The ruling principle is that which rouses and turns itself, and while it makes itself such as it is and such as it wills to be, it also makes everything which happens appear to itself to be such as it wills.
Marcus Aurelius reflects on the mind's ruling principle, asserting its power to self-direct and to interpret external events according to its own will.
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The safety of life is this, to examine everything all through, what it is itself, that is its material, what the formal part; with all thy soul to do justice and to say the truth.
What remains, except to enjoy life by joining one good thing to another so as not to leave even the smallest intervals between?
And how small a part of the whole substance; and how small a part of the universal soul; and on what a small clod of the whole earth thou creepest!
There is one light of the sun, though it is interrupted by walls, mountains, and other things infinite.
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