Marcus Aurelius: “How ridiculous and what a stranger he is who is surprised at anything which happens in life.”

All these things happen to them by reason of their ignorance of what is good and evil.

But to be strong enough both to bear the one and to be sober in the other is the mark of a man who has a perfect and invincible soul, such as he showed in the illness of Maximus.

Do not then consider life a thing of any value. + For look to the immensity of time behind thee, and to the time which is before thee, another boundless space.

One is that things do not touch the soul, for they are external and remain immovable; but our perturbations come only from the opinion which is within.