Marcus Aurelius: “Whatever any one does or says, I must be good; just as if the gold, or the emerald, or the purple, were always saying…”

A man then must stand erect, not be kept erect by others.

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.

Begin the morning by saying to thyself, I shall meet with the busybody, the ungrateful, arrogant, deceitful, envious, unsocial.

In the application of thy principles thou must be like the pancratiast, not like the gladiator; for the gladiator lets fall the sword which he uses and is killed; but the other always has his hand, and needs to do nothing else than use it.