefully better than or bitterly worse than something else that you alone choose.
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You have to assemble your life yourself - action by action.
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Treat with utmost respect your power of forming opinions, for this power alone guards you against making assumptions that are contrary to nature and judgments that overthrow the rule of reason.
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Think of the country mouse and of the town mouse, and of the alarm and trepidation of the town mouse.
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The sinner sins against himself the wrongdoer wrongs himself, becoming the worse by his own action.
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In the life of a man, his time is but a moment, his being an incessant flux, his sense a dim rushlight, his body a prey of worms, his soul an unquiet eddy, his fortune dark, his fame doubtful. In short, all that is body is as coursing waters, all that is of the soul as dreams and vapors.
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The controlling Intelligence understands its own nature, and what it does, and whereon it works.
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Let it judge that nothing is either bad or good which can happen equally to the bad man and the good. For that which happens equally to him who lives contrary to nature and to him who lives according to nature, is neither according to nature nor contrary to nature.
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All those [events in history] were such dramas as we see now, only with different actors.
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Suppose that men kill thee, cut thee in pieces, curse thee, what can these things do to prevent thy mind from remaining pure, wise, sober, just?
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In one way an arrow moves, in another way the mind. The mind indeed, both when it exercises caution and when it is employed about inquiry, moves straight onward not the less, and to its object.
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The happiness and unhappiness of the rational, social animal depends not on what he feels but on what he does just as his virtue and vice consist not in feeling but in doing.
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Look well into thyself there is a source of strength which will always spring up if thou wilt always look.
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For any particular thing, ask: What is it in itself? What is its nature?
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The cucumber is bitter? Then throw it out. There are brambles in the path? Then go around. That's all you need to know.
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Things that have a common quality ever quickly seek their kind.
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Look to the essence of a thing, whether it be a point of doctrine, of practice, or of interpretation.
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Do not waste what remains of your life in speculating about your neighbors, unless with a view to some mutual benefit. To wonder what so-and-so is doing and why, or what he is saying, or thinking, or scheming -- in a word, anything that distracts you from fidelity to the ruler within you -- means a loss of opportunity for some other task.
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